Loco-Robo and Gen

Undergraduate 2-

Selected Projects: Lighting Design and Technical Direction

The Three Musketeers was directed by Professor Colin Johnson and produced on the Morgan Stage at Utah State University in April of 2011. The earliest meetings for The Three Musketeers occurred in January 2011. The first big concern was the cinematic nature of the script by Ken Ludwig. This script required twenty different physical locations with very little space textually to transition between these locations. The best way to contend with this challenge was to create a world representative of the culture and feel of France during the 1620s. The iconographies created by the images are very distinct, but are architecturally very open with clear lines giving shape to structures. The only clear French icons that the director presented at these initial meetings were church windows (Figure 1-1) and Fleur de Lis (Figure 1-2). Seeing these images, I began to develop a vision of this production in the evocative nature. I needed to further research these thoughts to help support my vision in order to establish a conceptual dialogue with the director

Wetting Analysis of the Ultrasonic-Assisted Soldering Process

Soldering is a commonly used method to join two non-ferrous metals together, such as bonding copper wires or electrical components to circuit boards. Flux is typically used to remove the oxide layer on the metallic substrate but can release harmful chemicals and degrade the solder joint quality. Ultrasonic Assisted Soldering (UAS) was developed as an alternative to traditional soldering which eliminates the need for flux by using ultrasonic vibrations to nucleate microbubbles which remove the oxide layer during cavitation. The interaction between the applied acoustic field and solder melt affects the wetting properties of the solder joint by increasing the wetted area. A model is developed to predict the solder bead geometry, as it depends upon capillarity, gravitational effects, and the acoustic radiation pressure due to ultrasonic vibrations. Numerical results are compared with careful experiments using the automated UAS system to generate solder lines that are imaged with optical profilometry to quantify the degree of wetting. The agreement between theory and experiment is good and we show the wetted width can be predicted as a function of the input ultrasonic power. This capability is greatly needed to automate the UAS process for precision soldering and is a major advance for the manufacturing industry

The Design and Analysis of Electrically Large Custom-Shaped Reflector Antennas

Designing and analyzing electrically large reflectors poses numerically complex problems because the reflector must be sampled finely to obtain an accurate solution, causing an unwieldy number of samples. In addition to these complexities, a custom-shaped reflector poses a new analysis problem. Previously developed methods and theorems including Geometric Optics, Ray-Tracing, Surface Equivalence Theorems, Image Theory, and Physical Optics can be applied to these custom-shaped reflectors however. These methods all share in common their capability to provide accurate results in the analysis of electrically large structures. In this thesis, two custom-shaped reflector concepts are explored which include a rectangular shaped, spherically contoured reflector with largest dimension of 305 meters and a cross-shaped, parabolically contoured reflector with largest dimension of 150 meters. Each reflector is intended to operate in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) L-Band. The reflectors produced differing results, but the same methods apply to each. The motivation for pursuing these custom-shaped reflectors is for earth-based and space-based satellite communications respectively. In this thesis, the plane wave analysis and the ray tracing results are presented for each reflector, and the initial feed design results for the cross-shaped reflector are presented

Cross-Border Data Transfers: A Balancing Act through Federal Law

Throughout the digital age, corporations have collected, used, and stored individuals’ digital information to efficiently market to consumers and expand their business. In fact, not only do retail companies rely on data, but also farmers, financial institutions, health services, and other businesses heavily depend on one’s in-formation. Despite the importance and necessity of data, the U.S. has failed to establish a comprehensive federal law addressing data issues. Many countries with developed or developing economies, however, have established laws related to data, a company’s usage of such data, and other data-related issues. A key obstacle plaguing U.S. businesses in terms of data law is cross-border data transfers. In adopting data-related laws, countries around the world have focused on an individual’s right to privacy and strengthened their data privacy regimes. However, because of the lack of a comprehensive federal law, other countries have been cautious or refused to allow U.S. companies to transfer the data of individuals to the United States. This wariness is rooted in the fact that current U.S. data privacy laws do not impose stringent enough standards for businesses that collect and use data, and the belief that the U.S. does not offer adequate protections for an individual’s sensitive personal information. Thus, foreign countries bar U.S. businesses from freely transferring data to the United States. As a result, U.S. businesses are required to either incur substantial compliance costs to adhere to foreign standards or cease to do business within countries with stringent data privacy laws. If the U.S. was to adopt a comprehensive data privacy law, businesses would be able to transfer data freely while protecting an individual’s sensitive personal data. Through looking at data privacy and cross-border data transfers through a comparative law lens, this article proposes that the United States should adopt a com-prehensive federal law regarding data privacy. To support this proposal, the article first compares U.S. law to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and other countries’ laws. This comparative analysis will illustrate how American businesses are disadvantaged by the lack of a general federal law. The comparative analysis also highlights strategies that the U.S. Congress can adopt to strike a better balance to both protect the privacy of U.S. citizens while also allowing U.S. businesses to remain efficient and financially unburdened

Documentation and Control of Acetolactate Synthase-Resistant Barnyardgrass (Echinochloa Crus-galli) in Arkansas Rice

Barnyardgrass, the most problematic grass weed of Arkansas rice, was found resistant to propanil in 1990, and since then, it has evolved resistance to quinclorac and clomazone. Barnyardgrass is now believed to have evolved resistance to acetolactate synthase (ALS)-inhibiting herbicides. The goal of this research was to confirm and determine the level of resistance of the putative resistant biotype to the ALS-inhibiting herbicides imazethapyr, bispyribac, and penoxsulam and to develop herbicide programs for controlling ALS-, propanil-, quinclorac-, and clomazone-resistant barnyardgrass. The lethal dose needed to kill 50% of the putative ALS-resistant plants was higher than that of the susceptible biotype and greater than the field use rate of imazethapyr, bispyribac, and penoxsulam, indicating cross-resistance. The ALS-resistant biotype was also resistant to imazethapyr, propanil (photosystem II-inhibitor), and quinclorac (synthetic auxin). In the field, two applications of imazethapyr alone failed to control the ALS-resistant biotype