Digital Commons Network^™

Finite-Horizon Optimal Control Of Linear And A Class Of Nonlinear Systems, Qiming Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

"Traditionally, optimal control of dynamical systems with known system dynamics is obtained in a backward-in-time and offline manner either by using Riccati or Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. In contrast, in this dissertation, finite-horizon optimal regulation has been investigated for both linear and nonlinear systems in a forward-in-time manner when system dynamics are uncertain. Value and policy iterations are not used while the value function (or Q-function for linear systems) and control input are updated once a sampling interval consistent with standard adaptive control. First, the optimal adaptive control of linear discrete-time systems with unknown system dynamics is presented in Paper I …

Exploring Run-Time Reduction In Programming Codes Via Query Optimization And Caching, Venkata Krishna Suhas Nerella

Doctoral Dissertations

"Object oriented programming languages raised the level of abstraction by supporting the explicit first class query constructs in the programming codes. These query constructs allow programmers to express operations on collections more abstractly than relying on their realization in loops or through provided libraries. Join optimization techniques from the field of database technology support efficient realizations of such language constructs. However, the problem associated with the existing techniques such as query optimization in Java Query Language (JQL) incurs run time overhead. Besides the programming languages supporting first-class query constructs, the usage of annotations has also increased in the software engineering …

Comparison Of Randomized Multifocal Mapping And Temporal Phase Mapping Of Visual Cortex For Clinical Use, Yan Ma, B. Douglas Ward, Kristina M. Ropella, Edgar A. Deyoe

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

fMRI is becoming an important clinical tool for planning and guidance of surgery to treat brain tumors, arteriovenous malformations, and epileptic foci. For visual cortex mapping, the most popular paradigm by far is temporal phase mapping, although random multifocal stimulation paradigms have drawn increased attention due to their ability to identify complex response fields and their random properties. In this study we directly compared temporal phase and multifocal vision mapping paradigms with respect to clinically relevant factors including: time efficiency, mapping completeness, and the effects of noise. Randomized, multifocal mapping accurately decomposed the response of single voxels to multiple stimulus …

A Hands-On, Active Learning Approach To Increasing Manufacturing Knowledge In Engineering Students, Jay R. Goldberg, David B. Rank

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This paper describes a new learning module implemented as part of the senior capstone design course at Marquette University to teach engineering students about basic manufacturing processes, lean manufacturing principles, and design for manufacturability. The module includes several examples of active and student centered learning as part of an in-class assembly line simulation exercise. Students reflected on this experience, and suggested process improvements to save time, reduce cost and waste, and improve the assembly line process. They learned of the importance of manufacturing documentation, process design, and design for assembly. At the end of the module, students understood the importance …

In Vivo Dark-Field Imaging Of The Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cell Mosaic, Drew Scoles, Yusufu N. Sulai, Alfredo Dubra

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Non-invasive reflectance imaging of the human RPE cell mosaic is demonstrated using a modified confocal adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope (AOSLO). The confocal circular aperture in front of the imaging detector was replaced with a combination of a circular aperture 4 to 16 Airy disks in diameter and an opaque filament, 1 or 3 Airy disks thick. This arrangement reveals the RPE cell mosaic by dramatically attenuating the light backscattered by the photoreceptors. The RPE cell mosaic was visualized in all 7 recruited subjects at multiple retinal locations with varying degrees of contrast and cross-talk from the photoreceptors. Various experimental …

Experimental Study Of Optimal Energy Weighting In Energy-Resolved Ct Using A Czt Detector, Franco Rupcich, Taly Gilat-Schmidt

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Recent advances in energy-resolved CT can potentially improve contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), which could subsequently reduce dose in conventional and dedicated breast CT. Two methods have been proposed for optimal energy weighting: weighting the energy-bin data prior to log normalization (projection-based weighting) and weighting the energy-bin data after log normalization (image-based weighting). Previous studies suggested that optimal projection-based and image-based energy weighting provide similar CNR improvements for energy-resolved CT compared to photon-counting or conventional energy-integrating CT. This study experimentally investigated the improvement in CNR of projection-based and image-based weighted images relative to photon-counting for six different energy-bin combinations using a bench …

In Memoriam: Edmund D. Pellegrino, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

You Have The Right To Remain Silent: Does The U.S. Constitution Require Public Affirmation Of Same-Sex Marriage?, Robert A. Destro

Scholarly Articles

The political and legal campaign for marriage equality rests on the proposition that the Constitution of the United States requires communal recognition of committed, same-sex relationships. The text, structure, and history of the amended Constitution, however, support precisely the opposite conclusion: i.e., that neither the United States nor any state may compel any community, association, or individual to affirm (by word, deed, or policy) the hotly disputed propositions about human sexuality that lie at the core of the debate. Nor can it plausibly be argued that any part of the Constitution requires any person, association, or polity to remain discreetly …

Front Matter

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

“As Palpable As This Which Now I Draw”: Getting Graphic With Macbeth, Joseph Haughey

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Reframing The Graphic Novel For In-Service Teachers: Reading, Writing, And Creating Comics, Joellen Maples

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Data Fusion Techniques For Nondestructive Evaluation And Medical Image Analysis, Soumya De

Doctoral Dissertations

"Data fusion is a technique for combining data obtained from multiple sources for an enhanced detection or decision. Fusion of data can be done at the raw-data level, feature level or decision level. Applications of data fusion include defense (such as battlefield surveillance and autonomous vehicle control), medical diagnosis and structural health monitoring. Techniques for data fusion have been drawn from areas such as statistics, image processing, pattern recognition and computational intelligence. This dissertation includes investigation and development of methods to perform data fusion for nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and medical imaging applications. The general framework for these applications includes region-of-interest …

Who Regulates The Smart Grid?: Ferc's Authority Over Demand Response Compensation In Wholesale Electricity Markets., Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that Order 745 is both justified under the Federal Power Act (FPA) and important to ensure the transition to a clean energy future. A challenge to Order 745, Electric Power Supply Association v. FERC, is currently pending in the D.C. Circuit. This Article contends that Order 745 should be upheld against this challenge because it fits within FERC's broad authority to regulate the wholesale power markets.

When The Government Attempts To Change The Board, Investors Should Know, William O. Fisher

Law Faculty Publications

In 2008 and 2009, the federal government effectively hired and fired directors at American International Group and Bank of America. At AIG, the government exercised its power through the ownership of voting stock, which meant that the company’s public securities filings revealed the government influence, though at times slowly and at times only by inference. At BofA, by contrast, the government imposed its will through an unpublished bank regulatory action, and no securities filing provided even a hint of the federal role. The fact that current law allows the government to secretly reconstitute the governing bodies of multi-billion-dollar, publicly traded …

Copyright Infringement Of Music: Determining Whether What Sounds Alike Is Alike, Margit Livingston, Joseph Urbinato

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The standard for copyright infringement is the same across different forms of expression. But musical expression poses special challenges for courts deciding infringement disputes because of its unique attributes. Tonality in Western music offers finite compositional choices that will be pleasing or satisfying to the ear. The vast storehouse of existing public domain music means that many of those choices have been exhausted. Although independent creation negates plagiarism, the inevitable similarity among musical pieces within the same genre leaves courts in a quandary as to whether defendant composers infringed earlier copyrighted works or simply found their own way to a …

Decertifying Players Unions: Lessons From The Nfl And Nba Lockouts Of 2011, Nathaniel Grow

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article analyzes the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) lockouts of 2011, focusing in particular on the role union dissolution played in each work stoppage. Although the existing academic literature had generally concluded that players unions in the four major US professional sports leagues were unlikely to disband during a labor dispute, the unions in both the NFL and NBA elected to dissolve in response to lockouts by ownership. This Article provides an explanation for why the prior literature misjudged the role that union dissolution would play during the 2011 work stoppages. It argues that previous …

The Social Network And The Crowdfund Act: Zuckerberg, Saverin, And Venture Capitalists' Dilution Of The Crowd, John S. (Jack) Wroldsen

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

By virtue of Title III of the JOBS Act, signed into law on April 5, 2012, crowdfunding could become a powerful, even revolutionary, force to finance start-up companies. It democratizes entrepreneurs' access to seed capital and converts the masses of Internet users into potential retail venture capitalists. Many have cautioned, though, that crowdfunding poses serious investment risks of start-up companies failing, committing fraud, and being mismanaged. Accordingly, the JOBS Act includes numerous disclosure obligations designed to mitigate such downside risks.

But what has been overlooked, and what this Article analyzes from a venture capitalist perspective, is that even if a …

Tax Incentives For Innovation In A Modern Ip Ecosystem, Joshua Chao

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Technological innovation is a long-recognized catalyst for economic growth in the United States, and its promotion is an important feature of national economic policy, as evidenced by the presence of various tax incentives for innovation in the US Internal Revenue Code. Tax incentives are an important means by which governments can deliver subsidies to promote such innovation. To be effective, however, any system of tax incentives must be tailored for current economic conditions and competitive landscapes. In the current ecosystem of innovation in the United States, this means that, at the very least, the incentives for innovation in the US …

The Derivative Right,Or Why Copyright Law Protects Foxes Better Than Hedgehogs, Daniel Gervais Ph.D.

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The derivative right is at the very core of copyright theory. What can and cannot be reused to create a new work impacts freedom of expression but also impacts the value of the markets for works and their various "derivatives." The derivative right includes forms of derivation and adaptation, such as making a movie from a novel or translating a book. It also covers what this Article refers to as penumbral derivatives, which the US Copyright Act captures using the phrase "based upon" with respect to preexisting works. This leads to indeterminacy about the scope of the derivative right, which …

Wipo And The American Constitution: Thoughts On A New Treaty Relating To Actors And Musicians, Hannibal Travis Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is seeking to reform U.S. copyright law. The WIPO Treaty on Audiovisual Performances (AV Treaty) would restrict the communication of actors' and musicians' performances without authorization. The treaty would probably make it illegal to display or show clips of performances, or make a movie or YouTube video by transforming or adapting other actors' or musicians' performances, particularly when the original credits and copyright information are dropped. This Article analyzes key provisions of the AV Treaty to ascertain whether they change US law, or merely globalize existing US doctrines. This Article describes the threat posed …

Guantanamo's Greatest Hits: The Semiotics Of Sound And The Protection Of Performer Rights Under The Lanham Act, John Tehranian

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

As Bruce Springsteen and Ronald Reagan, Jackson Brown and John McCain, and Tom Morello and Paul Ryan can attest, the exploitation of creative works for political or commercial purposes that run contrary to artists' ideals can stir passions and trigger lawsuits. Yet for performers who are not authors of the exploited works, there is little meaningful legal relief provided by the federal Copyright Act. Instead, such performers--from featured singers and dancers to actors and other personalities known for their distinctive traits--have leaned on alternative theories for recovery, thereby raising the specter of liability outside of copyright law for such unwelcome …

Watching The Watchers, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the threat that increasingly sophisticated technology can pose to individual privacy. However, the author would like to provide the “yin to the yang” and point out the obvious: technology itself is not the culprit, because it is a double-edged sword, a tool that can be used to protect as well as invade privacy. We need not endorse the single-minded approach of WikiLeaks to recognize the benefits that occur when technology discloses government cover-ups or simply provides accurate information where none previously existed.

From Berne To Beijing: A Critical Perspective, David Lange

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Remarking on the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances at the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law's Symposium, From Berne to Beijing, Professor Lange expressed general misgivings about exercising the Treaty Power in ways that alter the nature of US copyright law and impinge on other constitutional rights. This edited version of those Remarks explains Professor Lange's preference for legislation grounded squarely in the traditional jurisprudence of the Copyright Clause, the First Amendment, and the public domain, and his preference for contracting around established expectations rather than reworking default rules through treaties. It continues by exploring the particular costs associated …

A Meta-Analysis Of Cultural Differences In Revenge And Forgiveness, Rachelle Evelyn Lennon

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Revenge, the act of retaliating against a person or group in response to a perceived wrongdoing, appears to be a human universal. Those who research culture, revenge, and forgiveness have indicated cultural differences, but no clear patterns have emerged that could be useful in mediating conflicts. Thus, a meta-analysis was conducted of studies in which people from two different countries were compared on a measure of revenge or forgiveness. The countries represented were also coded based on Geert Hofstede's national culture dimensions, to test whether any specific cultural characteristics moderated desire for revenge. The final sample was made up of …

Women’S Intrasexual Variability In Sexual Psychology And Pain Functioning, Charlotte M. Lutz

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between sexual orientation, self-described gender expression and preferred levels of gender expression in romantic partners with ischemic pain performance in healthy young women. It was hypothesized that lesbian and bisexual women would be less sensitive to pain than heterosexual women. It was also hypothesized that regardless of sexual orientation, women who endorse a preference for more feminine romantic partners and who describe themselves as more masculine would report higher pain thresholds, higher pain tolerance, and lower pain intensity levels than women who report attraction to more masculine romantic partners and …

A Survey Of The Taxonomy Of The Cyanobacteria From Northeast Florida, Descriptions Of Novel Taxa, And An Investigation Into The Factors Which Influence The Epibenthic Cyanobacterial Community, Holly Stephanie Stocks

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cyanobacteria are important components of the aquatic system, valued for their oxygen production, nitrogen fixation, and as the base of many aquatic food webs. This study investigated several aspects of cyanobacteria such as the diversity and response to nutrient enrichments. A survey of Northeast Florida was conducted between the years of 2010 and 2012; a total of 145 taxa were identified in freshwater habitats, such as springs, lakes, rivers, and retention ponds. While surveying the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida, a novel Stigonematalean taxon was isolated and cultured. Subsequent morphological and genetic analyses indicate that this taxon is related …

Syllabification Of American English: Evidence From A Large-Scale Experiment. Part Ii, Dirk Elzinga, David Eddington, Rebecca Treiman

Faculty Publications

4990 bi-syllabic English words were syllabified by about 22 native speakers who choose between different slash divisions (e.g. photon: FOW / TAHN, FOWT / AHN). Results for test items with one medial consonant are reported in Eddington, Treiman, & Elzinga (2013). In the present paper, the regression analysis of words with two, three, and four medial consonants are discussed. A model in which syllables are made to be as word-like as possible is supported; syllables are made that begin and end in the same phonemes and graphemes that are legal word-initially and finally. Syllabifications also coincide with morphological boundaries. In …

Borges And The Basques: Notes On Reading An Invisible Literature, David Laraway

Faculty Publications

The Basques, the narrator of Jose Luis Borges’ “El congreso” [The Congress] once sniffed, are an unjustifiably proud people on the margins of history who have never been good for anything but milking cows (Obras 3:24).² To be sure, the literary heritage of the Basques had for many years been nothing to brag about: as recently as the mid‐nineteenth century, the total number of works written in Euskera barely reached a hundred. Ironically, by the time Borges published his story in 1975, a major literary renaissance in the Basque Country was well underway, one that saw Basque writers condense …

Back To The Future: Salvador Allende’S Steampunk Chile, David Laraway

Faculty Publications

The 1973 coup that deposed Salvador Allende is, in a way, everywhere in plain sight in today’s Chile. The president whose popular support among not only the middle but the working class had dwindled abymsally by August 1973, whose government was regularly excoriated by both the right (for his economic nationalization program) and the far left (for his willingness to let constitutional fealty trump the need for radical structural change) is now spoken of in reverent tones by observers from across the political spectrum. Visitors to El Palacio de La Moneda today are greeted by a monument to Allende outside …

Properties Of Flax Fiber Reinforced Composites, Ryan John Whitacre

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

In the field of renewable materials, natural fiber composites demonstrate the capacity to be a viable structural material. When normalized by density, flax fiber mechanical properties are competitive with E-glass fibers. However, the hydrophilic nature of flax fibers reduces the interfacial bond strength with polymer thermosets, limiting composite mechanical properties. Corn zein protein was selected as a natural bio-based coupling agent because of its combination of hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties. Zein was deposited on the surface of flax, which was then processed into unidirectional composite. The mechanical properties of zein treated samples where measured and compared against commonly utilized synthetic …