Evaluation of Skylab EREP data for land resource management

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Monitoring the evolving land use patterns using remote sensing

The urbanization of Walnut Valley from 1953-71 prompted land use change from intensive von Thunen market-oriented patterns to extensive, disinvested, production-factor-minimized patterns. Shortrun, interim land use planning, has allowed agriculture to persist but only in the form of barley farming and grazing. Aerial photography used synoptically recorded six periods of land use change that bracketed dates before and after the freeway was announced and built. Interpretations of these changes help recognize potential conversions to urban uses which allow guidelines to be established that deal with rural-urban transition problems before they arise

Application of ERTS-1 data to integrated state planning in the state of Maryland

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Application of Earth Resources Technology Satellite data to urban development and regional planning: Test site - County of Los Angeles

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Vibro-Tactile Enhancement of Speech Intelligibility in Multi-talker Noise for Simulated Cochlear Implant Listening.

Many cochlear implant (CI) users achieve excellent speech understanding in acoustically quiet conditions but most perform poorly in the presence of background noise. An important contributor to this poor speech-in-noise performance is the limited transmission of low-frequency sound information through CIs. Recent work has suggested that tactile presentation of this low-frequency sound information could be used to improve speech-in-noise performance for CI users. Building on this work, we investigated whether vibro-tactile stimulation can improve speech intelligibility in multi-talker noise. The signal used for tactile stimulation was derived from the speech-in-noise using a computationally inexpensive algorithm. Eight normal-hearing participants listened to CI simulated speech-in-noise both with and without concurrent tactile stimulation of their fingertip. Participants' speech recognition performance was assessed before and after a training regime, which took place over 3 consecutive days and totaled around 30 min of exposure to CI-simulated speech-in-noise with concurrent tactile stimulation. Tactile stimulation was found to improve the intelligibility of speech in multi-talker noise, and this improvement was found to increase in size after training. Presentation of such tactile stimulation could be achieved by a compact, portable device and offer an inexpensive and noninvasive means for improving speech-in-noise performance in CI users

Drying and cracking mechanisms in a starch slurry

Starch-water slurries are commonly used to study fracture dynamics. Drying starch-cakes benefit from being simple, economical, and reproducible systems, and have been used to model desiccation fracture in soils, thin film fracture in paint, and columnar joints in lava. In this paper, the physical properties of starch-water mixtures are studied, and used to interpret and develop a multiphase transport model of drying. Starch-cakes are observed to have a nonlinear elastic modulus, and a desiccation strain that is comparable to that generated by their maximum achievable capillary pressure. It is shown that a large material porosity is divided between pore spaces between starch grains, and pores within starch grains. This division of pore space leads to two distinct drying regimes, controlled by liquid and vapor transport of water, respectively. The relatively unique ability for drying starch to generate columnar fracture patterns is shown to be linked to the unusually strong separation of these two transport mechanisms.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures [revised in response to reviewer comments

Drying and cracking mechanisms in a starch slurry

Starch-water slurries are commonly used to study fracture dynamics. Drying starch-cakes benefit from being simple, economical, and reproducible systems, and have been used to model desiccation fracture in soils, thin film fracture in paint, and columnar joints in lava. In this paper, the physical properties of starch-water mixtures are studied, and used to interpret and develop a multiphase transport model of drying. Starch-cakes are observed to have a nonlinear elastic modulus, and a desiccation strain that is comparable to that generated by their maximum achievable capillary pressure. It is shown that a large material porosity is divided between pore spaces between starch grains, and pores within starch grains. This division of pore space leads to two distinct drying regimes, controlled by liquid and vapor transport of water, respectively. The relatively unique ability for drying starch to generate columnar fracture patterns is shown to be linked to the unusually strong separation of these two transport mechanisms.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures [revised in response to reviewer comments

Electro-haptic enhancement of speech-in-noise performance in cochlear implant users

Abstract: Cochlear implant (CI) users receive only limited sound information through their implant, which means that they struggle to understand speech in noisy environments. Recent work has suggested that combining the electrical signal from the CI with a haptic signal that provides crucial missing sound information (“electro-haptic stimulation”; EHS) could improve speech-in-noise performance. The aim of the current study was to test whether EHS could enhance speech-in-noise performance in CI users using: (1) a tactile signal derived using an algorithm that could be applied in real time, (2) a stimulation site appropriate for a real-world application, and (3) a tactile signal that could readily be produced by a compact, portable device. We measured speech intelligibility in multi-talker noise with and without vibro-tactile stimulation of the wrist in CI users, before and after a short training regime. No effect of EHS was found before training, but after training EHS was found to improve the number of words correctly identified by an average of 8.3%-points, with some users improving by more than 20%-points. Our approach could offer an inexpensive and non-invasive means of improving speech-in-noise performance in CI users

Effect on Antibiotics in High Fiber Diets on Performance of Growing-finishing Pigs

The majority of the pigs in the Upper Midwest are fed a corn-soybean meal base diet. However, alternative feed ingredients are widely used in some regions. The lower performance, daily gain and efficiency of gain that is sometimes observed when other ingredients are used is often associated with higher fiber content of the diet. The pig has little ability to utilize fibrous materials in the stomach and small intestine where most digestion of feed and absorption of nutrients take place. Microorganisms present in the cecum and large intestine do break down fiber to usable products, but it is assumed that relatively small amounts of these products are absorbed. The effect that antibiotics have on fiber utilization and microbial digestion in the lower digestive tract is largely unknown. The experiment reported herein was designed to evaluate pig performance as affected by fiber level, source of fiber and presence of antibiotics

South Dakota Retained Ownership Demonstration

Three hundred forty-five steer calves representing 53 cow-calf producers were consigned to a custom feedlot in late October. Cattle were fed in one of two pens. One pen of calves received a moderate roughage growing diet for 39 days and then were switched to a high energy finishing diet (ACC). The other pen of calves received a moderate roughage growing diet for 109 days and then were switched to a high energy finishing diet (TWO). The ACC calves weighed 574 lb initially, gained 2.94 Ib per head daily and were slaughtered at 1147 Ib after an average of 196 days on feed. Average cost of gain and profitability were $52.31 per cwt and$38.75 per head, respectively. The TWO calves weighed 504 Ib initially, gained 2.77 Ib per head daily and were slaughtered at 1096 Ib after an average of 214 days on feed. Average cost of gain and profitability were $52.72 per cwt and$16.69 per head, respectively. Cattle slaughtered later in the spring were less profitable than cattle slaughtered earlier in the spring due to a weaker cattle market and wider choice-select price spread. Across either feeding program, average profits for cattle slaughtered after 170, 192, 199, 200 and 242 days on feed were $50.03,$64.42, $28.69,$27.39 and -$16.78 per head, respectively