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Human error is the most dominant factor in approximately 70 to 80% of safety-related accidents in the construction industry. The inability to exert attentional control has proven to be a contributing factor in many injuries, such as falls, slips, and trips in field construction activities. The sources of attention in the human brain can be categorized into three networks: alertness, orientation, and executive control. This paper focuses on an investigation of specific links between the three attentional networks and safety-related risks among construction workers. Subsequently, this paper aims to test the hypothesis that construction workers with high attentional control are able to recognize and perceive more safety hazards than those with lower attentional control. To address it, work experience and knowledge on safety information of participants is evaluated using a questionnaire. Then, the attention network test (ANT) is conducted to assess the efficiency of the three attention networks of participants. Finally, an experiment using photos of potential hazards in the workplace is performed to evaluate the ability of participants to recognize and perceive safety hazards followed by a statistical analysis. The paper makes recommendation based on the conducted experiment as well as statistical result

About 35 percent of Nigeria’s population of the more than 180 M relies on groundwater. Due to the lack of an adequate water supply system within Ogun State, many homes result to drilling their own private wells. Most groundwater is sourced from shallow wells (less than 30 m) and is often of poor water quality. The number of borehole failures is also alarming. Several entrepreneurs have seized on the lack of adequate water supply to drill for groundwater. Several of these wells have either failed or are not adequate for the purposed use of the water. There also appears to be no proper coordination of the citing of these wells. To increase the success rates of the boreholes, the use of geophysical methods amongst others is recommended. This study examines the exploration for groundwater and water quality in Ogun State in Nigeria, using Ota as an example. Ogun State has both significant surface and groundwater resources. However, due to the indiscriminate and lack of proper waste disposal, the vast majority of the surface waters and shallow well waters are impaired making them unsuitable for many users. To access a deeper groundwater source, a geophysical survey was performed to assist in finding a possible location for a borehole. A geophysical survey using the vertical electric sounding (VES) with Schlumberger configuration was carried out. The data shows that there are five layers within the proposed borehole site. Based on the data, it was suggested that a well be placed at a depth between 65-75 m (213-246 ft.). The borehole was drilled to 67m. This depth, from the literature, corresponds to the Abeokuta formation. A pump was installed at 66 m (217 ft.) depth and the first 50 feet of the borehole was grouted to prevent surface water from getting into the hole. A pumping test was performed for about two hours. While this was noteworthy, the data is not made available to any centralized body. No water chemistry was undertaken and more still needs to be done with location and the procurement of groundwater in developing nations

Sleep quality impacts our daily life performance and is influenced by multiple factors like the amount of stress we are under. The purpose of the current research is to empirically examine the influence of stress on the amount of time that IPFW students sleep. Specifically, I test the hypotheses that higher stress levels decrease the amount of sleep that students get and also that class standing increases students’ reported stress levels. Multivariate regression analyses of 491 undergraduates support the hypothesis that higher stress levels decrease the hours that students devote to sleep. However, seniors and students with a higher GPA report experiencing significantly less time devoted to sleep and less stress than their fellow classmates.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2016/1009/thumbnail.jp

Soybean growers in all major soybean-producing areas of North America are facing a potential new threat to soybean production due to an emerging soybean viral disease, Soybean Vein Necrosis Virus (SVNV). Currently the disease has been detected in 16 states in the Mid-west including Indiana. The disease can cause up to 46% yield loss in soybean. The virus is transmitted from plant-to-plant by an insect vector, soybean thrips (Neohydathothrips variablilis). Soybean thrips acquire SVNV in the early larval stage and transmit the virus to the soybean plants as adults. Like other plant feeding insects, soybean thrips have endosymbiotic bacteria that influence fundamental biological processes such as synthesis of essential nutrients and recycling of nitrogenous wastes. Moreover, transmission of some pathogens may be affected by endosymbiotic bacteria. There is no information on the diversity of endosymbionts in soybean thrips. Hence, the objective of our study was to determine the diversity of endosymbiotic bacteria in field-collected soybean thrips. We performed DNA extraction from a pool of 100 adult male and female soybean thrips. The DNA was then subjected to 16S rDNA pyrosequencing to determine the endosymbiont bacteria in the insect sample. Our results indicated a diversity of bacteria in soybean thrips including, Pseudomonas sp, S treptomyces sp, Herbaspirillum sp and Acinetobacter sp. Pseudomonas sp accounted for nearly 50% of the bacterial diversity in the sample. This is the first comprehensive survey of bacteria associated with soybean thrips gut. Results of this study will provide a foundation for future studies to elucidate the roles of gut microbes in SVNV transmission.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2016/1017/thumbnail.jp

Developing Expression in Brass Performance and Teaching helps university music teachers, high school band directors, private teachers, and students develop a vibrant and flexible approach to brass teaching and performance that keeps musical expression central to the learning process. Strategies for teaching both group and applied lessons will help instructors develop more expressive use of articulation, flexibility in sound production, and how to play with better intonation. The author shares strategies from today’s best brass instrument performers and teachers for developing creativity and making musical expression central to practicing and performing. These concepts presented are taken from over thirty years of experience with musicians like Wynton Marsalis, Barbara Butler, Charles Geyer, Donald Hunsberger, Leonard Candelaria, John Haynie, Bryan Goff, members of the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic and from leading music schools such as the Eastman School of Music, The University of North Texas and The Florida State University. The combination of philosophy, pedagogy, and common sense methods for learning will ignite both musicians and budding musicians to inspired teaching and playing

Population structure analyses and biodistance comparisons for Middle Moche (550–700 AD), Late Moche (700–850 AD), and Transitional (850–950 AD) period skeletal samples from San José de Moro with a previously reported Middle Moche period sample from Pacatnamú, a nearby Jequetepeque Valley site, and eight samples from Huaca de la Luna and Cerro Oreja, two sites in the Moche Valley, suggest that substantial levels of extralocal gene flow into the Jequetepeque Valley from the adjacent highlands to the east occurred during the demise of the Moche polity there. This process strongly corresponds to evidence for a temporal increase in exotic grave offerings at San José de Moro during the Late Moche and subsequent Transitional periods. The broader implications of these results for our understanding of the demise of the Moche are discussed

This research project is the design of a simple microcontroller based thermocouple gauge. A thermocouple gauge is a pressure meter that measures low vacuum of rough pumps. This is an important piece of equipment for any investigation that requires use of a vacuum pump. These investigations include supersonic gas expansions into vacuum to study gas clustering and atomic or molecular laser spectroscopy in which the sample is a vapor within a vacuum. Unfortunately, gauges are expensive to purchase so this project will provide a low cost, accurate and effective replacement. A thermocouple gauge works by measuring the temperature of an internal heater. The heart of this gauge will be Cypress PSoC 4 mixed signal microcontroller. The microcontroller will measure the internal temperature and to also run the heater itself. I will present my development of the meter.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2015/1020/thumbnail.jp

Soybean Vein Necrosis Virus (SVNV) is an emerging new disease affecting soybean, first discovered in Tennessee in 2008, which has since spread to 16 other states, including Indiana. SVNV has been identified as being a new virus in the genus Tospovirus, which are typically vectored by thrips. Thrips species make up a large proportion of arthropods found in soybean fields, sometimes accounting for up to half of the arthropods collected. So far, only soybean thrips have been confirmed to transmit SVNV. However, other species of thrips are found in soybean fields, including eastern flower thrips, western flower thrips, and tobacco thrips. The relationship between pathogen, vector, and host is complicated and can result in the pathogen having a negative, positive, or neutral effect on the insect vector. Our objectives of this study include 1) to compare life history traits of a confirmed vector species, soybean thrips, to a potential vector species, eastern flower thrips and 2) to compare life history traits of viruliferous and non-viruliferous soybean thrips to determine the effect of the pathogen on its insect vector. Our results show that there is a neutral effect of SVNV infection on soybean thrips, since there is no significant difference between viruliferous and non-viruliferous soybean thrips life history traits. Life history traits studied include hatching time, number of first instars, fecundity on day 14, total offspring, development time, and juvenile survival. The differences between life history traits of vector species and non-vector or potential species may explain why soybean thrips are the only confirmed vectors of SVNV. Other species may not have the ability to transmit SVNV, or may be more negatively or positively affected by SVNV infection. Results of our research will help in developing specific management strategies for SVNV based on insect vector biology.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2015/1041/thumbnail.jp

Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease that affects about two billion people and is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) which destroys pulmonary tissue and ultimately causes death, if left untreated. Modern antibiotics such as rifampicin and isoniazid have proven futile against Mtb when it goes into its dormant state under hypoxic conditions in the human body. Under such conditions, Mtb is thought to survive because of its ability to metabolize host lipids. Mtb is able to create a reservoir of triacylglycerol (TAG) by cleaving fatty acids from macrophage TAG, transporting them inside the phagosome, and subsequently reattaching the acyl groups to a glycerol backbone. The genes involved in coordinating this process are thought to play a crucial role in the survival of the bacteria. Although the gene associated with the final step of the acyltransferase pathway that attaches the third acyl group to the glycerol backbone has been studied, the genes involved in attachment of the first and second acyl groups have not been studied even though they are essential to the pathway. Therefore, we have cloned the acyltransferase gene (mGPAT1) that catalyzes the first step of the pathway and expressed the protein Escherichia coli in order to understand how mGPAT1 functions. Our initial findings suggest that mGPAT1 makes a difference in the ability of E. coli to utilize long-chain fatty acids. Our observations indicate that the E. coli expressing mGPAT1 continued to proliferate while E. coli lacking the gene entered stationary phase. Our results suggest that the mycobacterial acyltransferase enhances the ability of E. coli to utilize long-chain fatty acids as a carbon source after the media is depleted of other carbon sources. Future experiments will be aimed at confirming this finding and examining potential changes in the lipid metabolism of E. coli expressing the mycobacterial acyltransferase.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2015/1046/thumbnail.jp

Marine invertebrates such as sea cucumbers are becoming increasingly important in aquaculture to meet the growing demand for sustainable protein and as a source of marine based pharmaceuticals. Like other aquatic animals, sea cucumbers raised in aquaculture facilities experience stress that can potentially have a significant impact on their disease resistance, growth and development. To study the impact of potentially aquaculture related stressors namely, low salinity and handling, a variety of physiological and immunological tests were conducted on the hemolymph of the Giant California sea cucumber Parastichopus californicus. These tests included total and differential cell counts, packed coelomocyte volume, hemal fluid protein, phagocytic capacity, and lytic activity of immune cells. Based on the results obtained, sea cucumbers kept in handling and salinity stress conditions showed no significant differences from those kept in control conditions. These results could indicate that the sea cucumber is a good candidate for aquaculture, as it would seem to not be stressed by lowered salinity or by handling. As sea cucumbers are increasing in importance for both human consumption and production of pharmaceuticals, this is result could encourage the increased culturing of this species

Embedded computer systems are changing more often than other computing environments since the scope of their application domain is expanding. In the past, embedded system development was largely focused on 8-bit, standalone systems written directly in assembly language. These systems were characterized by slow CPUs (Central Processing Unit), kilobytes of memory, and limited peripheral devices on the chip. Nowadays they are embracing ever-widening application domains to include not only 8-bit standalone systems but real-time, networked, Operating-System based, wireless systems with megabytes of memory and 32-bit CPUs, with very rich peripheral devices. In the same time, the rapid advancement of low-cost embedded system kits such as Raspberry Pi1, Arduino2, etc. propose challenges and also opportunities to engineering educators for delivering contents and skills and engaging students in hands-on projects in embedded system teaching, which may take the advantages of a variety of platforms. On one hand, there are so many embedded platforms to choose, from ARM-based development kits, such as, MCB Series from Keil, Lab-in-Box from FreeScale, LaunchPad from TI, etc to low-cost platforms such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi. These platforms can help educators and students to accelerate their learning pace by working on real-world projects. On the other hand, this also proposes challenges as students are confused to pick which platform for their design projects. In this paper, three main ARM-based embedded system platforms are studied, and, the features and their application areas are compared. This study will be very helpful in the teaching and learning of embedded systems to engineering educators and students and give students some ideas to find suitable embedded system platforms in their design projects

Nucleobases are important organic molecules, and are involved in DNA biochemistry, sugar metabolism, and serve as energy molecules.Catabolism and biosynthesis of these molecules takes place in different compartments of a cell, and they must be transported between cells.Thus, an intricate system of membrane transporters is used.Several families of nucleobase transporters exist, and one such family is the Nucleobase Cation Symporter 1 (NCS1) family.Bioinformatics revealed a single gene encoding for a putative NCS1 in Nicotiana sylvestris (NsNCS1), a dicot angiosperm commonly known as tobacco.In this study, the substrate profile of this putative transporter was determined.The coding region of the gene was cloned into a yeast expression vector and transformed into Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains deficient in their native NCS1 transporters.Radiolabeled nucleobase uptake experiments were used to determine the transport profile.The binding profile was determined through heterologous competition using a cold competitor.Homologous competition experiments were used to determine kinetic properties of NsNCS1.In addition, the function of NsNCS1 was confirmed by complementing the NCS1 function in a homozygous Arabidopsis thaliana AtNCS1 knock-out mutant constructed in our lab.These experiments revealed that NsNCS1 transports adenine, guanine, uracil, hypoxanthine, and cytosine, and binds 5-fluorocytosine, uric acid, and xanthine.This profile resembles the transport and binding profiles of other Viridiplantae NCS1 proteins studied in our lab.It highlights the core functionality of Viridiplantae NCS1 proteins, and given the taxonomic position of Nicotiana sylvestris, sheds light on the evolution of NCS1 function.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2015/1059/thumbnail.jp

Diplocraterion, a U-shaped burrow attributed to infaunal invertebrates, is normally a shallow-marine trace fossil and not part of a continental vertebrate ichnoassemblage. Hence, the Glen Rose Formation (Aptian–Albian) of Texas (USA) presents an opportunity to study Diplocraterion associated with a world-class dinosaur tracksite. Most Diplocraterion are in a bioclastic wackestone–packstone bed just above the Taylor Tracklayer, a significant dinosaur track horizon. Diplocraterion are consistently sized, but with variable depths; most have protrusive spreiten and northeast–southwest trends. Smaller Arenicolites co-occur with Diplocraterion, and other trace fossils include Rhizocorallium and a large theropod trackway. Based on our analysis, a sea-level rise buried the Taylor Tracklayer, with a shallow-marine carbonate mud colonised by Diplocraterion and Arenicolites tracemakers. Protrusive Diplocraterion, eroded burrow tops, Rhizocorallium, and other criteria point towards firming and net erosion of the bed caused by a stillstand. The depositional environment of the Diplocraterion bed was possibly a subtidal lagoon that covered shoreward sediments impacted by large theropods. Burrow orientations suggest bidirectional currents consistent with trends of theropod trackways, implying each were controlled by a shoreline. The results of our study demonstrate how marine invertebrate and continental vertebrate trace fossils can be used together to define fine-scale changes in former carbonate shorelines

I am Lauren Couture, a senior who will be graduating this May with my B.A. in English Literature. I plan on going on to receive my M.A. in Comparative Literature and possibly Children’s Literature (both are areas that I am very passionate about). I have two wonderful parents who have supported me throughout my entire life and continue to encourage me to pursue my dreams, whatever they may be. My mother, who is a fantastic music teacher, is the one who inspired me to explore the realm where music and history become inextricable. I hope that this presentation makes her proud

The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction explores the relationship between the ideas and themes of American science fiction and their roots in the American cultural experience. Science fiction in America has long served to reflect the countryu27s hopes, desires, ambitions, and fears. The ideas and conventions associated with science fiction are pervasive throughout American film and television, comics and visual arts, games and gaming, and fandom, as well as across the culture writ large. Through essays that address not only the history of science fiction in America but also the influence and significance of American science fiction throughout media and fan culture, this companion serves as a key resource for scholars, teachers, students, and fans of science fiction

http://opus.ipfw.edu/sasi2015/1001/thumbnail.jp

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is a prevalent tool in tracking moving objects. In supply chain management systems, most major retailers use RFID systems to track the movement of products from suppliers to warehouses, store backrooms, and eventually points of sale. The amount of information generated by such systems can be enormous since each individual item (a pallet, a box, or a SKU) will leave a trail of data as it moves to different locations. Data warehousing provides architectures and tools for business executives to systematically organize, understand, and use their data to make strategic decisions. Warehousing and analyzing massive RFID data sets is an important problem with great potential benefits for inventory managing, object tracking, and product procurement processing. Many industries that have been collecting digital data are having difficulties scaling up their systems because of the large size of the data. Since the data sets are so large and complex, it becomes difficult and expensive to process using traditional database management tools and data processing applications. Cloud computing services and big data platforms, such as Hadoop, can scale to handle much larger data sets. In this thesis, I propose two RFID data warehouse designs, normalized schema and denormalized schema, that can handle massive amounts of RFID data and support a variety of OLAP queries as well as location and path related queries. This thesis implements the proposed schemas using a relational database system (PostgreSQL) and a big data platform (Hadoop/Hive), and then conducts performance tests with the cloud computing service. I closely studied how the schema designs, database systems, data storage formats, and the number of Hadoop nodes affected the performance for each type of queries I implemented. A lot of businesses are interested in switching from relational databases to big data platforms, thinking this will enhance the query performance. This thesis shows that a big data platform does not always have a better performance than a relational database when there are less than a few billion records. Also, when the size of the data is not big enough, increasing the number of Hadoop nodes is not always effective because the percentage of wait-time takes longer than the percentage of query-time. Once the characteristics of data and the database query optimizer are understood, there are extensive opportunities to increase the query performance in both systems

Long before digital imaging was so common, photography relied on light-induced chemical reactions to produce images. For over a century, the photochemical reactions of silver salts dominated this market, but the reactions of other photosensitive salts containing iron or chromium have also been used to generate photographs as far back as the 1840s. These “alternative” processes have been rediscovered by modern photographers who are interested in making one-of-a-kind prints from digitally-captured images. The science of many alternative photographic processes has long been overlooked. The ferric-gum photographic development technique is such a process. It relies on the hardening of the binder in watercolor paint (gum Arabic) when it contacts paper containing a salt called iron(III) chloride. Prior to applying the paint, the paper is saturated with iron(III) chloride, then exposed to ultraviolet light through a transparency of a digitally-recorded image. This produces a faint image due to the bleaching of the iron(III) ions in the paper. Watercolor paint is now applied to the paper and a hardened film is formed where the gum Arabic contacts the unbleached iron(III) chloride. Washing the paper in water removes the unhardened paint, producing an image with much greater contrast. The process that hardens the gum Arabic has been named “crys-gelling” by practitioners, but the nature of the chemical interaction between the iron(III) ions and the molecules in the gum Arabic has not yet been unraveled. To better understand the interaction between iron(III) ions and gum Arabic, we have prepared paper samples saturated with various iron(III) salts, coated them with a suspension of gum Arabic and measured their absorbance of infrared light. This type of analysis, called infrared spectroscopy, provides us with information of the chemical bonding within the gum Arabic and any changes in that bonding produced by the presence of iron(III) ions. We have made measurements of multiple points on each sample and applied a statistical technique called principal component analysis to highlight differences in the measurements between samples. Finally, we correlate these differences to identify changes in the chemical bonding. We have, to date, studied a group of organic salts (iron(III) ammonium oxalate, iron(III) oxalate and iron(III) ammonium citrate) and a group of inorganic salts (iron(III) chloride, iron(III) bromide, iron(III) sulfate and iron(III) nitrate) and will present the results from our analysis of these samples.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2015/1002/thumbnail.jp