Singer's Inner Space: A new work space for opera singers addressing their well-being

The theater is the main work space of opera singers. Addressing their well‐being at their place of work seems to have been neglected in many theatre design projects, focusing mainly on audience amenities. This doctorate is organized in two sections: research and design application. The research section undertakes various design methods to create a different and more thoughtful approach to the space planning of theatre design. There are three main areas of study that are applied to create such theatre design: Vocal Psychology, Environmental Psychology, and the Sociology in theatre spaces. Each of the areas of study is presented first with their history of development, leading to the selected theories that apply to the theatre design. These theories are supported by case studies and a qualitative data collection to gain a full understanding of each of the areas of study. All of them have overlapping themes that help form the building program, the space planning, and the architectural form of the theatre. The second section of this doctorate research is the application of the theory into an actual building design that leads to the proposal of the New Hawai'i Opera Theatre. An interview with the company’s Artistic Administrator has been performed that further helped in the building program development. The second section documents the site selection and its analysis, followed by the design process, and finally, the illustrations of the New Hawai'i Opera Theatre. This includes additional efforts in marketing opera in Hawai'i such as rebranding Hawaii Opera Theatre and early design stages of a pop‐up retail store to sell opera tickets. The overarching goal of this research is to find a way to keep opera alive and relevant. If the opera singers feel healthy, then it should reflect on their performance and in return, the audience will receive the positive message of that performance, and as a whole, look at opera in a different way

Robb Garden Community Resource Center

Final project from the EMGT 193/293 Building Information Modeling (BIM) course in the School of Engineering and Computer Science as part of the Bachelor of Science in Engineering Management degree. A student group designed and modeled a one-story building to house the Pacific Garden Program on campus

Forward ray tracing for image projection prediction and surface reconstruction in the evaluation of corneal topography systems

A forward ray tracing (FRT) model is presented to determine the exact image projection in a general corneal topography system. Consequently, the skew ray error in Placido-based topography is demonstrated. A quantitative analysis comparing FRT-based algorithms and Placido-based algorithms in reconstructing the front surface of the cornea shows that arc step algorithms are more sensitive to noise (imprecise). Furthermore, they are less accurate in determining corneal aberrations particularly the quadrafoil aberration. On the other hand, FRT-based algorithms are more accurate and more precise showing that point to point corneal topography is superior compared to its Placido-based counterpart

The importance of multi-disciplinary teams within individual and team sports

This symposium will examine the importance of multi-disciplinary teams within a mix of both individual and team sports. This is an important topic to highlight as more positions within sport psychology become available within multi-disciplinary teams. The first presentation will look at how a multi-disciplinary team operates within a football academy environment, specifically examining the support structure available for player to enable a holistic support structure. The second presentation examines the importance within motorsport to gain performance optimization, working alongside the manager, mechanics, and the driver. This presentation will also discuss the driver’s psycho-bio-social state across a season. The third and final presentation will examine the role of sport psychology within an NCAA DII Institution, specifically working with a volleyball team. This will include a discussion of the potential benefits for working within an interdisciplinary collaboration overcoming obstacles, including testimonies of how full integration has affected a volleyball team. Overall, this symposium will explore multi-disciplinary approaches within football, motorsport and volleyball. It is hoped that this will bring awareness to the importance of working as a sport psychologist within various different environments within a multi-disciplinary team

Phase-stabilized optical frequency domain imaging at 1-mu m for the measurement of blood flow in the human choroid

In optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI) the measurement of interference fringes is not exactly reproducible due to small instabilities in the swept-source laser, the interferometer and the data-acquisition hardware. The resulting variation in wavenumber sampling makes phase-resolved detection and the removal of fixed-pattern noise challenging in OFDI. In this paper this problem is solved by a new post-processing method in which interference fringes are resampled to the exact same wavenumber space using a simultaneously recorded calibration signal. This method is implemented in a high-speed (100 kHz) high-resolution (6.5 μm) OFDI system at 1-μm and is used for the removal of fixed-pattern noise artifacts and for phase-resolved blood flow measurements in the human choroid. The system performed close to the shot-noise limit (<1dB) with a sensitivity of 99.1 dB for a 1.7 mW sample arm power. Suppression of fixed-pattern noise artifacts is shown up to 39.0 dB which effectively removes all artifacts from the OFDI-images. The clinical potential of the system is shown by the detection of choroidal blood flow in a healthy volunteer and the detection of tissue reperfusion in a patient after a retinal pigment epithelium and choroid transplantation. © 2011 Optical Society of America

Corneal biometry from volumetric SDOCT and comparison with existing clinical modalities

We present a comparison of corneal biometric values from dense volumetric spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SDOCT) scans to reference values in both phantoms and clinical subjects. We also present a new optically based “keratometric equivalent power” formula for SDOCT that eliminates previously described discrepancies between corneal power form SDOCT and existing clinical modalities. Phantom objects of varying radii of curvature and corneas of normal subjects were imaged with a clinical SDOCT system. The optically corrected three-dimensional surfaces were used to recover radii of curvature and power as appropriate. These were then compared to the manufacturer’s reference values in phantoms and to measurements from topography and Scheimpflug photography in subjects. In phantom objects, paired differences between SDOCT and reference values for radii of curvature were not statistically significant. In subjects, there were no significant paired differences between SDOCT and reference values from the other modalities for anterior radius and corneal keratometric power. In contrast to other studies, we found that dense volumetric scans with available SDOCT can be used to recover corneal biometric values—including power—that correspond well with existing clinical measurements

Optical properties of the human cornea : Shape and wave aberration measurements using the VU topographer and Scheimpflug photography

In this study, the optical properties of the human cornea was investigated. Two major developments were made because current measurement techniques need improvement First, the VU topographer, which uses a color coded pattern, was validated with real eye data showing better performance compare to commercial ring topographers particularly in reconstructing the non-rotation symmetric features of the anterior corneal surface. For example, ring topographers underestimate astigmatism of the anterior corneal surface by 4%. This underestimation increases with complexity of the surface. The astigmatism underestimation was found to be 13% for a post radially-keratotomized cornea. Second, the aberration contribution of the posterior surface was revealed using Scheimpflug photography. Results show that the contribution of the posterior surface to corneal coma aberration is negligible. On the other hand, on average the posterior surface decreases corneal astigmatism by 31%. Also the contribution of the posterior surface to the spherical aberration of the cornea increase with age reaching up to 15% at age 65. Thus, measurement of the posterior surface is necessary to specify corneal astigmatism and spherical aberration accurately. The methods introduced in this study are useful for applications in laser refractive surgery, contact lens fitting and studies on wave aberration of the eye because it reveals the optical properties of the cornea more accurately.Heethaar, R.M. [Promotor]Heijde, G.L. van der [Copromotor]Berg, T.J.T.P. van den [Copromotor