Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Method For Stemming Tomatoes, Henry F. Studer, R. A. Cavaletto, Gene Giacomelli

Richard Cavaletto

Method and apparatus for de-stemming picked tomatoes. Each tomato is introduced into the upper end of a generally vertically disposed, open-ended, resilient, open-mesh fabric tube, a substantial portion of which approximates but is larger than the diameter of the tomato. The stem penetrates into and through the open mesh at some point, the open areas being somewhat larger than the stem, while the tomato continues to fall, thereby exerting a bending moment on the stem that snaps the stem from the fruit. The tomato, free from its stem, is discharged from a lower end of the tube.

Spray Drift Reduction With Shrouded Boom Sprayers, Ronald J. Fehringer, Richard Cavaletto

Richard Cavaletto

Downwind drift was measured from a standard boom sprayer and a shrouded boom sprayer. Using 8002 flat fan nozzles, the hooded sprayer provided a 180 to 275% reduction in drift. The effectiveness of the shroud is dependent upon the spray droplet spectrum.

Evaluating Strength & Energy Requirements For Workers Picking Vegetables, R. A. Cavaletto, J. Miles, J. Meyers, J. Mehlschau

Richard Cavaletto

The paper discusses the need to obtain field data to evaluate the strength and energy requirements for workers picking a variety of vegetables. This information is central to the evaluation of hazards related to repetitive motion, excessive stress, and fatigue. Results can be used to select activities which should be targeted for future engineering design projects. Preliminary data from a commercial broccoli harvesting operation is included.

Guarding Of Table Saws With Light Beams: The Light Guard Concept, R. A. Cavaletto, M. S. Kaminaka, C. M. Zahner

Richard Cavaletto

This paper describes a unique type of psychological safety guard for hazardous tools such as table saws, presses. and other tools with areas and components which are dangerous to human fingers, hands, and limbs. It is not a piece of hardware but rather a shalt of light which defines a danger zone around the saw blade or cutting area.

Dual Operation Human-Machine Interface, Petr Krupansky, Jiri Vasek, Claudia Keinrath, Michael C. Dorneich, Larry Ball

Michael C. Dorneich

The paper describes a Dual Operation concept and one example of its design. The amount of information the pilot must process, already high in current Air Traffic Management (ATM) operation, will increase dramatically in the envisioned future ATM environment. New pilot functions will require new levels of automation. Thus cockpit displays must be modified in order to facilitate the pilot's future tasks and to manage the increased information available. One approach to these challenges is to adaptively modify the displays depending on current pilot tasks and situation. Simply adding functionality to current day displays has the potential to reach an …

Evaluation Of A Shared Representation To Support Collaborative, Distributed, Coalition, Multilevel Planning, Michael C. Dorneich, David Mott, Ali Bahrami, Jitu Patel, Cheryl Giammanco

Michael C. Dorneich

This paper presents the extension and evaluation of a formal representation that enables planners at different levels of command, and in different functional area, to jointly share, develop, and modify plans. Planning has moved from a co-located, concurrent, small team activity to an activity that involves a large, culturally diverse, hierarchical, globally-distributed team. However, significant benefits of distributed planning can only come if the team is able to communicate and maintain a shared understanding of the commander’s intent, objectives, resources and constraints, as well as decisions made and justifications for planning options chosen or alternatives rejected. Effective automated support must …

Analysis Of Migration Models Of Biogeography-Based Optimization Using Markov Theory, Haiping Ma, Daniel J. Simon

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is a new evolutionary algorithm inspired by biogeography, which involves the study of the migration of biological species between habitats. Previous work has shown that various migration models of BBO result in significant changes in performance. Sinusoidal migration models have been shown to provide the best performance so far. Motivated by biogeography theory and previous results, in this paper a generalized sinusoidal migration model curve is proposed. A previously derived BBO Markov model is used to analyze the effect of migration models on optimization performance, and new theoretical results which are confirmed with simulation results are obtained. …

Toward GemeinschaftsgefüHl: Exploring Subordinate And Manager Perceptions Of Trust And Perceptions Regarding Behavioral Change Potential, Bobby G. Martin

Publications

In this qualitative, phenomenological study, Maslow‘s Eupsychian theory was used as the guiding framework for exploring the perceptions of trust and the behavioral change potential of subordinates (includes frontline supervisors) and managers (excludes frontline supervisors) within selected aviation maintenance organizations in Arizona. The problem addressed in the study was the growing concern that managers willfully mistreated subordinates, which led to decreased trust, motivation, and productivity. A combined representative sample of 10 maintenance technicians and frontline supervisors was purposively selected from the production lines of a large commercial aviation repair and overhaul station located in Arizona. An additional combined representative sample …

The Fall-Out From Emerging Technologies: On Matters Of Surveillance, Social Networks And Suicide, M.G. Michael, Katina Michael

M. G. Michael

No abstract provided.

Waldo In The Light Of Austerity And Federal Debt Crisis, Part 2, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

Waldo’s predictions about the future for public administration describe five areas that would be problematic in the future: legitimacy, authority, knowledge, control, and confidence. Legitimacy includes not only that the government is legally legitimized but capable and focused on an intention to deliver the “good society.” Authority, according to Waldo, is the ability to implement policy with the acceptance of the people based on rationalism, expectations of public good, ethics, superior knowledge, and institutional contexts. Knowledge is institutional knowledge, the ability to arrange and utilize knowledge within the bureaucracy since coordination is the major challenge in knowledge management. Government has …

Waldo In The Light Of Austerity And Federal Debt Crisis, Part 1, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

Dwight Waldo wrote The Enterprise of Public Administration in 1979 looking back on a long and fruitful academic career, but also as a reflection about the future for public administration. Can a 30 year old book still be relevant? You bet. Today, the public sector is increasingly facing fiscal challenges. Federal, state, and local governments throughout the country have major budget deficits followed by austerity measures that undermine the ability to deliver the good life of the future. In this day and age rereading Dwight Waldo’s The Enterprise of Public Administration is an intellectual exercise worth pursuing. Several of Dwight …

Assessment Of Organic And Inorganic Phosphorus In Soils Derived From Cretaceous Sediments And Basement Complex Soils Of Guinea Savannah Of Kogi State, North Central Nigeria, Sunday I. Amhakhian, H H. Isitekhale, Charles I. Oyewole

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

A pot experiment was carried out using 20 surface soils (0-15cm depth) in 2008 to assess soil organic phosphorus and some fraction of inorganic phosphorus in other to know their availability in the soils of the studied area and also work have not been done in this areas in respect to organic and in-organic phosphorus. The experiment was conducted using 20 soils 10 from each geological formation (Cretaceous sediments and Basement complex soils), respectively. The mean organic phosphorus of 63.51 mgkg 1 soil was obtained for Cretaceous sediment soils and 158.54 mgkg 1 soil for the basement complex soils respectively. …

Development Of Functional Indices Of Facility Occurrence Towards The Distribution Of Social Services In Lagos Island Nigeria., Augustus O. Atubi

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

Proper coordination of transport and public facilities provision is vital to any balanced regional development strategy. The central aim of this study, therefore, is to find out what the relationship is between access to the transport network and the provision of functional indices of facility occurrence towards the distribution of social services in Lagos Island, Nigeria. In particular it seeks to find out areas that have below or above average level of facility occurrences relative to the level of accessibility. However, a pair wise correlation matrix of the eleven (11) variables employed in the index construction was carried out. The …

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program 2011, Nicholle Booker, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program

On August 9, 2011 the UNLV College of Sciences will celebrate the accomplishments of undergraduate students participating in the Summer 2011 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and the Research Experience For Undergraduates (REU) Program.

The public is invited to attend, beginning at 10:00 a.m.

Please join us to view student research posters. Student research topics include: biomedicine and human health, Nevada's fragile environment and ecosystems, climate change, stem cell research, microbiology, astrophysics, and many others.

Over 25 UNLV undergraduates and a cohort of 25 undergraduates selected from colleges and universities across the nation will mark the …

The Explosion In Mari, Cyprus, The Cost Of Power Shortages, And Policy Recommendations, Theodoros Zachariadis, Panos Pashardes, Nicoletta Pashourtidou

Theodoros Zachariadis

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Safe Routes To School Programs: Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis Of Parental Decision-Making, Lynn Weigand, Noreen Mcdonald

TREC Final Reports

In the United States, walking to school declined from 42% of 5-18 year olds in 1969 to 16% in 20011. The US Department of Transportation has responded to this dramatic decrease by funding the Safe Routes to School program for $612 million in SAFETEA-LU. The program’s funding emphasize infrastructure improvements such as completing sidewalks and adding crosswalks by requiring between 70% and 90% of funding be allocated toward infrastructure. However, recent research shows that 2 of 3 children who currently are driven to school, but live close enough to walk, do so because it is more convenient for parents. Currently, …

Traffic Safety: Modeling, Analysis And Visualization, Puneet Lakhanpal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Traffic Safety has always been one of the major issues of concern in United States. Every year, stringent efforts are made by the national agencies and safety offices to uplift the traffic safety standards and build systems which can guide them in policy making, reducing crashes and routing the financial resources in an optimal direction. This thesis studies the traffic safety from three different angles: modeling, analysis and visualization. In the beginning, these three components are explored in the domain of Injury Severity. Later on, the focus is shifted towards the Traffic Safety related to Safety Belts. Factors and models …

Stereoscopic Vision's Impact On Spatial Ability Testing, George Takahashi

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

A look into spatial ability testing tools and the variations that past researchers made to focus on key factors that affect test scores, will demonstrate the need for tuning traditional testing methods to accommodate a wider demographic and provide more accurate results. Due to technological limitations of the time, a large variety of past spatial tests were developed by hand-drawings. Within this research, the addition of stereoscopic vision is analyzed to determine the value of said changes on human perception of spatial entities.

Urban Climate And Challenges Of Tropical Cities, B E. Omogbai

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

This study examines the nature of urban climate, features and the challenges on the developing tropical cities in the 21st century. It argues that the use of principles of urban climate would help in providing comfortable living conditions and problem immune working environments for the inhabitants of tropical cities. The findings reveal that owing to poor environmental planning, inadequate geotechnical landscape surveys prior to the development of urban infrastructures, and non-adherence to the principles of urban climate, challenges of landscape degradation, excessive flooding of the built infrastructures, heat-island effects, and collapse of buildings have emerged. Suggested measures to avert these …

Unintended Social And Economic Consequences Resulting From The Implementation Of New Construction Technologies In The Developing World, Andrew J. South

Theses and Dissertations

One of the key components of international development is to provide adequate shelter for citizens of developing countries. This is often accomplished by governmental, non- governmental, and private organizations that seek to lower the cost, increase the quality, and expand the availability of safe, sustainable housing through the use of innovative technologies. These new technologies can affect the social and/or economic structure within communities. This paper is a case study resulting from the construction of a seventy-one-home village, including infrastructure, near Yogyakarta, Indonesia by a foreign, aid-based non-governmental organization (NGO). The village was relocated less than two kilometers from its …

Effect Of Climate Variability And Climate Change On Crop Production And Water Resources In Cyprus, Adriana Bruggeman, Christos Zoumides, Stelios Pashiardis, Panos Hadjinicolaou, Manfred Lange, Theodoros Zachariadis

Theodoros Zachariadis

No abstract provided.

Detecting Changes In Landuse/Cover Of Umuahia, South-Eastern Nigeria Using Remote Sensing And Gis Techniques, Fanan Ujoh, Olarewaju Oluseyi Ifatimehin, Adams Ndalai Baba

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

Since 1991 when it became the capital city of Abia State, Umuahia has undergone tremendous transformation in its land use and land cover due to rapid urbanization. The main materials employed for this study are a land use map (1991) and Landsat ETM+satellite image (2007) of the study area. These, combined with field survey/checks, were brought into a GIS environment using ILWIS 3.2 Academic image classification software to map the land use/land cover and to estimate the rate of urban expansion and loss of rural land at the peri-urban fringes of Umuahia between 1991 and 2007. The study revealed significant …

Blair Balden, Margaret Von Steinen

International Faculty Researchers

A visiting professorship at the University of Passau in Passau, Germany for Dr. Blair Balden, a WMU associate professor of aviation, provided an excellent opportunity to share ideas and information about teaching aviation law with professors from Germany and Austria.

A Simplified Method For Analyzing Factors Contributing To Motorcyclists’ Fatal Injuries In Ohio, Deogratias Eustace, Vamsi Krishna Indupuru

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

The aim of this paper was to analyze traffic crash data by using a simplified method in determining significant factors that increase the risk of a motorcyclist being fatally injured once involved in a motorcycle crash in Ohio. The concept of overrepresentation, which is similar to relative risk, was used in identifying significant variables associated with the elevated risk of a motorcycle crash resulting into a fatality. The overrepresentation factor (ORF) was calculated for each variable of interest. The ORF offers a simple but powerful procedure of determining whether a certain factor significantly occurs more or less frequently in one …

The Effects Of System Reliability And Time Pressure On Unoccupied Aircraft Systems Operator Performance And Mental Workload, Rania Wageh Ghatas

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Unoccupied Aircraft Systems (UAS) are in the midst of aviation`s next generation. UAS are being utilized at an increasing rate by military and security operations and are becoming widely popular in usage from search and rescue and weather research to homeland security and border patrol. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently working to define acceptable UAS performance standards and procedures for routine access for their use in the National Airspace System (NAS). This study examined the effects of system reliability and time pressure on unoccupied aircraft systems operator performance and mental workload. Twenty-four undergraduate and graduate students, male and …

Automatic High-Fidelity 3d Road Network Modeling, Jie Wang

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Many computer applications such as racing games and driving simulations frequently make use of 3D high-fidelity road network models for a variety of purposes. However, there are very few existing methods for automatic generation of 3D realistic road networks, especially for those in the real world. On the other hand, vast road network GIS data have been collected in the past and used by a wide range of applications, such as navigation and evaluation. A method that can automatically produce 3D high-fidelity road network models from 2D real road GIS data will significantly reduce both the labor and time needed …

A Systemic Approach To Next Generation Infrastructure Data Elicitation And Planning Using Serious Gaming Methods, Ersin Ancel

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Infrastructure systems are vital to the functioning of our society and economy. However, these systems are increasingly complex and are more interdependent than ever, making them difficult to manage. In order to respond to increasing demand, environmental concerns, and natural and man-made threats, infrastructure systems have to adapt and transform. Traditional engineering design approaches and planning tools have proven to be inadequate when planning and managing these complex socio-technical system transitions. The design and implementation of next generation infrastructure systems require holistic methodologies, encompassing organizational and societal aspects in addition to technical factors. In order to do so, a serious …

Is Data To Knowledge As The Wasp Is To The Fig Tree? Reconsidering Licklider’S Intergalactic Network In The Days Of Data Deluge., Christine L. Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

No abstract provided.

Slides: Who Should Be At The Table, And What Should They Be Talking About?, Robert W. Adler

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Presenter: Robert W. Adler, James I. Farr Chair in Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law

9 slides

Slides: Risk Management Strategies Of The Upper Basin: Addressing Potential Shortages, Eric Kuhn

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Presenter: Eric Kuhn, Colorado River Water Conservation District

15 slides