Digital Commons Network^™

Role Of Carbonaceous Materials In Polymer Matrix Composites For Friction Applications, Preston Lapping

Theses

The purpose of this research was to study the friction performance characteristics of a Copper, Antimony, and sulfide free environmentally automotive friction material using different allotropes of graphite as a replacement. Model brake friction materials were created and tested on a full scale brake dynamometer using the Society of Automotive Engineers J2430 test and Brake Effectiveness Evaluation Procedure. The dynamometer testing revealed the graphite replacement to have higher average effectiveness values when compared to the baseline friction material currently in production. The model samples generally had higher wear rates but some were comparable to the baseline and would be acceptable …

Privatization Of Air Traffic Control Services In The United States: A Comparison Of Past Government Privatization Efforts In The United States And Other Countries, Daniel Lindsey

Theses and Dissertations

The privatization of air traffic control (ATC) is one possible way to reduce the cost, increase the efficiency, and speed the innovation of ATC in the United States. However, studies from other countries in which ATC services have been privatized show mixed results in these areas and have often involved imposing some kind of fee-for-service pricing system. Furthermore, analyses of privatization efforts in other areas of government demonstrate that such efforts have been controversial and have not always resulted in lower service delivery costs. Therefore, a possible alternative would be to focus on reorganizing the FAA and consolidating services such …

Social Media Marketing For The Medical Industry: Best Practices To Avoid Legal And Ethical Issues, Jessica Padilla

Journalism

This study analyzes the best social media practices for medical industry professionals and the proper and ideal uses for social media. It analyzes the public relations functions of social media—relationship building, reputation management, and crisis communication. With the constant rise of social media as a widely-used medium for marketing comes increased potential for damage to a medical business’ reputation, loss of medical licensing, or lawsuits if practitioners do not act within the lines of legal and ethical standards. Medical offices must have an online presence to remain relevant and build and keep relationships with new and current patients. This study …

"I Wasn't Born A Boy – I Was Born A Baby": Best Practices Versus Accepted Practices In News Coverage Of The Transgender Community, Anna Hornell

Journalism

As transgender people and issues have gained prominence in American media over the past few years, more and more journalists find themselves covering a small and marginalized community that they may not have any previous experience with. Using standards set by LGBT media watchdog GLAAD, this study aimed to examine how the prevalence of problematic journalistic practices in covering the transgender community has (or has not) changed in recent years. A content analysis of 1,019 U.S. newspaper articles from 2009 and 2014 revealed some significant changes: almost all GLAAD-identified problematic practices that were studied appeared less commonly in 2014, although …

An Interview With Erika Meitner, Lucia Lotempio, Kathryn Waring

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Phytoscreening: A Comparison Of In Planta Portable Gc-Ms And In Vitro Analyses, Matt A. Limmer, Gregory D. Martin, Christopher J. Watson, Camilo Martinez, Joel Gerard Burken

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Phytoscreening Has Been Proven to Rapidly Delineate Subsurface Contaminant Plumes for Semiquantitative Site Assessment, with Minimal Impact to Property or Ecology through the Collection and Analysis of Tree Cores. Here, Three Phytoscreening Methods Were Applied Concurrently to Identify Multiple Chlorinated Volatile Organic Compounds (CVOCs) in a Phytoremediation Treatment System at a Contaminated Industrial Facility. Tree Coring, in Planta Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), and in Planta Passive Sampling Showed General Agreement, with the in Planta GC-MS Providing the Quickest But Least Quantitative Results. the Portable GC-MS Sampling and Analysis Method Identified Six CVOCs in the Xylem of Hybrid Poplars (Populus Sp.) …

Development Of An Exteroceptive Sensor Suite On Unmanned Surface Vessels For Real-Time Classification Of Navigational Markers, Christopher Lloyd Kennedy

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis presents the development of an exteroceptive sensor suite for real-time detection and classification of navigational markers on Unmanned Surface Vessels. Three sensors were used to complete this task: a 3D LIDAR and two visible light cameras. First, all LIDAR points were transformed from the sensor’s reference frame to the local frame using a Kalman filter to estimate instantaneous vehicle pose. Next, objects were chosen from the LIDAR data to be classified using either Multivariate Gaussian or Parzen Window Classifiers. Both produce 96% accuracy or better, however, multivariate Gaussian ran considerably faster than the Parzen and was simpler to …

Design And Dynamic Analysis Of A Variable-Sweep, Variable-Span Morphing Uav, Nirmit Prabhakar

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Morphing wings have the potential to optimize UAV performance for a variety of flight conditions and maneuvers. The ability to vary both the wing sweep and span can enable maximum performance for a diverse range of flight regimes. For example, low-speed missions can be optimized using a wing with high aspect ratio and no wing sweep whereas high-speed missions are optimized with low aspect ratio wings and large wing sweep. Different static morphing wing configurations clearly result in varying aerodynamics and, as a result, varying dynamic modes. Another important consideration, however, is the transient dynamics that occur when transitioning between …

Characterization Of Electron Number Density Of Rocket Exhaust Plumes Through Microwave Transmissions, Jorge Torres

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Charged rocket plumes generally exceed the length of their source vehicles, and offer lightning a favorable path to ground. Rocket plumes enhance the induced transient currents in flight electronics, and increase the risk of vehicle failure. The affinity of lightning to the plume can be associated with the plume's electrical properties, which are coupled to plasma characteristics including the electron number density. However, the electron number density of rocket plumes is not well-known. In this study, the electron number density is characterized through data from static rocket firings. A model of the plume in finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations …

Human Behavior During Spaceflight: Evidence From An Analog Environment, Kenny Mikael Arnaldi

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Spaceflight offers a multitude of stressors to humans living and working in space, originating from the external space environment and the life-support system. Future space participants may be ordinary people with different medical and psychosocial backgrounds who may not receive the intense spaceflight preparation of astronauts. Consequently, during a mission, a space participant’s mood and behavior could differ from a trained astronaut. This study was an exploratory research project that used an artificial habitat to replicate an orbital environment and the activities performed by humans in space. The study evaluated whether the type of environment affects mood and temperament. Two …

Development, Analysis, And Comparison Of Electromechanical Properties And Electrode Morphology Of Ionic Polymer Metal Composites, Balaji Sivasubramanian

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

With smart materials and adaptive structures being nudged into mainstream technology progressively, the smart composites are donning a predominant role as indispensable structures. Among these, the Ionic Polymer Metal Composites (IPMC), with their large bending deformation and relaxation characteristics at very low voltages are attractive as transducers in many areas of application. The actuation and sensing properties of IPMC have been sought after for various engineering functions. The paper focuses on manufacturing various types of IPMC. Combining the ionic polymer with platinum electrodes, gold sputter coated electrodes and multi-walled carbon nanotube Bucky paper electrodes to create enhanced IPMCs, comparative analysis …

Stability Design Criteria For Distribution Systems With Solid-State Transformers, Darshit G. Shah, M. L. Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Due to recent advancements in semiconductor technology, power-electronic converters for high-voltage, high-power, and high-frequency applications will soon be commercially available. The theoretical concept of a distribution solid-state transformer (SST) is not recent, but with the use of advanced electronic switches and control strategies, the SST may soon become a practical reality. In this paper, conventional single-phase distribution transformers are replaced by solid-state transformers in a distribution test system to investigate their interactive dynamics. Under certain circumstances, instabilities due to harmonic resonance are observed. A design criterion for a solid-state transformer during no-load conditions has been proposed in order to avoid …

Nowhere: A Kinetic Typography Motion Graphic About The Pursuit Of Happiness, I-Cheng Lee

Theses

nowhere is a motion graphic project that expresses my personal journey of pursuing happiness. To be happy or not happy, people have the choices of their own lives and thoughts. This project shows that positive thinking could lead to better lives through my example.

A short poetic script on how I realized happiness in my life will be expressed in this project through visuals and composition. Every stylized sentence has a particular connection with the inspiring visuals and transitions. The intent of the piece is to install the viewer with the power of positive thinking by reading the poem with …

Mookkoori, Myungsuk Kim

Theses

Mookkoori is a 20-minute narrative film written and directed by Myungsuk Kim. The film was completed and shown in May 2014 at the RIT School of Film and Animation's Spring Screenings. The film's main character is Bora, who is the teenage daughter of a shaman in Korea. She is betrayed by Sunhee, her only friend in high school and she is being bullied and threatened by a gang. Bora's mother, who reveals herself to be quack shaman, blames Bora for getting involved in fighting. Fearing for her future, Bora reads her fortune at a shrine and sees three different ways …

Against The Grain : The Challenges Of Black Discourse Within Intercollegiate Policy Debate., Tiffany Yvonne Dillard-Knox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research uses the speech community model of analysis to illustrate how language is used to determine inclusion into and exclusion from Debate. This has been done by examining the use of four Black discourse types in Intercollegiate Policy Debate: signifying, call and response, tonal semantics, and narrative sequencing to show the ways in which current debate practices (un)intentionally exclude Blacks. Upon examination, one can see that there is educational value to the methods used by majority of the Black student population within Debate. In addition to being a tool of empowerment for this student population, these students can also …

Color Managing For Papers Containing Optical Brightening Agents, R. Scott Millward

Theses

The role of a color-managed inkjet proof is to predict and simulate the visual appearance of printed color. The proof-to-print visual match works well under different viewing conditions when the input ICC profile and the output ICC profile, built from characterization datasets, do not contain optical brightening agents (OBA).

OBAs influence printed color when measured for characterization and viewed. These brightening agents absorb UV wavelengths in the illuminant and fluoresce in the blue wavelengths. As more and more OBAs are used in printing paper production, the role of color proofing becomes more difficult. The difference in the amount of the …

A Flower In The Box, Xin Yin

Theses

A Flower In The Box is an animated graduate thesis film with a total timescale of 7 minutes and 13 seconds.

This is a film about my grandma and me. When I was young, I spent a lot of time with my grandma. She was a very important person to me in my life. She loved me very much and did many things for me. For example, she used to tell me a lot of stories before going to bed when I was very young. I still remember them today. They brought me a lot of imagination and inspiration. My …

The Dupe, Jiaqing Qiang

Theses

The story happens in the near future. Astronaut Patrick U7's mission is to find members of a space team who have been lost for two months on a Planet M-6 expedition. He travels alone in a spacecraft headed for Planet M-6. Patrick U7 will confront his own fears and mortality when he discovers the truth about the space team's fate and his real mission, which is linked to the deaths of the space team members.

I want to use science fiction as a mechanism for conveying a truth about the darker side human nature. Even though the main character is …

A Transformation-Based Foundation For Semantics-Directed Code Generation, Arthur Nunes-Harwitt

Theses

Interpreters and compilers are two different ways of implementing

programming languages. An interpreter directly executes its program

input. It is a concise definition of the semantics of a programming

language and is easily implemented. A compiler translates its program

input into another language. It is more difficult to construct, but

the code that it generates runs faster than interpreted code.

In this dissertation, we propose a transformation-based foundation for

deriving compilers from semantic specifications in the form of four

rules. These rules give apriori advice for staging, and allow

explicit compiler derivation that would be less succinct with partial

evaluation. …

X, Xiaoyu Liu

Theses

"X" is an animated graduate thesis film. The entire animation including credits was 5 minutes 36 seconds long by the time of my thesis screening at SOFA, RIT. The story was initially developed to express the emotional side of robots (or intelligent machines) and finally was changed with a new idea to put the emotional elements into the robot program itself. The story takes place in a robot factory and the main character is a newly produced robot named "X-100". X-100, as the 100th robot product, is facing a crucial test determining his eligibility for being a qualified product. All …

Proof-To-Print Match: Effectiveness Of Substrate-Corrected Colorimetric Aims In Soft Proofing, Peng Cheng

Theses

Soft proofing is an effective solution for clients and printers that decreases production cost and cycle time. However, print buyers are increasingly specifying brighter papers, which contain optical brightening agents (OBAs). One potential concern facing adopters of soft proofing systems is that they fail to consider the influence of OBA when rendering color images. Proofing systems are largely based on existing published specifications and their ICC profiles. These specifications and ICC profiles -- such as SWOP 3 and GRACoL 2006-- do not account for the influence of OBA-loaded printing papers, and therefore could cause a mismatch between the soft proof …

Drowsy Cache Partitioning For Multithreaded Systems And High Level Caches, Samantha Rose Kenyon

Theses

Power consumption is becoming an increasingly important component of processor design. As technology shrinks both static and dynamic power become more relevant. This is particularly important for the cache hierarchy. The cache portion of a microprocessor contains a large percentage of the total number of transistors in the microprocessor. Therefore the cache consumes a large percentage of both static and dynamic power. When improving power consumption in the past, there has always been a large trade-off between energy savings and performance.

Techniques that reduce power consumption typically have a negative impact on performance. Likewise, when performance is improved it is …

The Homeless Bird: A Motion Graphics Narrative About Deforestation And Animals., Kyle Griffin

Theses

The Homeless Bird is a short animated story expressing the loss of homes for wildlife due to the destruction of habitats such as deforestation. With the loss of natural habitats each year, many animals have to migrate to areas that are unfit to provide for them. The main goal is to draw attention to this problem and to help encourage the audience to act.

The project concerns the combination of practicing motion graphics design theories and experimenting with available computer graphics integration technologies. The final piece is a 2:55 minute visual story that combines both a fantasy and realistic setting.

Forword: A Study On An Interactive Learning Environment In Foreign Language, Christina A. Curtis

Theses

With constant advances in technology, the world becomes a smaller community each day. In line with its reputation as a cultural melting pot, children of immigrants are the fastest growing student population in the United States today. It's clear that the U.S. needs a strong approach in language education; one that can keep pace with our potential and our lives. Technology can be used to foster student collaboration and shared learning experiences, thereby increasing learner interest, motivation and learning outcomes. ForWord aims to use interaction design in foreign language education to meet this need. ForWord has four main goals: provide …

Gesture Recognition Using Hidden Markov Models Augmented With Active Difference Signatures, Himanshu Kumar

Theses

With the recent invention of depth sensors, human gesture recognition has gained significant interest in the fields of computer vision and human computer interaction. Robust gesture recognition is a difficult problem because of the spatiotemporal variations in gesture formation, subject size, subject location, image fidelity, and subject occlusion. Gesture boundary detection, or the automatic detection of the onset and offset of a gesture in a sequence of gestures, is critical toward achieving robust gesture recognition. Existing gesture recognition methods perform the task of gesture segmentation either using resting frames in a gesture sequence or by using additional information such as …

A Computer Network Model For The Evaluation Of Moving Target Network Defense Mechanisms, Benjamin Fredrick Wheeler

Theses

In order to combat the increasing complexity of cyber attacks, a new category of cyber defense called dynamic cyber defense has been the focus of a significant amount of work. Dynamic cyber defense mechanisms aim to protect networks by modifying their attributes in order to confuse would-be attackers. Currently, the majority of the existing mechanisms are purely theoretical and have been the subject of minimal performance analysis. There has also been almost no effort to perform comparative analysis of different techniques. As a result, there is a great need for a method of modeling different mechanisms within a single system …

Using Motion For Educational Information Design Max’S Story: Teenagers With Type1 Diabetes, Wenyu Ouyang

Theses

Today, some younger people are suffering from chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, leukemia, and depressive disorder, which are some of the most significant concerns in the world. In spite of advancements made by modern science and technology, some chronic illnesses still last a lifetime, such as Type 1 Diabetes, known as T1D. In this situation, positive attitudes and correct understanding of the disease is extremely important in educating children how to manage their condition.

There are some excellent educational materials with a large quantity of text, which are good for parents to read. At the same time, there are picture …

The Effect Of Optical Brightening Agent (Oba) In Paper And Illumination Intensity On Perceptibility Of Printed Colors, Changlong Yu

Theses

Widely utilized sanctioned color aims for commercial printing are based on paper substrates without optical brightening agents, also known as OBAs. However, in today's market, more and more paper is manufactured with OBAs. This could be problematic for commercial printers as OBAs influence not only paper conformity, but also the accuracy printed colors. This can lead to color mismatch between proofs and the final prints. Recognizing this condition, the objectives of this research were two-fold: first, to verify the perceived color difference between prints due to the presence of OBAs, and second, to study the perceptibility of color differences caused …

Preserving Han-Ok: Reimaging The Korean Traditional House For Today Using 3d Design, Haiden Park

Theses

The purpose of this thesis project was to preserve the traditional elements of Han-Ok in the modern architecture in Korea. I have integrated traditional Korean design elements into modern architecture. I also solved the problems that the Han-Ok currently faces. This topic is important because a lot of the traditional culture has been disappearing within the current Korean society. Of all the aspects of Korean traditional culture, the Han-Ok, the Korean traditional house itself, is very important. A lot of Korea's culture is represented in the Han-Ok, but people think this type of architecture is unnecessary and uncomfortable, and because …

Dynamics Of A Kinetic Energy Storage Device For A Translating Hydrokinetic System, Matthew Robert Douglas

Theses

Current hydropower is sourced predominately from dams, which have several ecological and societal issues. Despite growing demand for energy, dam construction has recently been at a standstill. Hydrokinetic systems are new methods of harvesting renewable energy from rivers without requiring dams. Hydrokites, a subset of hydrokinetic systems, use a translating hydrofoil to generate electricity. Previous models of hydrokite systems have been promising, but their performance in experimental settings has not been as expected. One possible cause for this discrepancy is a loss in system energy when the hydrofoil reaches the end of its stroke, resulting in significantly less power generation. …