Casey Johnson: Professional Practices

My art comprises one unifying idea: my own life experiences, specifically those relating to my family and friends. By depicting highly specific visual cues—such as clothing, crows, and the color blue—I combine multiple facets and memories in an attempt to communicate my feelings and experiences. Sometimes these symbols are universal; a yellow raincoat, for example, calls to mind childhood. Others are encoded within my own memories—a bird skull relates to a dream my friend had one night. My art is about more than myself; it is about finding common ground between me and my audience and exploring that overlap. Through symbols, color, and texture, I reach out to the viewer. These symbols and colors appeal specifically to my own aesthetic and emotional sensibilities; it is for this reason that I am so interested in what the viewer can gain from my art. In order to interact with both my memories and the viewer, I use bold, dark lines, bright colors, and clearly visible—if not always decipherable—symbols. The interaction between these elements paves the way for the connection between myself, the piece, and the viewer. Among my contemporary influences are certain niche illustrators such as Greer Stothers, whose bold use of color to depict creatures—both extinct and imagined—has left an impression on me. Her colorful compositions are straightforward and full of character, and I strive for a similar impression within my own work. My experience with figure drawings, especially those done with pen and ink, was a major catalyst for my artistic choices thus far. In my figure drawings, I was able to explore unconventional color combinations. This exploration of color continues even in my more recent abstract drawings, in which I have depicted white bottles and other objects in hues of red and blue. Photography has proven to be an unexpected catalyst for the further development of my art. A photo is an instantaneous moment in time; in a way, it is the purest way for me to present a pure reflection of my own perception. In an inverse way, photography has honed my sense of my immediate, daily surroundings. There are countless moments in any given day where I wish I could have my camera to capture the beautiful subtleties of my world. The photos that I have taken so far are largely the result of chance: I saw something lovely and photographed it, such as sunlight filtered through window blinds or an animal carcass. Others are staged and in a way are more like my symbolic work of other media than my other photos. In my art I explore the psychological meaning of color; specifically, I use the colors red and blue as symbols for life. Both red and blue feel familiar and lively to me. At first, I subconsciously used these colors when producing life-based work. As time went on, I began to use the colors intentionally as a kind of code for organic life. In many cases, I also used green in much the same way, but the shade of green was frequently more of a teal color and was thus essentially another shade of blue. It is elements like color that my audience will connect to in their own way, and maybe this connection will be similar to the connections that I have with my own work. Casey Johnson 2018https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art399/1043/thumbnail.jp

Cognitive Assessment of School Age Spanish Speaking English Language Learners

The number of students who speak a language other that English in schools across the U.S. is rapidly increasing. The Spanish speaking student population, in particular, has grown considerably in recent years. One way to examine the extent of this growth is to consider demographic data at the national and state levels

Funding the Extraordinary: An Evaluation of The Kresge Foundation Arts and Culture Program's Institutional Capitalization Grantmaking

In undertaking an assessment of Kresge's Capitalization Program, NFF applied its own high-level framework to help answer Kresge's primary research questions and assess the progress of each grantee in meeting its stated capital targets. NFF has found that effective capitalization in the nonprofit sector requires attention to three key financial priorities: liquidity, adaptability and durability:1. Liquidity: Does the organization have adequate cash to meet its operating needs?2. Adaptability: Does the organization have flexible funds that allow it to make adjustments as circumstances change?3. Durability: Does the organization have sufficient resources to address the range of needs that it may face in future years?NFF's review of Kresge's grantees sought to assess capitalization by looking for evidence of organizational progress in building liquid funds for immediate operating needs, as well as longer-term balance sheet savings for adaptability and durability. NFF's evaluation of grantees involved a combination of data analysis and interviews

Rigging and Texturing Considerations for the Short Film Spider Fight

This paper delves into two separate production areas of the short film, Spider Fight: the approach used to solve the problem of rigging eyelids for 3d characters, and the pipelines that were implemented for texturing 3d assets. Typically, problems exist in the rigging of eyelids for 3d characters. Productions rely on a series of blend shapes, or a combination of joints and blend shapes, to produce satisfactory eyelid movement. Spider Fight, however, used a series of curves and joints to control the movement of the eyelids, which allowed a high degree of control over eyelid movement, and also fast editing if any problems were detected. Another challenging area for computer-animated productions is texturing 3d assets. In order to accommodate the mix of characters and props in Spider Fight, a pipeline was developed for props that included Photoshop and Maya, while a second pipeline was created for characters that involved UVLayout, ZBrush, and Photoshop. The end result was an efficient system, which produced satisfactory results starting from the creation of UV shells and ending with completed textures

EXAMINATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BIORETENTION CELLS AND POROUS PAVING PRACTICES IN AIKEN, SC

This work seeks to quantify the impact and effectiveness of green infrastructure practices, specifically bioretention cells and porous asphalts, for the reduction of peak flow and volume of stormwater that discharges into the headwaters of the Sand River watershed in Aiken, SC. Stormwater runoff flows and volumes were monitored in the upper Sand River watershed that includes the urban Aiken area, along with two nested subwatersheds, prior to, during, and after the construction of the bioretention cells and porous asphalt sites. Flow data from these monitoring stations were analyzed and the data suggested that there was no significant reduction in volume of stormwater exiting the Sand River watershed. However, there was a significant reduction in the volume of stormwater exiting the subwatershed with a bioretention cell under wet conditions, and there was also a significant reduction in the volume of runoff for the control subwatershed under dry and wet conditions. Selected bioretention cells and porous asphalt sites were monitored to determine their as-built performance compared to their designed performance. One bioretention cell located along Park Avenue between Chesterfield Street and Newberry Street (PCN) was extensively monitored and analyzed. All of the monitored bioretention cells and porous asphalt sites functioned as designed although the data suggested that the bioretention cells were slightly over-designed. The porous asphalt sites were effective at capturing localized surface runoff and either infiltrating it back into the native subsoil or routing it into the bioretention cells. STELLA¨ modeling software was successfully used to model and characterize the water budget and hydraulic performance for two bioretention cells. Based on the results of this study, while the green infrastructure retrofits investigated did function to reduce stormwater peak flow and volume, the limited size and area of the retrofitted practices did not significantly impact the peak flow and volume exiting the entire watershed. However, further construction will likely have a more significant impact, because the as-built stormwater control measures are functioning as designed

Scattered

My art comprises one unifying idea: the body. We are our bodies, and with these bodies we experience life, death, and countless emotions. With my drawings and other work I embrace these experiences and depict stark symbols relating to the body. I explore traditional symbols of play—such as toys and games—as well as images tied to life and death. The body is more than just a thing that can live and die. With our bodies, we feel emotions and interact; with these ideas in mind, I compose pieces related to color and our capacity for connection and interaction. In this sense, these drawings are not simply about the body; they are about life, movement, emotion, and death. In my other work, I also explore the concept of body and bodily experiences; my photography, for example, emphasizes the lifelike and organic qualities of what is essentially lifeless, such as animal remains and city scenes. My prints explore subjects of dreams and the arcane. And my sculptural works explore the boundaries between organic and inorganic substances. In this sense, all of my work encompasses the ideas of the body in some way. Casey Johnson 2019https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art499/1023/thumbnail.jp

Spectral Analysis of Complex Dynamical Systems

The spectrum of any differential equation or a system of differential equations is related to several important properties about the problem and its subsequent solution. So much information is held within the spectrum of a problem that there is an entire field devoted to it; spectral analysis. In this thesis, we perform spectral analysis on two separate complex dynamical systems. The vibrations along a continuous string or a string with beads on it are the governed by the continuous or discrete wave equation. We derive a small-vibrations model for multi-connected continuous strings that lie in a plane. We show that lateral vibrations of such strings can be decoupled from their in-plane vibrations. We then study the eigenvalue problem originating from the lateral vibrations. We show that, unlike the well-known one string vibrations case, the eigenvalues in a multi-string vibrating system do not have to be simple. Moreover we prove that the multiplicities of the eigenvalues depend on the symmetry of the model and on the total number of the connected strings [50]. We also apply Nevanlinna functions theory to characterize the spectra and to solve the inverse problem for a discrete multi-string system in a more general setting than it was done in [71],[73], [22], [69]-[72]. We also represent multi-string vibrating systems using a coupling of non-densely defined symmetric operators acting in the infinite dimensional Hilbert space. This coupling is defined by a special set of boundary operators acting in finite dimensional Krein space (the space with indefinite inner product). The main results of this research are published in [50]. The Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) axis responds to physical and mental challenge to maintain homeostasis in part by controlling the body’s cortisol level. Dysregulation of the HPA axis is implicated in numerous stress-related diseases. For a structured model of the HPA axis that includes the glucocorticoid receptor but does not take into account the system response delay, we first perform rigorous stability analysis of all multi-parametric steady states and secondly, by construction of a Lyapunov functional, we prove nonlinear asymptotic stability for some of multi-parametric steady states. We then take into account the additional effects of the time delay parameter on the stability of the HPA axis system. Finally we prove the existence of periodic solutions for the HPA axis system. The main results of this research are published in [51]

Effects of Abrasive Particles on the Projected Fatigue Life of Nylon Climbing Rope

When climbing rope is used outdoors, it is exposed to foreign particles such as sand and silt. These particles can potentially work their way through a rope’s sheath and damage the load bearing core decreasing the rope’s strength without exhibiting obvious wear. This project quantified the effect of abrasive particles on the fatigue life of nylon climbing rope. The experimental design involved 18 pieces of static nylon rope of kernmantle construction. 9 of these samples were heavy agitated in a slurry of water, silt, sand and soil, and left to sit for 24 hours. The remaining 9 samples were submerged in clean water for the same period. Two sections of rope from each the dirty and clean groups were fatigued at 100, 200, 300, 400 cycles and one section each at 500 cycles. After fatigue treatment, the rope was tensile tested. Comparisons were made between the strengths of the dirty rope samples and the clean rope samples. It was found that exposure to abrasive particles decreases the fatigue life of the rope. It should be noted that the clean and dirty rope segments had identical strengths before fatigue treatment (5500lb break strength), the same as that of new rope (100% overall strength). Once exposed to fatigue treatment, the dirty ropes’ overall strength dropped linearly with greater fatigue. There was a maximum drop in strength of 63% and a minimum drop in strength of 22% in the dirty rope group. The maximum decrease in strength of the clean rope was 25% with a minimum of 2%. It can be concluded that proper cleaning and care is essential to maintaining strong, safe ropes