MS-123: Robert D. Hanson Papers

This collection is mainly comprised of letters and telegrams of the immediate Hanson family during WWII (1942-1946, with gaps), though there is a selection of letters to members of the family from other authors and a small group of letters written from 1904-1924 to Elizabeth and Henry Hanson from Elizabeth’s parents F. V. N. (Franklin Verzelius Newton) and L. T. ( Laura Trimble) Painter. In the sub-series of other letters addressed to Robert Hanson there are several letters pertaining to Robert’s admission to law school, the bar, and the army in addition to personal correspondence. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1111/thumbnail.jp

Ethnic Conversions : Family, Community, Women, and Kinwork

According to the straight-line theory of assimilation, ethnic groups by the third or fourth generation should be entirely assimilated into mainstream society and should identify themselves as Americans. Yet there has been a resurgence of ethnicity among white ethnics in the United States that has led to a renewed interest in particular ethnic groups and their cultures. Third- and fourth-generation European Americans claim an ethnic identity even though their ties to their ancestral homeland may be tenuous. Lithuanian Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s would seem to provide support for the straight-line theory of assimilation, yet since the 1980s they have reconstituted themselves through the Lithuanians of America organization and are experiencing a renewal of their ethnic identity. The Lithuanian American community in Seattle, Washington, also experienced ebbs and flows in the activism and unity of its members. The community was active at the turn of the twentieth century, next revitalized by Lithuanian emigres following World War II, and then became active again in the late 1970s after a decade of inaction. Members of the two groups were given questionnaires in the early 1990s to address the ethnic identity fluctuations as well as the role of non-ethnics in the organizations. One of the more exciting findings from the surveys and from participant observation was the extensive role of ethnic converts in the Kansas City organization, and their lesser (but still significant) role in the Seattle Lithuanian-American community

A solid phase enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the antigenic detection of Legionella pneumophila (serogroup 1): A compliment for the space station diagnostic capability

It is necessary that an adequate microbiology capability be provided as part of the Health Maintenance Facility (HMF) to support expected microbial disease events and environmental monitoring during long periods of space flight. The application of morphological and biochemical studies to confirm the presence of certain bacterial and fungal disease agents are currently available and under consideration. This confirmation would be facilitated through employment of serological methods to aid in the identification of bacterial, fungal, and viral agents. A number of serological approaches are currently being considered, including the use of Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) technology, which could be utilized during microgravity conditions. A solid phase, membrane supported ELISA for the detection of Legionella pneumophila, an expected disease agent, was developed to show a potential model system that would meet the HMF requirements and specifications for the future space station. These studies demonstrate the capability of membrane supported ELISA systems for identification of expected microbial disease agents as part of the HMF

Vision-based analysis of pedestrian traffic data

Reducing traffic congestion has become a major issue within urban environments. Traditional approaches, such as increasing road sizes, may prove impossible in certain scenarios, such as city centres, or ineffectual if current predictions of large growth in world traffic volumes hold true. An alternative approach lies with increasing the management efficiency of pre-existing infrastructure and public transport systems through the use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). In this paper, we focus on the requirement of obtaining robust pedestrian traffic flow data within these areas. We propose the use of a flexible and robust stereo-vision pedestrian detection and tracking approach as a basis for obtaining this information. Given this framework, we propose the use of a pedestrian indexing scheme and a suite of tools, which facilitates the declaration of user-defined pedestrian events or requests for specific statistical traffic flow data. The detection of the required events or the constant flow of statistical information can be incorporated into a variety of ITS solutions for applications in traffic management, public transport systems and urban planning

The effect of blade aerodynamic modelling on the prediction of high-frequency rotor airloads

Interactions between the blades and vortical structures within the wake of a helicopter rotor are a significant source of impulsive loading and noise, particularly in descending flight. Brown's Vorticity Transport Model has been used to investigate the influence of the fidelity of the local blade aerodynamic model on the accuracy with which the high-frequency airloads associated with blade-vortex interactions can be predicted. The Vorticity Transport Model yields a very accurate representation of the structure of the wake, and allows significant flexibility in the way that the blade loading, and hence the source of vorticity into the wake, can be represented. Two models for the local blade aerodynamics are compared. The first is a simple lifting-line model and the second is a somewhat more sophisticated lifting-chord model based on unsteady thin aerofoil theory. A marked improvement in accuracy of the predicted high-frequency airloads of the HART II rotor is obtained when the lifting-chord model for the blade aerodynamics is used instead of the lifting-line type approach. Errors in the amplitude and phase of the loading peaks are reduced and the quality of the prediction is affected to a lesser extent by the computational resolution of the wake. Indeed, the lifting-line model increasingly overpredicts the amplitude of the lift response to blade-vortex interactions as the computational grid is refined, exposing clearly the fundamental deficiencies in this commonly-used approach particularly when modelling the aerodynamic response of the blade to interactions with vortices that are much smaller than its chord. In comparison, the airloads that are predicted using the lifting-chord model are relatively insensitive to the resolution of the computation, and there are fundamental reasons to believe that properly converged numerical solutions may be attainable using this approach

Evaluating a dancer's performance using Kinect-based skeleton tracking

In this work, we describe a novel system that automatically evaluates dance performances against a gold-standard performance and provides visual feedback to the performer in a 3D virtual environment. The system acquires the motion of a performer via Kinect-based human skeleton tracking, making the approach viable for a large range of users, including home enthusiasts. Unlike traditional gaming scenarios, when the motion of a user must by kept in synch with a pre-recorded avatar that is displayed on screen, the technique described in this paper targets online interactive scenarios where dance choreographies can be set, altered, practiced and refined by users. In this work, we have addressed some areas of this application scenario. In particular, a set of appropriate signal processing and soft computing methodologies is proposed for temporally aligning dance movements from two different users and quantitatively evaluating one performance against another