Double-averaged velocity and stress distributions for hydraulically-smooth and transitionally-rough turbulent flows

Peer reviewedPreprin

Trickle Down Engagement in First-Year Common Reading Programs

Common reading programs provide first-year students with common experiences that facilitate their engagement in the academic and social domains of college life. We investigated how the levels of engagement in common reading programs (e.g., recommended the book to students) by individuals in academic support roles (e.g., instructors, advisors, student life personnel) predicted students’ engagement in the book and book-related activities, as well as students’ retention of book content. We will discuss the importance of trickle down engagement (e.g., from instructors to students) in the success of common reading programs and offer practical recommendations to increase engagement in common reading programs.Citation: Coleman, T., Saucier, D., & Miller, S. Trickle down engagement in first-year common reading programs. Paper submitted to the 35th Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience, Orlando, FL

Understanding career aspirations of Information Technology students at Deakin University

Students need to develop informed and realistic career aspirations to gain the most from their university studies towards their initial career development. However developing their aspirations, goals, and expectations is a complex process. In Information Technology (IT) no clear career development framework is evident in the literature. We present a pilot study which investigates the career aspirations of novice students studying IT at an Australian University. Through a series of career activities their aspirations were explored with the aim of improving support for career development. Results indicate that students have no clear short- or long- term aspirations, yet believe that programming skills are key to achieve a career in IT

A high resolution digital system for automated aerial surveying.

Thesis (MSc.)- University of Natal,Pietermaritzburg, 2000.Resource managers frequently require moderate to high resolution imagery within short turnaround periods for use in a GIS-based management system. These spatial data can greatly enhance their ability to make timely, cost-saving decisions and recommendations. MBB Consulting Engineers, Inc., of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa had for many years made use of airborne videography to provide the imagery for several resource-based applications. Applications included detailed land use mapping in various South African river catchments and identification, density classification and mapping of alien vegetation. While the system was low cost and easy to operate, MBB had found that their system was inherently limited, particularly by its lack of automation and poor spatial resolution. This project was started because of a need to address these limitations and provide an airborne remote sensing system that was more automated and could produce higher resolution imagery than the existing system. In addition, the overall cost and time required to produce a map of the resource of interest needed to be reduced. The system developed in this project aimed to improve upon the pre-flight planning and in-flight image acquisition aspects of the existing system. No new post-flight image processing procedures were developed, but possible future refinement of the post-flight image processing routine was considered throughout the development of the system. A pre-flight planning software package was developed that could quickly and efficiently calculate the positions offlight lines and photographs or images with a minimum of user input. The in-flight image acquisition setup developed involved the integration of a high resolution digital still camera, a Global Positioning System (GPS), and camera control software. The use of the rapidly developing and improving technology of a digital still camera was considered to be a better alternative than a video graphic or traditional film camera system for a number of reasons. In particular, digital still cameras produce digital imagery without the need for development and scanning of aerial photographs or frame grabbing of video images. Furthermore, the resolution of current digital still cameras is already significantly better than that of video cameras and is rivalling the resolution of 35rnm film. The system developed was tested by capturing imagery of an urban test area. The images obtained were then rectified using photogrammetric techniques. Results obtained were promising with planimetric accuracies of 5 to 1 Om being obtained. From this test it was concluded that for high accuracy applications involving numerous images, use would be made of softcopy photogrammetric software to semi-automatically position and rectify images, while for applications requiring fewer images and lower accuracy, images could be rectified using the simpler technique of assigning GCPs for each image from scanned orthophotos

Night-time lighting alters the composition of marine epifaunal communities

Marine benthic communities face multiple anthropogenic pressures that compromise the future of some of the most biodiverse and functionally important ecosystems in the world. Yet one of the pressures these ecosystems face, night-time lighting, remains unstudied. Light is an important cue in guiding the settlement of invertebrate larvae, and altering natural regimes of nocturnal illumination could modify patterns of recruitment among sessile epifauna. We present the first evidence of night-time lighting changing the composition of temperate epifaunal marine invertebrate communities. Illuminating settlement surfaces with white light-emitting diode lighting at night, to levels experienced by these communities locally, both inhibited and encouraged the colonization of 39% of the taxa analysed, including three sessile and two mobile species. Our results indicate that ecological light pollution from coastal development, shipping and offshore infrastructure could be changing the composition of marine epifaunal communities.European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework programme (FP7/2007-2013

Statistical Approach to Raman Analysis of Graphene-Related Materials: Implications for Quality Control

A statistical method to determine the number of measurements required from nanomaterials to ensure reliable and robust analysis is described. Commercial products utilizing graphene are in their infancy and recent investigations of commercial graphene manufacture have attributed this to the lack of robust metrology and standards by which graphene and related carbon materials can be measured and compared. Raman spectroscopy is known to be a useful tool in carbon nanomaterial characterization, but to provide meaningful information, in particular for quality control or management, multiple spectra are needed. Herein we present a statistical method to quantify the number of different spectra or other microscale measurements that should be taken to reliably characterize a graphene material. We have recorded a large number of Raman measurements and studied the statistical convergence of these data sets. We use a graphical approach to monitor the change in summary statistics and a Monte Carlo based bootstrapping method of data analysis to computationally resample the data demonstrating the effects of underanalyzing a material; for example, graphene nanoplatelets may require over 500 spectra before information about the exfoliation efficiency, particle size, layer number, and chemical functionalization is accurately obtained

Improving the Limits of Detection of Low Background Alpha Emission Measurements

Alpha particle emission, even at extremely low levels, is a significant issue in the search for rare events (e.g., double beta decay, dark matter detection). Traditional measurement techniques require long counting times to measure low sample rates in the presence of much larger instrumental backgrounds. To address this, a commercially available instrument developed by XIA uses pulse shape analysis to discriminate alpha emissions produced by the sample from those produced by other surfaces of the instrument itself. Experience with this system has uncovered two residual sources of background: cosmogenics and radon emanation from internal components. A development program is underway to enhance the system and extend the pulse shape analysis technique further, so that these residual sources can be identified and rejected as well. In this paper, we review the theory of operation and pulse shape analysis techniques used in XIA`s alpha counter, and briefly explore data suggesting the origin of the residual background terms. We will then present our approach to enhance the system`s ability to identify and reject these terms. Finally, we will describe a prototype system that incorporates our concepts and demonstrates their feasibility.Comment: 8 pages, 13 figures, presented at LRT-201