Effect of Stakeholder Attitudes on the Optimization of Watershed Conservation Practices

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Land use alterations have been major drivers for modifying hydrologic cycles in many watersheds nationwide. Imbalances in this cycle have led to unexpected or extreme changes in flood and drought patterns and intensities, severe impairment of rivers and streams due to pollutants, and extensive economic losses to affected communities. Eagle Creek Watershed (ECW) is a typical Midwestern agricultural watershed with a growing urban land-use that has been affected by these problems. Structural solutions, such as ditches and tiles, have helped in the past to reduce the flooding problem in the upland agricultural area. But these structures have led to extensive flooding and water quality problems downstream and loss of moisture storage in the soil upstream. It has been suggested that re-naturalization of watershed hydrology via a spatially-distributed implementation of non-structural and structural conservation practices, such as cover crops, wetlands, riparian buffers, grassed waterways, etc. will help to reduce these problems by improving the upland runoff (storing water temporally as moisture in the soil or in depression storages). However, spatial implementation of these upland storage practices poses hurdles not only due to the large number of possible alternatives offered by physical models, but also by the effect of tenure, social attitudes, and behaviors of landowners that could further add complexities on whether and how these practices are adopted and effectively implemented for benefits. This study investigates (a) how landowner tenure and attitudes can be used to identify promising conservation practices in an agricultural watershed, (b) how the different attitudes and preferences of stakeholders can modify the effectiveness of solutions obtained via classic optimization approaches that do not include the influence of social attitudes in a watershed, and (c) how spatial distribution of landowner tenure affects the spatial optimization of conservation practices on a watershed scale. Results showed two main preferred practices, one for an economic evaluation (filter strips) and one for an environmental perspective (wetlands). A land tenure comparison showed differences in spatial distribution of systems considering all the conservation practices. It also was observed that cash renters selected practices will provide a better cost-revenue relation than the selected optimal solution

Study of stress measurement using polariscope

The goal of this research was to investigate an experimental infrared transmission technique to extract the full stress components of the in-plane residual stresses in thin multi crystalline silicon wafer, and try to meet the need of photovoltaic industry to in situ measure residual stress for large cast wafers.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Danyluk, Steven; Committee Member: Hess, Dennis; Committee Member: Melkote, Shreyes; Committee Member: Qu, Jianmin; Committee Member: Rohatgi, Ajee

Typing the Dancing Signifier: Jim Andrews' (Vis)Poetics

This study focuses on the work of Jim Andrews, whose electronic poems take advantage of a variety of media, authoring programs, programming languages, and file formats to create poetic experiences worthy of study. Much can be learned about electronic textuality and poetry by following the trajectory of a poet and programmer whose fascination with language in programmable media leads him to distinctive poetic explorations and collaborations. This study offers a detailed exploration of Andrews' poetry, motivations, inspirations, and poetics, while telling a piece of the story of the rise of electronic poetry from the mid 1980s until the present. Electronic poetry can be defined as first generation electronic objects that can only be read with a computer--they cannot be printed out nor read aloud without negating that which makes them "native" to the digital environment in which they were created, exist, and are experienced in. If translated to different media, they would lose the extra-textual elements that I describe in this study as behavior. These "behaviors" electronic texts exhibit are programmed instructions that cause the text to be still, move, react to user input, change, act on a schedule, or include a sound component. The conversation between the growing capabilities of computers and networks and Andrews' poetry is the most extensive part of the study, examining three areas in which he develops his poetry: visual poetry (from static to kinetic), sound poetry (from static to responsive), and code poetry (from objects to applications). In addition to being a literary biography, the close readings of Andrews' poems are media-specific analyses that demonstrate how the software and programming languages used shape the creative and production performances in significant ways. This study makes available new materials for those interested in the textual materiality of Andrews' videogame poem, Arteroids, by publishing the Arteroids Development Folder--a collection of source files, drafts, and old versions of the poem. This collection is of great value to those who wish to inform readings of the work, study the source code and its programming architecture, and even produce a critical edition of the work

Virtual and Augmented Reality Simulation of Chattanooga Creek

Virtual reality involves reproducing all the details of a physical object or environment that has to be simulated in virtual space. Augmented reality is the mixing of computer-generated information with the user’s view of the real world. Augmented reality is an alternative for virtual reality. This thesis presents the interactive virtual reality simulation and augmented reality simulation of Chattanooga Creek in Chattanooga, TN. The augmented reality part involves implementation of the basic concept of augmenting the virtual graphics to the real world

The off-line programming of a PC based industrial robot with sensory feedback (volume I of II)

The need for sensor-based automatic motion planning and control of industrial robots in an unstructured environment is extensive. For example in-factory transportation, household chores, military applications, chemical, radioactive, and other applications dangerous to humans. Researchers are attempting to build systems capable of generating purposeful motion in highly uncertain co-nplex environments, using on-line information from robot sensors. An example of such a task would be moving a mobile robot or a manipulator arm from its starting position to a goal position in a scene with unknown arbitrarily shaped obstacles. Carrying out such tasks requires, first, sensors and relatedGR201

Trade openness and economic growth: a cross-country empirical investigation

In this dissertation, we empirically investigate the relationship between trade openness and economic growth across countries over the period 1960-2000. The main contribution of this dissertation is that we handle the model un-certainty problem by employing model averaging techniques, instead of estimating and reporting a number of cross-country growth regressions. Differently from many previous cross-country growth studies, our findings do not support the proposition that openness has a direct robust relationship with long run economic growth. However, we conclude that economic institutions and macroeconomic uncertainties relating to inflation and government consumption are key factors in explaining economic growth in the long run

Development and Testing of a Fractal Analysis Algorithm for Face Recognition

Following an earlier development for fingerprints by Deal (1) and Stoffa (2), it was suggested that this algorithm may work on faces (or more precisely, face images). First, this work transformed a 2-D electronic image file of a human face into a numeric system via a similar random walk process by Deal and Stoffa. Second, the numeric system was analyzed, and the numeric system may then be tested against a database of similarly converted images. The testing determined whether the subject of the image is part of the database. Finally, the efficiency, quickness, and accuracy of such an algorithm were tested and conclusions about the general effectiveness were made.;The algorithm employed a Random Walk analysis of digital photographs of human faces for a fixed number of binary images which were generated from the source photograph using a Boolean conversion scheme. The Random Walk generated a series of transition probabilities for a particular scale. In short, the numeric system used to describe the face will consisted of two dimensions of data---scale and binary image. The numeric system for a particular source photograph was tested against a database of similarly constructed systems to determine whether the subject of the source photograph was in the database.;For the purpose of this work, a database of 400 images was constructed from 167 individual subjects using the FERET database. The 400 images where then analyzed, and tested against the database to determine whether the algorithm could find the subjects in the database. The algorithm was able, in its best configuration, to identify correctly the subjects of 168 of the 400 photographs. However, the total time to run an image (after capture by a digital camera) to database comparison was only 62 seconds, which represents a substantial improvement over previous systems

Risk attitudes and migration decisions

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between individuals attitudes towards risk, migration experience, and migration decisions. For this, we consider migration in the United States across Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) for the period 1997-2015 based on a panel dataset from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). This dataset includes a series of hypothetical-gamble questions to elicit individual risk attitudes

Desarrollo de aplicación sobre Nintendo DS para transferencia de datos vía wi-fi

Martínez Soriano, N. (2011). Desarrollo de aplicación sobre Nintendo DS para transferencia de datos vía wi-fi. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/11576Archivo delegad