Are We Good or Bad or Somewhere In Between?: An Original Novel

This thesis is an original fantasy/crime/mystery novel that takes a look at the concept that no one is just good or bad; instead, everyone is somewhere in between. The process/challenges of writing my first novel and leading into writing a mystery/crime novel (this is the first draft)

Are We Good or Bad or Somewhere in Between: An Original Novel

This is the flyer for Faith Lymburner\u27s Honors Colloquium

\u27It was all connected\u27: Understanding and addressing early school-leaving among learners of English as a second language

The goal of this research project, therefore, was to develop an understanding of the educational experiences of ESL youth so as to identify the facilitators and inhibitors of early school-leaving. Participants shared their recognition of the value of education. They also spoke of the ways in which negative interactions with teachers and peers, inflexible school practices and policies, financial responsibilities, lack of time, and perception of low levels of English-language proficiency negatively affected their educational experiences. Among the factors facilitating a positive educational experience were teachers who went out of their way to provide the youth with extra assistance and to integrate them into the school; peers who provided academic, linguistic, and social support; and limited or no financial responsibility. To the extent that the participants\u27 felt that their needs were met and they were integrated in the social and academic world of the school, they were facilitated in accessing the available educational opportunities

Generalized Bagley-Torvik Equation and Fractional Oscillators

In this paper the Bagley-Torvik Equation is considered with the order of the damping term allowed to range between one and two. The solution is found to be representable as a convolution of trigonometric and exponential functions with the driving force. The properties of the effective decay rate and the oscillation frequency with respect to the order of the fractional damping are also studied. It is found that the effective decay rate and oscillation frequency have a complex dependency on the order of the derivative of the damping term and exhibit properties one might expect of a thermodynamic Equation of state: critical point, phase change, and lambda transition

Prioritizing Waterbody Management in the Leichhardt Catchment: using a Landsat TM archive to characterise water permanence and water clarity

[Extract] There are 686 large (>1875m2) waterbodies throughout the Leichhardt catchment. Prioritizing on-ground management for these waterbodies requires a 'whole-of-catchment' assessment of how waterbodies throughout the catchment are behaving over time. This report describes how three different remote sensing products have been combined to describe waterbodies throughout the Leichhardt catchment. An archive of dry season Landsat TM data was used to describe the size, distribution and permanence of individual dry season waterbodies. The same archive was also analysed to characterise the optical water quality dynamics of each waterbody, i.e. which water bodies are always clear in the dry season, and which waterbodies vary between being clear during one dry season and then turbid the next. Daily MODIS data were also used to map the extent and duration of inundation associated with the post Tropical Cyclone Larry flood event

Social Capital Database Pilot Project: Results and Recommendations

The Social Capital Database, developed and implemented by the Saint Paul Area Council of Churches (SPACC), has been on the organization's mind for several years. The term 'social capital' was used in 2000 by Robert D. Putnam to describe what happens when connections are made between individuals and organizations and these connections build a network of resources and relationships. SPACC wanted to use that idea and apply it to the social outreach work that congregations do for our community; thus, the 'Social Capital Database' was born. The goals of the Social Capital Database development and implementation are twofold: the Saint Paul Area Council of Churches (SPACC) wanted to quantify and encapsulate the social outreach contributions East Metro congregations make to our community and to build a social outreach directory that congregations can use to link to one another. Thus, the goals of the Social Capital Database pilot project were as follows: to work with 15-25 congregations to gauge their interest in the database, enter their congregations' social outreach information, and work with the database management company to make changes to the database based on feedback from meetings with church personnel. All eighteen of the congregations who were trained in the database were optimistic about its capabilities and eager to be part of the pilot group. All of the eighteen congregations entered at least some of their congregations' information, and eleven of the eighteen entered all of their information. The pilot project provided SPACC with the first of the databases' inputted information and put SPACC well on the way to implementing use of the database throughout the East Metro.Prepared in partnership with the Saint Paul Area Council of Churches. Funded by a Communiversity Personnel Grant from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), University of Minnesota

Développement d’une approche quantitative pour l’étude du poumon équin : fixation et échantillonnage pour l’application des principes de la stéréologie

La présente étude visait à développer un protocole de fixation et d'échantillonnage pour le poumon équin suivant les directives publiées sur l’utilisation d’une approche stéréologique de type « design-based ». Les poumons gauches de chevaux contrôles et atteints du souffle ont été fixés avec du formaldéhyde 10% pendant 48h à une pression constante de 25-30 cm d’H2O. Les poumons ont été sectionnés en 20-21 tranches d’une épaisseur d'environ 2,5 cm chacune; de 10-11 tranches ont été sélectionnées de façon aléatoire et systématique pour la mesure du volume de référence avec la méthode de Cavalieri. Un protocole d’échantillonnage systématique, aléatoire et uniforme utilisant le principe du « smooth fractionator » et un poinçon à biopsie de 17 mm ont été utilisés pour échantillonner une fraction représentative de chaque poumon. Les méthodes d’échantillonnage de sections verticales, uniformes et aléatoires (VUR) et d’échantillonnage isotropique, uniforme et aléatoire (IUR) ont toutes deux été effectuées pour comparer le nombre de voies respiratoires en coupe perpendiculaire obtenues à partir de chaque méthode. L'architecture globale et la qualité des tissus fixés ont également été évaluées. Des spécimens pulmonaires équins ont été échantillonnés avec succès selon un protocole visant à produire des données morphométriques valides. Les tissus ont été fixés avec un minimum d'artéfacts et contenaient une quantité suffisante de voies respiratoires en coupe perpendiculaire dans les deux types d’échantillons. En conclusion, un protocole de fixation et d'échantillonnage adapté au poumon équin permettant l'utilisation d'une approche stéréologique de type « design-based » a été élaboré pour l’étude du remodelage des voies respiratoires.The present study aimed at developing a fixation and sampling protocol for the horse lung in agreement with recent published guidelines for a design-based stereology approach. The left lungs from control and from heaves-affected horses were fixed in 10% formaldehyde for 48hr at a controlled constant pressure of 25-30 cm H2O. Lungs were cut into 20-21 slices of a thickness of approximately 2.5cm each; 10-11 slices were then randomly and systematically selected for the measurement of the reference volume using the Cavalieri method. A systematic, uniform and random sampling (SURS) protocol using a 17 mm punch biopsy and the smooth fractionator principle was used to select a representative fraction of each lung. The vertical uniform random (VUR) and isotropic uniform random (IUR) sampling methods were both performed to compare the number of perpendicular airways obtained with each method. The general architecture and the quality of the fixed tissues were also evaluated. Equine lung tissues were successfully sampled with a protocol designed to yield accurate morphometric data. The tissues were fixed with minimal artifacts and contained an adequate amount of perpendicular airways in both VUR and IUR sections. In conclusion, we developed a fixation and sampling protocol adapted to the equine lung allowing the use of a design-based stereology approach to study airway remodeling

Between the tides: modelling the elevation of Australia’s exposed intertidal zone at continental scale

The intertidal zone represents a critical transition between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, supporting a complex mosaic of highly productive and biologically diverse habitats. However, our understanding of these important coastal environments is limited by a lack of spatially consistent topographic data, which can be extremely challenging and costly to obtain at continental-scale. Satellite remote sensing represents an important resource for monitoring extensive coastal zones. Previous approaches to modelling the elevation of the intertidal zone using earth observation (EO) data have been restricted to small study regions or have relied on manual image interpretation, thus limiting their ability to be applied consistently over large geographic extents. In this study, we present an automated open-source approach to generate satellite-derived elevation data for over 15,387 km2 of intertidal terrain across the entire Australian coastline. Our approach combines global tidal modelling with a 30-year time series archive of spatially and spectrally calibrated Landsat satellite data managed within the Digital Earth Australia (DEA) platform. The resulting National Intertidal Digital Elevation Model (NIDEM) dataset provides an unprecedented three-dimensional representation of Australia's vast exposed intertidal zone at 25 m spatial resolution. We validate our model against LiDAR, RTK GPS and multibeam bathymetry datasets, finding that modelled elevations are highly accurate across sandy beach (±0.41 m RMSE) and tidal flat environments (±0.39 m RMSE). Model performance was least accurate (±2.98 m RMSE) within rocky shores and reefs and other complex coastal environments with extreme and variable tidal regimes. We discuss key challenges associated with modelling intertidal elevation including tidal model performance and biased observations from sun-synchronous satellites, and suggest future directions to improve the accuracy and utility of continental-scale intertidal elevation modelling. Our model can be applied to tidally-influenced coastal environments globally, addressing a key gap between the availability of sub-tidal bathymetry and terrestrial elevation data

Parental Support for Newcomer Children’s Education in a Smaller Centre

This study explored the issues around parental support for newcomer children’s transition to school in a smaller urban centre in Atlantic Canada where newcomer support is relatively limited. Data were drawn from semi-structured interviews with 11 newcomer parents, five children, and one settlement worker. The findings revealed newcomer parents’ difficulties in understanding the school system, limited engagement with the school community, isolation from other parents, and barriers to understanding and connecting with other parents. Among these newcomers, refugee parents are particularly challenged. We conclude that newcomer children’s parental involvement need to be viewed multi-dimensionally, and that the creation of a commonly comfortable “mediated space” may be hampered by both cultural miscommunication and inadequate support provided to newcomer parents and children as well as the teaching staff

RADIUS: Risk-Aware, Real-Time, Reachability-Based Motion Planning

Deterministic methods for motion planning guarantee safety amidst uncertainty in obstacle locations by trying to restrict the robot from operating in any possible location that an obstacle could be in. Unfortunately, this can result in overly conservative behavior. Chance-constrained optimization can be applied to improve the performance of motion planning algorithms by allowing for a user-specified amount of bounded constraint violation. However, state-of-the-art methods rely either on moment-based inequalities, which can be overly conservative, or make it difficult to satisfy assumptions about the class of probability distributions used to model uncertainty. To address these challenges, this work proposes a real-time, risk-aware reachability based motion planning framework called RADIUS. The method first generates a reachable set of parameterized trajectories for the robot offline. At run time, RADIUS computes a closed-form over-approximation of the risk of a collision with an obstacle. This is done without restricting the probability distribution used to model uncertainty to a simple class (e.g., Gaussian). Then, RADIUS performs real-time optimization to construct a trajectory that can be followed by the robot in a manner that is certified to have a risk of collision that is less than or equal to a user-specified threshold. The proposed algorithm is compared to several state-of-the-art chance-constrained and deterministic methods in simulation, and is shown to consistently outperform them in a variety of driving scenarios. A demonstration of the proposed framework on hardware is also provided