Grassland Nesting Birds and Visual Obstruction Measurements in Western Kansas on Smoky Valley Ranch

North American grassland declines and increasing changes in land use patterns have revived the importance of studying grasslands and their inhabitants. Grassland breeding bird populations are declining rapidly, and conservation efforts are ramping up. Smoky Valley Ranch (SVR) owned by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is in Logan County, Kansas. Surrounding private land is characteristically comprised of row crops, livestock agriculture, Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and a few patches of native and restored prairie. The study of obligate grassland birds utilizing this area during the breeding season is essential to the proliferation of grassland bird nesting habitat in western, Kansas. The goal of this study is to characterize species specific abundance based on visual obstruction readings and prairie dog occurrence. Additional covariates such as wind speed, grazing rest, minutes since sunrise, and visual obstruction are measured against detection probability when detection key function is not “uniform.” Data was collected using hierarchical distance sampling (HDS) methods to aid in alleviating nondetection bias in point counts. Data collection was collected through 60-point count stations and 300 Robel points, measuring avian abundance, and visual obstruction, respectively. This study bolsters the knowledge base of grassland nesting birds and their habitat usage during the breeding season in western, Kansas. With climate change concerns rising, knowledge of obligate grassland birds and their habitat preferences is an essential aspect of land management in the short to mixed grass prairie

Incompressible viscous flow simulations of the NFAC wind tunnel

The capabilities of an existing 3-D incompressible Navier-Stokes flow solver, INS3D, are extended and improved to solve turbulent flows through the incorporation of zero- and two-equation turbulence models. The two-equation model equations are solved in their high Reynolds number form and utilize wall functions in the treatment of solid wall boundary conditions. The implicit approximate factorization scheme is modified to improve the stability of the two-equation solver. Applications to the 3-D viscous flow inside the 80 by 120 feet open return wind tunnel of the National Full Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC) are discussed and described

Particle-gas dynamics in the protoplanetary nebula

In the past year we made significant progress in improving our fundamental understanding of the physics of particle-gas dynamics in the protoplanetary nebula. Having brought our code to a state of fairly robust functionality, we devoted significant effort to optimizing it for running long cases. We optimized the code for vectorization to the extent that it now runs eight times faster than before. The following subject areas are covered: physical improvements to the model; numerical results; Reynolds averaging of fluid equations; and modeling of turbulence and viscosity

The Old Sexton

Nigh to a grave that was newly made Leaned a Sexton old on his earth worn spade His work was done and he paused to wait The fun\u27ral train through the open gate A relic of by-gone days was he And his locks were white as the foamy sea And these words came from his lips so thin I gather them in, I gather them in, gather, gather, gather, I gather them in... I gather them in! For man and boy Year after year of grief and joy I\u27ve builded the houses that lie around In ev\u27re nook of this burial ground Mother and daughter father and son Come to my solitude, one by one But come they strangers or come they kin I gather them in, I gather them in, gather, gather, gather, I gather them in... Many are with me but still I\u27m alone I\u27m king of the dead - and I make my throne On a monument slab of marble cold And my sceptre of rule is the spade I hold Come they from cottage or come they from hall Mankind are my subjects - all, all, all Let them loiter in pleasure, or toilfully spin I gather them in! I gather them in! I gather them in - and their final rest Is here down here in the earth\u27s dark breast And the sexton ceased for the funeral train Wound mutely o\u27er that solemn plain And I said to my heart - when time is told A mightier voice than that sexton\u27s old Will sound o\u27er the last trump\u27s dreadful din I gather them in! I gather them in

The Integrated User Experience Evaluation Model: A Systematic Approach To Integrating User Experience Data Sources

Evaluating the user experience (UX) associated with product interaction is a challenge for current human-systems developers. This is largely due to a lack of theoretical guidance for directing how best to assess the UX and a paucity of tools to support such evaluation. This dissertation provided a framework and tools for guiding and supporting evaluation of the user experience. This doctoral research involved reviewing the literature on UX, using this knowledge to build first build a theoretical model of the UX construct and later develop a theoretical model to for the evaluation of UX in order to aid evaluators – the integrated User eXperience EValuation (iUXEV), and empirically validating select components of the model through three case studies. The developed evaluation model was subjected to a three phase validation process that included the development and application of different components of the model separately. The first case study focused on developing a tool and method for assessing the affective component of UX which resulted in lessons learned for the integration of the tool and method into the iUXEV model. The second case study focused on integrating several tools that target different components of UX and resulted in a better understanding of how the data could be utilized as well as identify the need for an integration method to bring the data together. The third case study focused on the application of the results of an usability evaluation on an organizational setting which resulted in the identification of challenges and needs faced by practitioners. Taken together, this body of research, from the theoretically-driven iUXEV model to the newly developed emotional assessment tool, extends the user experience / usability body of knowledge and state-of-practice for interaction design practitioners who are challenged with holistic user experience evaluations, thereby advancing the state-of-the-art in UX design and evaluation

A Numerical Turbulence Model for Multiphase Flows in the Protoplanetary Nebula

It is thought that planets form from solid particles in a flattened, rotating, 99% gaseous nebula. These grains gradually coagulate into millimeter-to-meter sized aggregates which settle toward the midplane of the nebula. It is widely believed that the resulting dense layer eventually becomes gravitationally unstable and collapses into 'planetesimals.' A new numerical model is presented to simulate the predominant processes (gravitation, vertical convection, and shear-driven turbulence) during the stage while the particulate material is still dispersed about the midplane of the nebula. In our previous work, particles were assumed to be spheres of a single radius; in the present work, particles are spheres of different radii. Results indicate that neither a broad nor a narrow distribution of particle sizes is likely to become gravitationally unstable

Planetesimal growth in turbulent discs before the onset of gravitational instability

It is difficult to imagine a planet formation model that does not at some stage include a gravitationally unstable disc. Initially unstable gas-dust discs may form planets directly, but the high surface density required has motivated the alternative that gravitational instability occurs in a dust sub-layer only after grains have grown large enough by electrostatic sticking. Although such growth up to the instability stage is efficient for laminar discs, concern has mounted as to whether realistic disc turbulence catastrophically increases the settling time, thereby requiring additional processes to facilitate planet formation on the needed time scales. To evaluate this concern, we develop a model for grain growth that accounts for the influence of turbulence on the collisional velocity of grains and on the scale height of the dust layer. The relative effect on these quantities depends on the grain size. The model produces a disc-radius dependent time scale to reach a gravitationally unstable phase of planet formation. For a range of dust sticking and disc parameters, we find that for viscosity parameters $\alpha \le 10^{-3}$, this time scale is short enough over a significant range in radii $R$ that turbulence does not catastrophically slow the early phases of planet formation, even in the absence of agglomeration enhancement agents like vortices.Comment: Submitted to New Astronom