Development of a Cone Penetrometer for Measuring Spectral Characteristics of Soils in Situ

A patent was recently granted to the U.S. Army for an adaptation of a soil cone penetrometer that can be used to measure the spectral characteristics (fluorescence or reflectance) of soils adjacent to the penetrometer rod. The system can use a variety of light sources and spectral analytical equipment. A laser induced fluorescence measuring system has proven to be of immediate use in mapping the distribution of oil contaminated soil at waste disposal and oil storage areas. The fiber optic adaptation coupled with a cone penetrometer permits optical characteristics of the in-situ soil to be measured rapidly, safely, and inexpensively. The fiber optic cone penetrometer can be used to gather spectral data to a depth of approximately 25 to 30 m even in dense sands or stiff clays and can investigate 300 m of soil per day. Typical detection limits for oil contamination in sand is on the order of several hundred parts per million

Islands in the Making: National Investment and the Cultural Imagination in Taiwan

This ethnography looks closely at the Taiwanese company UrIsland, makers of Talking Island (TI) - an MMORPG to teach children English - in order to illuminate the increasingly important meeting point between technology, education, and games. At the level of national economic policy, companies like UrIsland have been at the focal point of the Taiwanese government’s hopes for their tech industry. With TI, UrIsland intended to create a revolution in ESL education. Despite compulsory ESL classes many Taiwanese struggle with English, and educational experts claim that the classes stress reading and writing too much, leaving many people’s listening and speaking lagging. UrIsland’s founder believed TI, an immersive environment focusing on listening and speaking, could fill this ability gap and make kids eager to learn English. UrIsland hired native English speakers for most of their voice acting and used innovative voice-recognition technology to create this “native” linguistic environment, but also designed TI to make studying compelling. The CEO was, like many high-tech company founders, charismatic, and his employees were (mostly) willing to follow him in his revolution, but UrIsland faced a major obstacle – entrenched cultural attitudes. Education has deep roots within Chinese culture. Not only were teaching methods thought of as sacred, but Taiwanese see work (including studying) and play as mutually exclusive. This work explores the collision of three major spheres of meaning: technology, games, and education, by analyzing the ways UrIsland sought to upend some ideas while simultaneously working with other cultural expectations in order to keep TI economically viable. While this ethnography focuses on Taiwan to highlight this relatively modern interplay, this increasing point of tension is not unique to Chinese societies seeking to develop their technological infrastructures and industries, but is also found around the developed and developing world

The characterisation of the urodynamics of elderly people with lower urinary tract dysfunction

This thesis examined the age-related differences in the urodynamics of men and women presenting with symptoms of lower urinary tract dysfunction. In order to characterise the nature of the differences as precisely as possible the urodynamic data were analysed according to mechanically based mathematical principles derived by a number of physicists working the field. I developed a set of computer programmes which were used to collect and process the data. In addition, I constructed a computerised mathematical model of the micturition process which was used to illustrate the theory behind my approach to analysis as well as to aid in the interpretation of the data. A very large sample was used (2393 patients) so that age-related changes could be examined across the four decades of late life. Important differences were found, the most striking findings concerned voiding abilities which seemed to be markedly compromised in the elderly because of problems in sustaining micturition and reductions in the speed of detrusor shortening. Elderly men were found to show fewer differences from their younger counterparts, than those shown by women. Many of the changes, similar to those seen in the elderly, were found to occur in a number of important illnesses which affect both the young and the old. A number of assumptions made about the elderly were refuted and I obtained data which contradicted the findings of some other workers in the field

Obfuscation for Cryptographic Purposes

An obfuscation of a function F should satisfy two requirements: firstly, using it should be possible to evaluate F; secondly, should not reveal anything about F that cannot be learnt from oracle access to F. Several definitions for obfuscation exist. However, most of them are either too weak for or incompatible with cryptographic applications, or have been shown impossible to achieve, or both. We give a new definition of obfuscation and argue for its reasonability and usefulness. In particular, we show that it is strong enough for cryptographic applications, yet we show that it has the potential for interesting positive results. We illustrat

Discussion forum rubrics: Using rubrics to enhance and increase project management students' participation in online discussions

This paper examines the impact of using a discussion forum grading rubric to encourage and enhance discussions (posts) in an online introduction to project management course. The study consists of 53 Master of Business Administration (MBA) students enrolled in three sections of the course from October 2010 to May 2011. A control group of 20 students was compared to two experimental groups of 16 and 17 students respectively. The two experimental groups were given the specific grading rubric and instructions designed to encourage online conversation; the control group was not. The results indicate that there was a statistical difference in average postings per student between the two experimental groups and the control group but no statistical difference between the two experimental groups. The results suggest that the use of a rubric specifically designed to engage the student and expand the student's learning experience can increase online classroom participation and, as a consequence, enhance the educational experience for the online project management student and strengthen the university's MBA program