Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Timothy D. Keane / Visualizing Urban Equilibrium is a landscape architecture master’s project and report intended to enhance the collective hydrologic, social, and aesthetic functions of Kansas State University’s Campus Creek corridor. The highly urbanized conditions of the approximately 1.4 mile channel and 408 acre sub-watershed are the result of neglect for stable hydrologic function, poor campus planning, and a disregard for cohesive form and function of natural aesthetics on campus. This proposal aims to balance goals of enhanced hydrologic function with those of campus social and aesthetic function into one cohesive process of landscape planning and design. Synthesizing complex social fabrics with proper urban watershed assessment and management, as well as natural geomorphic channel design re-envisions of sense of harmony and place within a major campus corridor and green space. Communication of this proposal takes the form of a Comprehensive Campus Creek Corridor Plan, for a rapidly developing academic institution and community. This plan centralizes the creek on campus and includes urban-watershed assessment, site specific conceptualizations of storm-water best management practices, and detailed channel enhancement for improved hydrologic function. Social function is enhanced through integration of pedestrian oriented planning, and education oriented spatial design opportunities for increased interaction with and within the Campus Creek corridor. Enhancement of aesthetic function includes management for a balance of formal and natural character, re-established visual connectivity and sense of place, as well as installation of landscape improvements and artistic expressions of the “equilibrium” paradigm defining the creeks natural function and its urban context. Included in this masters project and report is a project introduction and premise, Campus Creek site inventory and sub-watershed assessment, programming for improvements, and visualization of the conceptual comprehensive plan and site design elaborations.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The design of a telemetry tracking system is generally centered around its desired RF performance which is typically specified in terms of beamwidth, gain and/or G/T. These parameters determine the size of the reflector used in a given application and consequently dictate the required size and performance of the associated pedestal. Any subsequent improvement in the RF performance of such a system is primarily achieved by increasing the size of its reflector. The magnitude of the improvement realized is therefore limited by the load handling capability of the pedestal. In most instances, the substitution of a larger reflector with its increased inertia and wind loading causes a significant degradation in the dynamic performance of the tracking system. This paper describes how the figure of merit (G/T) of a specific dual axis telemetry tracking system can be improved by a minimum of 7.3 dB/K° without impacting its dynamic performance or increasing its weight. These impressive results are made feasible by the innovative pairing of a unique design planar reflector with a novel implementation of the conical scanner technology. The FLAPS™ reflector incorporates a newly developed concept which features lightweight construction and very low wind load coefficients [1, 2]. The conical scanner is a lightweight version of the DECS tracking feed system described in the referenced technical paper [3].

The thesis’ study of life expansion proposes a framework for artistic, design-based approaches concerned with prolonging human life and sustaining personal identity. To delineate the topic: life expansion means increasing the length of time a person is alive and diversifying the matter in which a person exists. For human life, the length of time is bounded by a single century and its matter is tied to biology. Life expansion is located in the domain of human enhancement, distinctly linked to technological interfaces with biology. The thesis identifies human-computer interaction and the potential of emerging and speculative technologies as seeding the promulgation of human enhancement that approach life expansion. In doing so, the thesis constructs an inquiry into historical and current attempts to append human physiology and intervene with its mortality. By encountering emerging and speculative technologies for prolonging life and sustaining personal identity as possible media for artistic, design-based approaches to human enhancement, a new axis is sought that identifies the transhuman and posthuman as conceptual paradigms for life expansion. The thesis asks: What are the required conditions that enable artistic, design-based approaches to human enhancement that explicitly pursue extending human life? This question centers on the potential of the study’s proposed enhancement technologies in their relationship to life, death, and the human condition. Notably, the thesis investigates artistic approaches, as distinct from those of the natural sciences, and the borders that need to be mediated between them. The study navigates between the domains of life extension, art and design, technology, and philosophy in forming the framework for a theory of life expansion. The critical approach seeks to uncover invisible borders between these interconnecting forces by bringing to light issues of sustaining life and personal identity, ethical concerns, including morphological freedom and extinction risk. Such issues relate to the thesis’ interest in life expansion and the use emerging and speculative technologies. 4 The study takes on a triad approach in its investigation: qualitative interviews with experts of the emerging and speculative technologies; field studies encountering research centers of such technologies; and an artistic, autopoietic process that explores the heuristics of life expansion. This investigation forms an integrative view of the human use of technology and its melioristic aim. The outcome of the research is a theoretical framework for further research in artistic approaches to life expansion.

A simple, quick, and inexpensive technique to improve visualization of aspen (Populus tremuloides) tree rings under the microscope, the ‘shadow technique’, is described. The technique assumes appropriate preparation of increment cores or cross-sections and works well on the lighter portions of the sample with fungus- and bacteria-free wood. The shadow technique was used successfully to elucidate tree-ring boundaries in small diameter (<5 cm DBH) aspen from northern Utah that commonly had >100 annual rings. Crossdating verified whether the elusive rings were missing or false rings. Aspen tree-ring measurement will be greatly enhanced with the shadow technique and preliminary investigation suggests it could be used on other species such as curlleaf mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius).

When people are asked to compare themselves to others, they frequently engage in self-enhancement. Further, prior work has shown that when engaging in self-enhancement, people tend to downplay how often they engage in negative behaviors to a greater extent than they highlight how often they engage in positive behaviors. Interestingly, the opposite pattern is shown for traits: people highlight their positive traits to a greater extent than they downplay their negative traits. In the current work, we examined direct and indirect social comparisons for sets of health, eating, social, and moral dimensions. Across our first 7 studies, we demonstrated that people downplayed negative aspects of the self to a greater extent than they highlighted positive aspects of the self when the aspect was not self-relevant, while people showed little to no preference for downplaying negative aspects of the self relative to highlighting positive aspects of the self when the aspect was self-relevant. In Study 8, we demonstrated that this pattern is partially mediated by recall of feedback about the average other student, but not by recall of one’s self-standing. Together these findings integrate the different patterns of self-enhancement shown for behaviors and traits by demonstrating that differences in the self-relevance of the dimension may be the best cue as to whether people are most likely to self-enhance by downplaying negatives or emphasizing positives. / 10000-01-01

This literature review will discuss Zika virus and the salient research on antibody dependent enhancement and how this mechanism may lead to congenital defects. Specific objectives include: the mechanism of antibody dependent enhancement, Zika and dengue virus pathogenesis, placenta pathophysiology, and how changes in viral virulence may play a role the pathogenesis of neurologic congenital defects seen in infants infected with Zika virus in utero. While some cohort studies have examined the relationship between prior dengue immunity, Zika virus infection in pregnancy, and effects on neonatal outcomes further prospective studies using large cohorts and more detailed lab testing and imaging is essential to better understand this relationship. A proposed study enrolling a large cohort of women in the 6th- 8th week of pregnancy from Northeastern Brazil will seek to further describe what additional risk dengue immunity may pose in the context of Zika virus. This risk is essential to understand, as Zika and Dengue viruses co-circulate in many regions of the world. Furthermore, participants in the proposed study will undergo bi-weekly screening for Zika virus through laboratory and ultrasound testing until their delivery. Infants will then have full neurologic testing and MRI scanning for the following year after birth to characterize any congenital defects. Neonates born to mothers with prior dengue immunity who contract Zika virus during pregnancy will be compared to neonates not exposed to Zika virus in utero. This experiment will illuminate the associated risk and evidence of ADE occurring with prior dengue immunity and Zika virus infection during pregnancy. Results from this study will not only help define risks of congenital defects with Zika virus, it will inform vaccine research and elucidate challenges in the administration of the current tetravalent dengue vaccine.

by Chung-fai Kwok. / Thesis (M.Sc.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65). / Contents --- p.i / Table of Figures --- p.iii / Abstract --- p.v / Acknowledgment --- p.vii / Introduction --- p.viii / Chapter 1. --- Overview : Medical image network system --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- MAGNET --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Medical image --- p.2 / Chapter 2. --- System configuration --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- Hardware setting --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- Software functions design --- p.5 / Chapter 3. --- Color handling --- p.7 / Chapter 3.1 --- Color --- p.7 / Chapter 3.2 --- Colormap and color display --- p.9 / Chapter 3.3 --- Static and dynamic color mapping --- p.10 / Chapter 4. --- Color image processing --- p.11 / Chapter 4.1 --- Color image quantization --- p.11 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Pre-quantization --- p.13 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Median cut Algorithm --- p.15 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Remapping colors --- p.16 / Chapter 4.1.4 --- Hashing --- p.17 / Chapter 4.1.5 --- Distortion Measures --- p.21 / Chapter 4.1.6 --- Experiment results and Discussion --- p.22 / Chapter 4.2 --- Intensity mapping --- p.30 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Graylevel image contrast enhancement and reduction --- p.30 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Graylevel image brightness increment and reduction --- p.36 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Contrast enhancement and reduction on color components --- p.40 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Brightness increment and reduction on color components --- p.41 / Chapter 4.3 --- Pseudocoloring --- p.45 / Chapter 5. --- Color image analysis --- p.47 / Chapter 5.1 --- Region Measures --- p.47 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Region measures function design --- p.47 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Region growing mechanism --- p.48 / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Region smoothing --- p.49 / Chapter 5.2 --- Distance measures --- p.53 / Chapter 5.3 --- Statistical analysis --- p.53 / Chapter 6. --- Summary and future work --- p.57 / Appendix : User interfaces and functions --- p.58 / Bibliography --- p.65

The vibration control problem for flexible structures is examined within the context of overall controller performance and power reduction. First, the issue of optimal sensor and actuator placement is considered along with its associated control robustness aspects. Then the option of alternately activating subsets of the available devices is investigated. Such option is considered in order to better address the effects of spatiotemporally varying disturbances acting on a flexible structure while reducing the overall energy consumption. Towards the solution to the problem of optimal device placement, three different approaches are proposed. First, a computationally efficient scheme for the simultaneous placement of multiple devices is presented. The second approach proposes a strategy for the optimal placement of sensors and collocated sensor/actuator pairs, taking into account the influence of the spatial distribution of disturbances. The third approach provides a solution to the actuator location problem by incorporating considerations with respect to preferred spatial regions within the flexible structure. Then the second problem named above is considered. Activating a subset of the available and optimally placed actuators and sensors in a flexible structure provides enhanced performance with reduced energy consumption. Such approach of switching on and off different actuating devices, depending on their local-in-time authority, results in a hybrid system. Therefore the proposed work draws on existing results on hybrid systems and includes an additional degree of freedom, whereby both the actuating devices and the control signals allocated to them are switched in and out. To enable this switching an activation strategy, which insures also that stability-under-switching is guaranteed, is required. Three different strategies are considered for such actuators allocation: first a cost-to-go index is considered, then a cost function based on the mechanical energy of the flexible structure and finally a performance index based on the maximum deviation of the transverse displacement. A flexible aluminum plate was chosen to validate and test the proposed approaches. The set up utilized four pairs of collocated piezoceramic patches that serve to provide sensing and actuating capabilities. Extensive numerical simulations were performed for both the placement strategies and the switching policies proposed, in order to predict the behavior of the flexible plate and provide the optimal actuator and sensor locations that were to be affixed on the flexible structure. Finally, to complete the validation process a sequence of experimental tests were performed. The objective of these tests was to compare the performance of the proposed hybrid control system to traditional non switched control schemes. In order to provide a repeatable perturbation, four of the piezoceramic patches were allocated to simulate a spatiotemporally varying disturbance, while the remaining four patches were used as sensors and controlling actuators. The experimental results showed a significant performance improvement for the switched controller over the traditional controller. Moreover the switched controller exhibited improved robustness towards spatiotemporally varying disturbances while the traditional controller showed a significant loss of controller performance. The improvement achieved in vibration control problems could be extended to a wider range of applications. In particular, although this study was concentrated on a rectangular thin plate, the proposed strategies can be applied to emph{any} structure and more generally to any plant whose dynamics can be represented by a second order linear system. For example, by removing the restriction of spatially fixed actuators and sensors, the proposed theory can be applied to the problem of unmanned vehicles control.

The aim of this thesis is to provide an argument that enhancement technologies are a form of enablement more significant than their physical effects; rather, that enhancement might be a fundamental element of humanity. This allows a refutation of the standard bioconservative position, that to increase capacity beyond that of a "normal" Homo sapiens necessarily defeats humanity, or at least nebulous aspects of it. I here argue instead that humanity is affirmed, and furthermore that enhancements are in fact inherently good, valuable, and worthwhile pursuits; on the assumption that it is, as critics of enhancements and transhumanism say, inherently good, valuable, and worthy of preservation to be human. I suggest thus that to enhance is the essence of, and the key to, the continuum of humanity. In the introduction, I set out the reasons why this type of research is increasingly necessary, namely that it is important to rationally consider the effects which new enhancement and related technologies will have on our persons and on our society. Secondly, it presents my rationales for taking liberal stances on questions such as the scope and definition of enhancement, the supposed therapy- enhancement divide, and on access to enhancement technology; in order to provide a reasoned base from which to build the core themes of the thesis. It goes on to address a number of the archetypical critical arguments against enhancement, in support of these core themes. Part II of the thesis contains the papers and delivers the main arguments in sequence- firstly, the need for the application of rationality in policymaking and commentary on bioethical concerns, and secondly the importance of considering motivation when attempting to divine the best course of action to regulate beings and technologies that we have not yet experienced, and the manner of which we cannot entirely predict. This is followed by an argument as to whether it is reasonable to treat enhanced or other purported novel beings that could result from these technologies as different from ourselves, and thus warranting such policy considerations. To accomplish this, the thesis delivers a fresh angle on the relationship between Homo sapiens sapiens, the human, and whatever is posited to supersede it, the posthuman. A central theme is the idea that humanity is a "matter of sufficiency"- an end-state for moral status, not a stepping-stone which one can be 'post'. These arguments culminate in a contention that it is enhancement that acts as the unifying factor in our evolution and existence, and that there is therefore unlikely to be any good reason to see beings that follow the humans of today as being different in any significant way. The thesis concludes with an exploration of the progression of these themes, as well as identifying the place of my work amongst the wider academic literature around enhancement and the nature of the human. Finally, the most promising avenues for future research are explored.

Malignant melanoma is one of the most fatal forms of skin cancer. It has also become increasingly common, especially among white-skinned people exposed to the sun. Early detection of melanoma is essential to raise survival rates, since its detection at an early stage can be helpful and curable. Working out the dermoscopic clinical features (pigment network and lesion borders) of melanoma is a vital step for dermatologists, who require an accurate method of reaching the correct clinical diagnosis, and ensure the right area receives the correct treatment. These structures are considered one of the main keys that refer to melanoma or non-melanoma disease. However, determining these clinical features can be a time-consuming, subjective (even for trained clinicians) and challenging task for several reasons: lesions vary considerably in size and colour, low contrast between an affected area and the surrounding healthy skin, especially in early stages, and the presence of several elements such as hair, reflections, oils and air bubbles on almost all images. This thesis aims to provide an accurate, robust and reliable automated dermoscopy image analysis technique, to facilitate the early detection of malignant melanoma disease. In particular, four innovative methods are proposed for region segmentation and classification, including two for pigmented region segmentation, one for pigment network detection, and one for lesion classification. In terms of boundary delineation, four pre-processing operations, including Gabor filter, image sharpening, Sobel filter and image inpainting methods are integrated in the segmentation approach to delete unwanted objects (noise), and enhance the appearance of the lesion boundaries in the image. The lesion border segmentation is performed using two alternative approaches. The Fuzzy C-means and the Markov Random Field approaches detect the lesion boundary by repeating the labeling of pixels in all clusters, as a first method. Whereas, the Particle Swarm Optimization with the Markov Random Field method achieves greater accuracy for the same aim by combining them in the second method to perform a local search and reassign all image pixels to its cluster properly. With respect to the pigment network detection, the aforementioned pre-processing method is applied, in order to remove most of the hair while keeping the image information and increase the visibility of the pigment network structures. Therefore, a Gabor filter with connected component analysis are used to detect the pigment network lines, before several features are extracted and fed to the Artificial Neural Network as a classifier algorithm. In the lesion classification approach, the K-means is applied to the segmented lesion to separate it into homogeneous clusters, where important features are extracted; then, an Artificial Neural Network with Radial Basis Functions is trained by representative features to classify the given lesion as melanoma or not. The strong experimental results of the lesion border segmentation methods including Fuzzy C-means with Markov Random Field and the combination between the Particle Swarm Optimization and Markov Random Field, achieved an average accuracy of 94.00% , 94.74% respectively. Whereas, the lesion classification stage by using extracted features form pigment network structures and segmented lesions achieved an average accuracy of 90.1% , 95.97% respectively. The results for the entire experiment were obtained using a public database PH2 comprising 200 images. The results were then compared with existing methods in the literature, which have demonstrated that our proposed approach is accurate, robust, and efficient in the segmentation of the lesion boundary, in addition to its classification.