Effect of Combined Loading and Low-Temperature on the Stiffness of GFRP Laminates

At the present time a large portion of America’s bridge infrastructure is aging, and in many cases approaching its design live. Therefore, there is a need for structurally sound, low-maintenance, and rapidly constructible alternatives for conventional materials. Due to this need there has been a renewed interest in structural glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) products. A large portion of the US is regularly subjected to freezing temperatures and therefore the numerous gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the low-temperature response of GFRP materials need to be addressed. Although strides have been made in researching the cold climate responses of GFRP materials, a lack of comparable testing procedures and reproducible results has lead to confusion and a lack of confidence applying them. Therefore this thesis presents a detailed theoretical analysis of a structural GFRP bridge deck panel, and documents a research program that observed the effects of low-temperature and strain levels on the longitudinal modulus of GFRP samples. A series of GFRP coupon laminates were tested at 1000, 2000, and 3000 micro-strain levels at temperatures down to –31 F [-35 C]. Both biaxial and uniaxial samples subjected to 1000 micro-strain showed an increase in stiffness as the temperature was lowered, and no significant reduction in stiffness was seen when the samples were warmed back up to room temperature and retested. However samples subjected to the higher strain levels did show significant stiffness degradation when retested. The degree of degradation was noticeably larger for samples subjected to the low temperatures than for control samples that were subjected to the equivalent number of cycles at room temperature. It was also noted that the degradation due to load cycles or temperature coupled with load cycles was noticeably less for uniaxial samples than for biaxial samples

Warriors of the Skyline : A Gendered Study of Mohawk Warrior Culture

This analysis provides a better understanding of how members of the Mohawk tribe strived to maintain their cultural and gender identity within a white male-dominated high steel industry. This thesis examines traditional Mohawk warrior culture, meaning traditional Mohawk rites of passage and Mohawk male gender roles, through analyzing the role of Mohawk skywalkers in the late 19th and early 20th century. In tribal Mohawk society, the passage from adolescence to manhood was representative of a boy becoming a warrior. By exhibiting bravery, he earned the title of warrior and, consistent with his new tribal stature, increased his chances at marriage and acceptance as a leader. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Mohawk boys entered manhood by becoming skywalkers. Whether it was a boy’s acceptance into a riveting gang, or a war party, a boy’s passage to manhood was complete

Unsupervised learning of document image types

In a system where medical paper document images have been converted to a digital format by a scanning operation, understanding the document types that exists in this system could provide for vital data indexing and retrieval. In a system where millions of document images have been scanned, it is infeasible to expect a supervised based algorithm or a tedious (human based) effort to discover the document types. The most sensible and practical way to do that is an unsupervised algorithm. Many clustering techniques have been developed for unsupervised classification. Many rely on all data being presented at once, the number of clusters to be known, or both. Presented in this thesis is a clustering scheme that is a two-threshold based technique relying on a hierarchical decomposition of the features. On a subset of document images, it discovers document types at an acceptable level and confidently classifies unknown document images

The impact of internationalisation on tertiary-level educational social spheres

L'introduzione di programmi di English-medium instruction (EMI) svolge un ruolo chiave nella strategia di internazionalizzazione a livello di istruzione terziaria in Svizzera, dato l'impatto positivo della EMI sul prestigio istituzionale e il suo valore aggiunto sul mercato educativo. Il contesto EMI, che crea uno spazio socio-educativo complesso, si differenzia rispetto ad altri contesti educativi in cui la lingua locale è la lingua di insegnamento. Questo articolo discute i risultati di un'indagine che si concentra sui confini di tale differenziazione in riferimento all'iscrizione degli studenti ad un programma di promozione del profilo internazionale offerto dall'Università delle Scienze Applicate di Zurigo (ZHAW). Lo studio esamina gli atteggiamenti degli studenti nei confronti della lingua inglese e della EMI, la loro fiducia in sé stessi a livello sia linguistico che scolastico e l'impatto di tali fattori sulle decisioni riguardanti l'iscrizione al programma. Uno studio di questo tipo permette di meglio comprendere la delimitazione dei confini degli spazi socio-educativi rispetto all'introduzione di programmi che promuovono politiche di internazionalizzazione istituzionali in cui la EMI è direttamente coinvolta. Questo articolo sarà di interesse tanto per le istituzioni a livello universitario già coinvolte in tali programmi volti ad implementare obiettivi di internazionalizzazione quanto per quelle che ne stiano prendendo in considerazione l'introduzione

User acceptance of intelligent avionics: A study of automatic-aided target recognition

User acceptance of new support systems typically was evaluated after the systems were specified, designed, and built. The current study attempts to assess user acceptance of an Automatic-Aided Target Recognition (ATR) system using an emulation of such a proposed system. The detection accuracy and false alarm level of the ATR system were varied systematically, and subjects rated the tactical value of systems exhibiting different performance levels. Both detection accuracy and false alarm level affected the subjects' ratings. The data from two experiments suggest a cut-off point in ATR performance below which the subjects saw little tactical value in the system. An ATR system seems to have obvious tactical value only if it functions at a correct detection rate of 0.7 or better with a false alarm level of 0.167 false alarms per square degree or fewer

Zeeman Slowers for Strontium based on Permanent Magnets

We present the design, construction, and characterisation of longitudinal- and transverse-field Zeeman slowers, based on arrays of permanent magnets, for slowing thermal beams of atomic Sr. The slowers are optimised for operation with deceleration related to the local laser intensity (by the parameter $\epsilon$), which uses more effectively the available laser power, in contrast to the usual constant deceleration mode. Slowing efficiencies of up to $\approx$ $18$ $$ are realised and compared to those predicted by modelling. We highlight the transverse-field slower, which is compact, highly tunable, light-weight, and requires no electrical power, as a simple solution to slowing Sr, well-suited to spaceborne application. For $^{88}$Sr we achieve a slow-atom flux of around $6\times 10^9$ atoms$\,$s$^{-1}$ at $30$ ms$^{-1}$, loading approximately $5\times 10^8$ atoms in to a magneto-optical-trap (MOT), and capture all isotopes in approximate relative natural abundances