Digital Commons Network^™

Changes In Acoustic And Kinematic Articulatory Working Space Across Three Intensity Levels, Panika Ellis Palmer

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare changes in acoustic and kinematic measures of articulation across soft, comfortable, and loud speech conditions. There were 19 participants, 9 male and 10 female, with age ranging from 20 to 34 with a median age of 25. Each participant had electromagnetic sensors glued to their tongue, jaw, and lips. It was anticipated that the acoustic measures would accurately reflect the kinematic measures of speech as articulation changed across the intensity levels. Vowel space area (VSA) and vowel articulation index (VAI) were computed from the three corner vowels, /α, i, u/. Articulatory-acoustic vowel …

“I Take--No Less Than Skies”: Emily Dickinson And Nineteenth-Century Meteorology, Kjerstin Evans Ballard

Theses and Dissertations

Emily Dickinson's poetry functions where scientific attention to the physical world and abstract theorizing about the ineffable intersect. Critics who emphasize the poet's dedication to the scientific often take for granted how deeply the uncertainty that underlies all of Dickinson's poetry opposes scientific discussion of the day. Meteorology is an exceptional nineteenth-century science because it takes as its subject complex systems which are inexplicable in Newtonian terms. As such, meteorology can articulate the ways that Dickinson bridges the divide between the unknown and the known, particularly as she relates to the interplay of nature and culture, the role of careful …

Hand-Portable Capillary Liquid Chromatography Instrumentation, Sonika Sharma

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the development of hand-portable capillary liquid chromatography (LC) instrumentation. In this work, battery-operable nano-flow pumping systems (isocratic and gradient) were developed and integrated with portable UV-absorption detectors for capillary LC. The systems were reduced in size to acceptable weights and power usage for field operation. A major advantage of the pumps is that they do not employ a splitter, since they were specifically designed for capillary column use, thereby greatly reducing solvent consumption and waste generation. UV-absorption detectors were specifically designed and optimized for on-column detection to minimize extra-column band broadening. Initially, an isocratic nano-flow pumping …

High Flow Air Sampler For Rapid Analysis Of Volatile And Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds, Xiaofeng Xie

Theses and Dissertations

Volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds are ubiquitous, and some of them are hazardous. The ability to rapidly detect and identify trace levels of them in air has become increasingly important. The conventional device used today for sampling and concentrating them in air is thermal desorption tubes filled with specific sorbents, which can only collect air samples at flow rates of 100-200 mL/min. In order to detect low concentration (ppt level) VOC compounds, long sampling time (>2 h) and sensitive detection are required. At the same time, portable instrumentation for on-site analysis has been developing rapidly. The somewhat lower performance …

A Performer's Guide To Dean Gronemeier's Nature Alley, Lonny James Benoit

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document is a resource designed to aid performers in preparation of Dean Gronemeier’s Nature Alley, an advanced four-mallet solo for marimba. A biographical sketch of Dean Gronemeier, general overview of the composition, and the seven main themes of Nature Alley are presented within this document. Specific attention will be given to the musical and technical considerations associated with each of the seven themes.

Generalized Catalan Numbers And Some Divisibility Properties, Jacob Bobrowski

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

I investigate the divisibility properties of generalized Catalan numbers by ex-

tending known results for ordinary Catalan numbers to their general case. First, I define the general Catalan numbers and provide a new derivation of a known formula. Second, I show several combinatorial representations of generalized Catalan numbers and survey bijections across these representation. Third, I extend several divisibility results proved by Koshy. Finally, I prove conditions under which sufficiently large primes form blocks of divisibility and indivisibility of the generalized Catalan numbers, extending a known result by Alter and Kubota.

Fast Transient Digitizer And Pcb Interface, Kevin Thomas Buck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis outlines the design, layout and characterization of an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and a printed circuit board (PCB) designed to discretize an input signal and read out the data at a user desired interval to replicate the input signal at a lower frequency or pulse rate with no quantization error. The ASIC for this task utilizes 128 individual capacitive storage cells to capture data at approximately 200 ps intervals, thus the chip can capture approximately 25 ns of an input signal. The read out rate can be adjusted to the desired rate by the user by changing …

Glass Shards At Pinnacle Point Rock Shelter 5-~6, South Africa: Are They From The Last Super-~Eruption Of Toba?, Amber Elizabeth Ciravolo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cryptotephra, in the form of individual glass shards, have been discovered in paleoarchaeological site PP5-6 North at Pinnacle Point, Western Cape, South Africa. This marks the first documentation of cryptotephra in a South African paleoarchaeological site. PP5-6 North is a rock shelter in the cliffs along the coast of the Western Cape and is one of a series of caves and rock shelters at Pinnacle Point that were inhabited by early modern humans. The presence of cryptotephra at PP5-6 is an important discovery in terms of tephra preservation in cave deposits as well as the possibility of tephra being present …

Fall Detection By Using Video, Robert J. Gripentog

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cameras have become common in our society and as a result there is more video available today than ever before. While the video can be used for entertainment or possibly as storage it can also be used as a sensor capturing crucial information, The information captured can be put to all types of uses, but one particular use is to identify a fall. The importance of identifying a fall can be seen especially in the older population that is affected by falls every year. The falls experienced by the elderly are devastating as they can cause apprehension to normal life …

Identifying Student Behavior For Improving Online Course Performance With Machine Learning, Makoto Mori

Theses and Dissertations

In this study we investigate the correlation between student behavior and performance in online courses. Based on the web logs and syllabus of a course, we extract features that characterize student behavior. Using machine learning algorithms, we build models to predict performance at end of the period. Furthermore, we identify important behavior and behavior combinations in the models. The result of prediction in three tasks reach 87% accurate on average without using any score related features in the first half of the semester.

Using A Personalized Machine Learning Approach To Detect Stolen Phones, Huizhong Hu

Theses and Dissertations

With the increasing number of smartphone penetration, mining smartphone data that make smartphone smarter became a top research area, there are a lot of event data which we can use to predict behavior or detect anomalies. The privacy disclosure caused by stolen or lost phones becomes an increasingly difficult problem that cannot be ignored. So we design an anomaly detection system by mining patterns to detect stolen phones. We use a pattern mining algorithm to abstract patterns from user past behavior, then construct a personalized model and use a scoring function and threshold setting strategy to detect stolen events. Moreover, …

Effectively Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives: A Case Study, Razaz Banoun

Theses and Dissertations

The execution of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy requires that companies maintain clarity in communication of their objectives to the public. The core reason for doing this is so that the companies are not misconstrued on the basis of their intentions. Commonly, people have tended to raise suspicions based on the sudden goodwill of corporations performing well in terms of their profit ratings, given that they are perceived as having a hidden agenda in relation to their active engagements in CSR. This case study has sought to highlight the various ways that are applied by Samsung Inc. to communicate …

Pick Interpolation For Free Holomorphic Functions, Jim Agler, John E. Mccarthy

Mathematics Faculty Research

We give necessary and sufficient conditions to solve an interpolation problem for free holomorphic functions bounded in norm on a free polynomial polyhedron. As an application, we prove that every bounded holomorphic function on a polynomial polyhedron extends to a bounded free function.

Integrability And Regularity Of Rational Functions, Greg Knese

Mathematics Faculty Research

Motivated by recent work in the mathematics and engineering literature, we study integrability and non-tangential regularity on the two-torus for rational functions that are holomorphic on the bidisk. One way to study such rational functions is to fix the denominator and look at the ideal of polynomials in the numerator such that the rational function is square integrable. A concrete list of generators is given for this ideal as well as a precise count of the dimension of the subspace of numerators with a specified bound on bidegree. The dimension count is accomplished by constructing a natural pair of commuting …

Blade Resolved Simulation Of Wind Farms, Walied E. Hassan

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research examines the feasibility of reducing the time to solution for a high-fidelity, blade-resolved CFD simulation of a wind farm using Tenasi. The intent is to reduce the overall cost by initializing the flow fields of the individual turbines in the wind farm using a steady state or an unsteady simulation of a single turbine. This is achieved by replicating the mesh and the solution corresponding to a single turbine repeatedly, thus initializing the solution for the entire wind farm. The wind farm consists of the DTU 10 MW Reference Wind Turbines. Results compared to the “from scratch” solutions …

How Is Academic Motivation In Children Influenced By Emotional Regulation?, Rosanna Pengelly

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Children’s academic achievement is influenced by motivation. Motivation, in turn, is affected by emotional regulation and children’s reactions to poor or high achievement. This study investigated academic motivation to gain an understanding of the attributions (effort, ability, difficulty and luck) made by children on their achievements in a maths test among 25 SEN children (i.e., children with emotional, behavioural and social difficulties) and 44 mainstream children. SEN children made more attributions to effort whereas mainstream children made more attributions to ability. Emotional regulation was measured using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Emotional reappraisal (i.e., reinterpreting the meaning of emotional stimuli) …

Exposure To Predator Kairomones Influences Egg Number And Size In Littorina Littorea, Jessica Raynor, Simon Rundle

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Predator kairomones play an important role in intertidal ecosystems, but knowledge on their potential role in influencing maternal effects is lacking. The aim of this study was to test whether egg production by female Littorina littorea was influenced by short-term exposure to predator kairomones before egg laying. Laboratory populations were exposed to predator cues from the intertidal crab Carcinus maenas for nine days, and egg number, egg size, and survivorship of the offspring were measured and compared with those from reference populations. Snails exposed to predator cues produced significantly more eggs, which were also significantly smaller than those produced from …

Plymouth Undergraduate Research In Mathematics, Tom Heinzl, Tom Mccourt

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Guest editorial from lectures in Physics and Pure Mathematics.

Energy Harvesting In A Diver's Rebreather System, Joseph Ely

The Plymouth Student Scientist

This report investigates the feasibility of energy harvesting using thermoelectric generators in a diver’s rebreather system. The report details research into documented experiments and theory, design and manufacture of an energy harvesting prototype and testing of the prototype to determine its feasibility. The prototype produced a maximum power of 2.5 (mW) which is more than the minimum 50 microwatts of power specified by Avon. It was therefore concluded that energy harvesting within a divers rebreather system is feasibility.

A Palaeoclimatic Reconstruction Of The Cadair Idris Area Of Snowdonia, Using Geomorphological Evidence From Younger Dryas Cirque Glaciers, Bethany Radbourne

The Plymouth Student Scientist

The importance of glacier reconstruction lies in the empirical relationship between glacier mass balance and climate. Small glaciers are particularly sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation, thus the reconstruction of small palaeoglaciers can provide an understanding of past climatic changes in an area. This study conducts glacier and palaeoclimatic reconstructions for four potential palaeoglaciers at Cadair Idris, southern Snowdonia. Three of these are assigned a Younger Dryas age by referring to published literature, and the fourth is assumed to have existed during an earlier glaciation, possibly reflecting deglaciation from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Schmidt Hammer relative age dating …

Direct Adaptive Control For Stability And Command Augmentation System Of An Air-Breathing Hypersonic Vehicle, Ron Aditya

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In this paper we explore a Direct Adaptive Control scheme for stabilizing a non-linear, physics based model of the longitudinal dynamics for an air breathing hypersonic vehicle. The model, derived from first principles, captures the complex interactions between the propulsion system, aerodynamics, and structural dynamics. The linearized aircraft dynamics show unstable and non-minimum phase behavior. It also shows a strong short period coupling with the fuselage-bending mode. The value added by direct adaptive control and the theoretical requirements for stable convergent operation is displayed. One of the main benefits of the Directive Adaptive Control is that it can be implemented …

Bimetallic-Waveguide Coupled Sensors For Tunable Plasmonic Devices, Kunal K. Tiwari

Physics Dissertations - Archive

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has been a widely used optical technique for the real time and label free sensing applications in biomedicine, homeland security, food safety, environmental monitoring, etc. Surface plasmons (SPs) being extremely sensitive to the surrounding media, their characteristics can be modulated by tuning their dielectric environment. The unique property of the nematic liquid crystalline materials that their dielectric constant can be tuned by externally applied electric fields formed the basis for development of tunable plasmonic sensor for monitoring changes at metal/dielectric interfaces. Even though sensors with high sensitivity are available, it remains highly desirable to enhance sensor …

Validation Of The Global Distribution Of Co2 Volume Mixing Ratio In The Mesosphere And Lower Thermosphere From Saber, L. Rezac, Y. Jian, J. Yue, J. M. Russell Iii, A. Kutepov, R. Garcia, K. Walker, P. Bernath

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument on board the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics satellite has been measuring the limb radiance in 10 broadband infrared channels over the altitude range from ~ 400 km to the Earth's surface since 2002. The kinetic temperatures and CO₂ volume mixing ratios (VMRs) in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere have been simultaneously retrieved using SABER limb radiances at 15 and 4.3 μm under nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) conditions. This paper presents results of a validation study of the SABER CO₂ VMRs obtained with a two-channel, self-consistent …

Data In Support Of Ubsrd: The Ubiquitin Structural Relational Database, Joseph S. Harrison, Tim M. Jacobs, Kevin Houlihan, Koenraad Van Doorslaer, Brian Kuhlman

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

This article provides information to support the database article titled "UbSRD: The Ubiquitin Structural Relational Database" (Harrison et al., 2015) [1] . The ubiquitin-like homology fold (UBL) represents a large family that encompasses both post-translational modifications, like ubiquitin (UBQ) and SUMO, and functional domains on many biologically important proteins like Parkin, UHRF1 (ubiquitin-like with PDB and RING finger domains-1), and Usp7 (ubiquitin-specific protease-7) (Zhang et al., 2015; Rothbart et al., 2013; Burroughs et al., 2012; Wauer et al., 2015) [2], [3], [4], [5]. The UBL domain can participate in several unique protein-protein interactions (PPI) since protein adducts can be attached …

Facile Sol-Gel Molten Salt Synthesis Of Double Perovskite La 2nimno6 As An Electrocatalyst For Oxygen Evolution Reactions, Padmini Kukkapalli

Theses and Dissertations

Double perovskites have attracted a great attention recently for its high intrinsic activity in oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in electrochemical energy storage and conversion systems in alkaline media. In this study, we are the first to report the new approach of La2NiMnO6 double perovskite which was synthesized via Sol-gel molten-Salt synthesis method. However their stability and specific activity remain challenging that need to be addressed to meet the reqiurement for OER activities. Here in this study we synthesized three different samples with varying concentrations by taking molten salts NaNO 3 and KNO3 in (1:1) ratio such as 30:30, 60:60, 90:90. …

Assessing The Physical Security Of Idfs With Psatool: A Case Study, Sulabh Bista

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

PSATool is a checklist-based, web-based application for assessing the physical security of Intermediate Distribution Frameworks. IDFs, or wiring closets, are an integral if often neglected component of information security. Earlier work by Timbs (2013) identified 52 IDF-related security requirements based on federal and international standards for physical security. PSATool refines Timbs’ prototype application for IDF assessment, extending it with support for mobile-device-based data entry.

PSATool was used to assess 25 IDFs at a regional university, a college and a manufacturing corporation, with an average of 9 minutes per assessment. Network managers and assessors involved in the assessments characterized PSATool as …

Modifying A Cow-Calf Biophysical Simulation Model For Analyses Of Alternative Enterprises, Jennifer L. Lutes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cow-calf producers in the United States, tasked with providing beef calves for the beef industry, have had a multitude of difficulties to overcome in recent years. Producers in northwest Arkansas were negatively impacted by high hay prices coupled with low beef cattle market prices due to severe drought experienced in portions of 2010, 2011, and 2012. During this time they also faced high grain prices, due to a record low harvest, combined with portions of the corn harvest diverted from human and animal feed to ethanol production. Tight lending policies of this time, reminiscent of the housing market crash in …

A Partnership Between A Midwest Community College And The Highly Regulated Power Production Industry: A Case Study Regarding The Development Of An Energy Production Technology Program, Kenneth W. Flowers

Dissertations

With nearly every industry predicting severe employee shortages, the available worker pipeline, including the employed, may need to upgrade their skills. In addition, the number of jobs available will soon exceed the number of available workers, even if all the workers were skilled. This study investigated the perceptions held by key individuals within the energy industry regarding an Energy Production Technology degree program developed at one Midwest community college to help address worker pipeline issues in the energy industry.

This study discovered a void within present literature discussing the interaction between community colleges and the nuclear energy industry concerning the …

Applications Of Incomplete Gamma Functions To The Incomplete Normal Distribution, Eric S. Watson

Physics & Astronomy Faculty publications

This paper gives a derivation of a relationship that can be used to estimate the area under a Normal Distribution through the use of Incomplete Gamma Functions.

Advanced Data Analysis Tools And Multi-Instrument Material Characterization, Bhupinder Singh

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation focuses on (i) the development of new analysis tools and methodologies for analyzing X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) data, and (ii) the comprehensive characterization of materials (nanodiamonds) using a multi-instrument approach. Chapter 1 contains (i) a discussion of the two techniques I focused on most in my work: XPS and ToF-SIMS, (ii) a discussion of the common chemometrics techniques used to analyze data from these methods, and (iii) the advantages/rationale behind the multi-instrument characterization of materials. Chapter 2 describes various good practices for obtaining reasonable peak fits in XPS, which can also …