Environment and Sustainability in Nevada

When the inaugural Earth Day launched the first environmental decade in the U.S. more than forty years ago, protecting our air, water, land and other natural resources seemed a relatively straightforward task. Environmental polluters and exploiters would be brought to heel by tough laws. The U.S. and other industrialized nations responded to quality of life concerns associated with environmental degradation by adopting dozens of major environmental and resource policies and creating new institutions such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to manage environmental programs. Following these national developments, states and local communities began systematic efforts to address environmental problems

MWIR and LWIR Spectral Signatures of Water and Associated Materials

Spectral infrared emissivity measurements have been made of a variety of materials both with and without surface water. The surface water was either natural, in the form of dew or residual rainwater, or artificially introduced by manual wetting. Materials naturally high in water content were also measured. Despite the rather diverse spectral population of the underlying materials, they exhibited very similar, featureless, water-like spectra; spectrally flat with a very high magnitude across the emissive infrared region. The implication to exploitation personnel that may use emissive infrared hyperspectral image data is that in areas where condensation is likely (e.g. high humidity) or in areas populated with high water content background materials (e.g. highly vegetated areas), discrimination may prove an intractable problem with hyperspectral infrared sensing for ambient temperature targets. A target that exhibits a temperature either below or above ambient temperature may be detectable, but not identified, and may be more economically pursued with a far simpler, single-band midwave or longwave sensor

Chromaticity Matrix to Tristimulus Matrix Conversion for RGB Color Spaces – Even In the Dark

Two methods to transform primary chromaticities and white point into primary tristimulus values are examined and compared. One method appears in numerous places in the literature; we refer to this as the familiar\u27\u27 method, and provide a novel interpretation of it. The second is much less well-known and is referred to as the unfamiliar\u27\u27 method. Necessary and sufficient conditions for computing primary tristimulus values from their chromaticities are identified; in brief, the triangle in the (x,y) chromaticity diagram must have non-zero area. The computational burdens for the methods were compared; the familiar method required slightly more arithmetical operations. Two problems with the familiar method were identified: high potential for rounding error and the inability to contend with a non-luminous primary. The unfamiliar method is less prone to rounding error, and is able to contend with primaries on the alychne. It is recommended that the unfamiliar method be preferred

The 2009 UNLV Campus Sustainability Survey Report

In an effort to understand environmental awareness, concerns, practices, and values at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the Urban Sustainability Initiative (USI) conducted its first campus environmental sustainability survey during the months of March, April, and May 2009. This pilot study was developed to collect baseline data from students, faculty, and staff members at the UNLV campus to be used in a longitudinal study that assesses attitudes and preferences towards environmental sustainability issues. This research project is guided by one of the major goals of USI, which involves reaching out to the academic community to help find workable solutions to the challenges facing the Las Vegas metro area, specifically in regards to environmental issues. This long-term study focuses on achieving campus environmental sustainability at UNLV

Bursting the Backpacker Bubble: Exploring Backpacking Ideology, Practices, and Contradictions

In this dissertation, I discuss the growing development of international backpacking in Central America. I focus on backpackers because they are a significant, yet understudied and undertheorized, part of the newly mobile world. Drawing from more than 12 months of ethnographic data collected in Central America, I explore backpacking as a youth subculture. I used a subcultural framework to explain backpacking ideology, practices, and contradictions. Understanding backpacking as a youth subculture tells us a lot about the myths and realities of 21st century adventure in the context of global mobility, globalization, and economic changes in international tourism that shape what backpackers experience and how they experience it. I find that backpackers’ ideology emphasizes a 1) desire to escape, 2) find a level of independence or freedom, which defines their 3) sense of adventure, and enables them to 4) self-reflect on their life and identity. Broadly, backpackers’ key travel practices emphasize the use of 1) the solitary backpack, 2) transportation modes, and 3) information sources. While backpackers have their own unique travel experiences in Central America, they also share and maintain these ideological beliefs and travel practices in common. I also find the backpacker hostel as the socio-cultural space to understand backpackers’ travel ideology in relation to their practices. As a home base, backpackers use the hostel to connect with one another and express their ideas about backpacking. They reflect their backpacking ideology through their real world traveling practices, as they venture outside of the hostel to explore new lands. Yet, backpackers also spend a significant amount of time using the inside of the hostel, which reflects many of the social and cultural vestiges that they hoped to leave behind. Backpackers share travel stories to critique, negotiate, and reconcile tensions in their 21st century backpacking experience

A Hybrid Thermal Video and FTIR Spectrometer System for Rapidly Locating and Characterizing Gas Leaks

Undiscovered gas leaks, known as fugitive emissions, in chemical plants and refinery operations can impact regional air quality and present a loss of product for industry. Surveying a facility for potential gas leaks can be a daunting task. Industrial leak detection and repair programs can be expensive to administer. An efficient, accurate and cost effective method for detecting and quantifying gas leaks would both save industries money by identifying production losses and improve regional air quality. Specialized thermal video systems have proven effective in rapidly locating gas leaks. These systems, however, do not have the spectral resolution for compound identification. Passive FTIR spectrometers can be used for gas compound identification, but using these systems for facility surveys is problematic due to their small field of view. A hybrid approach has been developed that utilizes the thermal video system to locate gas plumes using real time visualization of the leaks, coupled with the high spectral resolution FTIR spectrometer for compound identification and quantification. The prototype hybrid video/spectrometer system uses a sterling cooled thermal camera, operating in the MWIR (3-5 µm) with an additional notch filter set at around 3.4 µm, which allows for the visualization of gas compounds that absorb in this narrow spectral range, such as alkane hydrocarbons. This camera is positioned alongside of a portable, high speed passive FTIR spectrometer, which has a spectral range of 2 – 25 µm and operates at 4 cm-1 resolution. This system uses a 10 cm telescope foreoptic with an onboard blackbody for calibration. The two units are optically aligned using a turning mirror on the spectrometer’s telescope with the video camera’s output