ChopStop: A Strategic Plan

This project is an analysis of the current strategies that ChopStop, a saw manufacturing company should take in the wake of the business environment today. The goal of the project is to identify the Mission, Vision and Values of the company and use these to steer the direction of the organization moving forward. This project will center on the principles and tools taught by the ETM 525 class, the text Strategic Management Competitiveness and Globalization and the tools explained between them. First, the team starts with framing the organization, its history and their milestones. We then introduce the AIM system and its importance to the ChopStop product. After a thorough competitive and product analysis, our team introduces three individual strategies which help achieve the overall goal of expanding sales and expanding the market share of the ChopStop product

Influence of surrounding tissues on biomechanics of aortic wall

Abstract: The present study investigates effects of surrounding tissues and non-uniform wall thickness on the biomechanics of the thoracic aorta. We construct two idealised computational models exemplifying the importance of surrounding tissues and non-uniform wall thickness, namely the uniform-thickness model and the histology image-based model. While the former neglects a connective tissue layer surrounding the aorta, the latter takes it into account with non-uniform wall thickness. Using plane strain finite element analysis, stress distributions in the aortic media between the two models are compared. The histology image-based model substantially enhances the uniformity of stress throughout the aortic media. Furthermore, the altered mechanical properties of surrounding tissues change the stress distribution. These results suggest that surrounding tissues and non-uniform wall thickness should be included in biomechanical analysis to better understand regional adaptation of the aortic wall during normal physiological conditions or pathological conditions such as aortic aneurysms and dissections

An Assessment of Persistent Acoustic Monitoring of a Nuclear Reactor during Full Power Generation

Persistent low-frequency (<180 Hz) acoustic detection took place within the boundaries of Oak Ridge National Laboratory to monitor full power operations of the High Flux Isotope Reactor. Three acoustic sensors were installed at distances of 69, 101, and 914 m from the northeast corner of the cooling towers to monitor and assess four reactor power generation cycles. Features were extracted from power spectral density calculations where data were collected during reactor on and off operations. Diverse spectral features were present during full reactor power, including a 21.4 Hz fundamental frequency and ascending harmonics. Using bandpass filters, these related frequencies were isolated and summed, and the root mean square energy was calculated. The method of isolating and summing characteristic features provided a significant improvement in identifying acoustic behavior related to reactor power when the raw signals were obscured by noise

You Are Here: Finding Yourself in Middletown (An Anthology)

An anthology of 16 linked, researched stories about Middletown, Indiana, a fictional town created by the students in Professor Cathy Day's Spring 2015 ENG 444 Senior Seminar course, "Research and Fiction." This course is the capstone project in the Department of English and is comprised of students from all concentrations (Creative Writing, Literature, English Studies, Rhetoric & Writing, and English Education). The stories in this anthology were inspired by original historical research and the long tradition of Middletown Studies in Muncie, Indiana and at Ball State University that began with Robert and Helen Lynd's classic sociological case study, Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture (1929)