Hawaiʻi Space Exploration Analog and Simulation

This item includes a video recording of a Mānoa Faculty Lecture Series presentation that took place in the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Library and also a flyer for that presentation.HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, www.hi-seas.org) is a habitat on an isolated Mars-like site on the Mauna Loa side of the saddle area on the Big Island of Hawai‘i at approximately 8200 feet above sea level. Here, crews of six people live and work through long-duration simulations of Mars exploration missions (four, eight and twelve month long). This research aims to answer several critical questions to prepare for extended space exploration, including: • How should the crew be selected? • What skillsets will they need? • How should they be trained? • How can we best monitor their physical and psychological health? • What should we do if a problem arises? Our goal is to help NASA remove barriers to the human exploration of Mars

Overcoming Financial Barriers

The funding process and the availability of both revenue and capital funding can create a barrier to the effective design, implementation and maintenance of sustainable transport and land-use schemes. The DISTILLATE Funding Project therefore sought to identify the nature of these barriers, how they are being experienced by local authorities, and the ways in which they could be overcome. This paper provides an overview of the findings of this project. The methodological approach included a series of consultations with transport practitioners and their counterparts in public health, environmental strategy, land-use planning and corporate policy units, three literature reviews, semi-structured telephone interviews with transport practitioners, two workshops and continual engagement with five case-study partners. The results of these research activities have been encapsulated within a Funding Toolkit, which has been designed to enable significant improvements in the way in which local authorities can manage, and overcome, funding barriers. Other research products include a guidance note for the funders of transport schemes, which provides stakeholders with an overview of the barriers faced by local authorities and recommendations about how they can be alleviated. This paper gives an overview of the research findings and details the role that both local authorities and the funders of transport and land use schemes can play in alleviating the impact of funding barriers

Some Empirical Criteria for Attributing Creativity to a Computer Program

Peer reviewedPostprin

Machine humour: An implemented model of puns

Institute for Communicating and Collaborative SystemsThis thesis describes a formal model of a subtype of humour, and the implementation of that model in a program that generates jokes of that subtype. Although there is a great deal of literature on humour in general, very little formal work has been done on puns, and none has been implemented. All current linguistic theories of humour are over-general and not falsifiable. Our model, which is specific, formal, implemented and evaluated, makes a significant contribution to the field. Punning riddles are our chosen subtype of verbal humour, for several reasons. They are very common, they exhibit certain regular structures and mechanisms, and they have been studied previously by linguists. Our model is based on our extensive analysis of large numbers of punning riddles, taken from children's joke books. The implementation of the model, JAPE (Joke Analysis and Production Engine), generates punning riddles, from a humour independent lexicon. Pun generation requires much less world knowledge than pun comprehension, making it feasible for implementation. To support our claim that all of JAPE's output is punning riddles, we conducted an evaluatory experiment. We took JAPE texts, human-generated texts, nonsense non-jokes and sensible non-jokes, and asked joke experts to evaluate them. For joke experts, we used 8-11 year old children, since psychological research suggests that this age group enjoys, and can recognize, punning riddles better than other age groups. The results showed that JAPE's output texts are, in fact, recognizably jokes. The evaluation showed that our model adequately describes a significant subtype of verbal humour. We believe that this model can now be expanded to cover puns in general, as well as other types of linguistic humour

Gallium nitride, indium nitride, and heterostructure development using the MEAglow growth system

This thesis presents an in depth study of semiconductor development using a new process termed Migration Enhanced Afterglow (MEAglow). The MEAglow growth reactor is housed in the Lakehead University Semiconductor Research Lab. Thin films of gallium nitride and indium nitride are produced as well as heterostructures comprised of these two films and their ternary alloy InGaN. MEAglow is a form of plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) employing migration enhanced epitaxy (MEE). The heterostructure is being developed for a novel field effect transistor (FET) based on the tunnelling of charge carriers which alter the channel conductivity. The configuration of this unique III-Nitride device should allow the FET to function as normally off in either n-type or p-type operation. Due to the difficulties in growing low temperature GaN, test devices of this abstract design were not previously possible. Further details on the device operation and growth parameters are included. Samples produced by the research reactor were characterised through x-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet-near infrared-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis-NIR), Auger spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Film growth is accomplished by an improved form of pulsed delivery Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD). The reactor features a scalable hollow cathode type plasma source. Data obtained through characterisation is subjected to theoretical treatment which explains much not previously understood behaviour of the GaN films. Many challenges in III-Nitride film growth have been overcome during this research project. A method of developing structures consisting of InN and GaN within the same system has been proven