The struggle to regulate one's emotions can sometimes be difficult. Two emotion regulation strategies are to reappraise an emotional stimulus or to distract oneself from the stimulus. While there have been many investigations of both strategies, previous research suffers from methodological problems. Reappraisal conditions might be confounded by non-reappraisal-related cognitive processes, resulting in effects of distraction rather than reappraisal. In the current exploratory within-subjects study, participants completed an online survey where the conditions were held as equal as possible to avoid any differences in non-task-related cognitive processes. I measured variables that have been associated with an electrophysiological response correlated to the intensity level of emotions: the late positive potential. First, participants watched emotionally negative film clips in a reappraisal, distraction, and control condition, followed by ratings of experienced feeling. Second, participants rated the threat level of angry and neutral faces. It was hypothesized that applying ER during emotion induction compared to no ER should result in more positive ratings of experienced feeling after induction and lower threat-ratings of angry faces due to a more positive emotional state. The results showed no significant differences between conditions, most likely due to either methodological limitations or an actual lack of emotion regulation effects. I discuss future directions and improvements of the method.

Building energy simulation has become a useful tool for predicting cooling, heating and electrical loads for facilities. Simulation models have been validated throughout the years by comparing simulation results to actual measured values. The simulations have become more accurate as approaches were changed to be more comprehensive in their ability to model building features. These simulation models tend to require considerable experience in determining input parameters and large amounts of time to construct the models. As a result of the large number of man-hours required, simplified models have been sought and used. Simplified models are particularly useful for conducting preliminary assessments of energy conservation measures. These simplified models often use linear relationships in order to estimate conditions such as infiltration, energy usage, and temperature gradients. Studies have been performed in order to validate popular models such as ASHRAE's Bin or Modified Bin methods. A useful measure would be to determine the accuracy of a simplified model to establish error bounds. Having a simplified model and establishing its error bounds, technical estimations from such models could be used in selected applications with more confidence. The error bound relative to DOE-2 predictions, for a proposed simplified model denoted IEC, for estimating a commercial building's cooling load are presented along with two actual-building test cases for validation purposes. The sensitivity of the error to various building parameters such as minimum make-up air, cooling capacity oversize, and internal equipment load was investigated. The error bound was determined to be within ±15 per cent for both cases and almost all variations. / Master of Science

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of various loads on the force-time characteristics associated with peak power during the hang high pull (HHP). Fourteen athletic men (age: 21.6 ± 1.3 years; height: 179.3 ± 5.6 cm; body mass: 81.5 ± 8.7 kg; 1 repetition maximum [1RM] hang power clean [HPC]: 104.9 ± 15.1 kg) performed sets of the HHP at 30, 45, 65, and 80% of their 1RM HPC. Peak force, peak velocity, peak power, force at peak power, and velocity at peak power were compared between loads. Statistical differences in peak force (p 0.001), peak velocity (p < 0.001), peak power (p 0.015), force at peak power (p < 0.001), and velocity at peak power (p < 0.001) existed, with the greatest values for each variable occurring at 80, 30, 45, 80, and 30% 1RM HPC, respectively. Effect sizes between loads indicated that larger differences in velocity at peak power existed as compared with those displayed by force at peak power. It seems that differences in velocity may contribute to a greater extent to differences in peak power production as compared with force during the HHP. Further investigation of both force and velocity at peak power during weightlifting variations is necessary to provide insight on the contributing factors of power production. Specific load ranges should be prescribed to optimally train the variables associated with power development during the HHP.

This study examined the impact of load on lower body performance variables during the hang power clean. Fourteen men performed the hang power clean at loads of 30%, 45%, 65%, and 80% 1RM. Peak force, velocity, power, force at peak power, velocity at peak power, and rate of force development were compared at each load. The greatest peak force occurred at 80% 1RM. Peak force at 30% 1RM was statistically lower than peak force at 45% (p = 0.022), 65% (p = 0.010), and 80% 1RM (p = 0.018). Force at peak power at 65% and 80% 1RM was statistically greater than force at peak power at 30% (p < 0.01) and 45% 1RM (p < 0.01). The greatest rate of force development occurred at 30% 1RM, but was not statistically different from the rate of force development at 45%, 65%, and 80% 1RM. The rate of force development at 65% 1RM was statistically greater than the rate of force development at 80% 1RM (p = 0.035). No other statistical differences existed in any variable existed. Changes in load affected the peak force, force at peak power, and rate of force development, but not the peak velocity, power, or velocity at peak power.

Joining of uniformly-curved composite sandwich panel segments, typical in state of the art aerospace launch vehicles, should be mass-efficient. Adhesively bonded joints can provide increased mass-efficiency over mechanically-fastened joints. But, due to manufacturing sensitivities and certification requirements, conventional bonded joints can be improved upon by introducing structural redundancy. A longitudinal, durable redundant joint (DRJ) architecture featuring multiple adhesive load-paths, via a novel composite preform insert, was proposed to join composite sandwich panel segments of the interstage element for NASA's Ares V launch vehicle. A series of twenty-five static linear-elastic finite element models with plane strain solutions were developed to assess certain characteristics of a joint's structural response when subjected to a simplified circumferential hoop loading convention. Shear and normal stress distributions at the adherend-adhesive interface along the splice plate bondline of the DRJ are compared with those from a conventional splice joint (CSJ) configuration for a series of linearly increasing bondlines thicknesses and joint overlap lengths. The parameter studies indicate the DRJ configuration's adhesive peak stresses are independent of the joint overlap length at the joint edges. Also, simulated bonding defects, in the form of local adhesive gaps, due to manufacturing processes are investigated to determine the load path redistribution for the DRJ and CSJ configurations. Results for pristine versions of both configurations are included. The defective CSJ joint exhibits severe overloading of certain laminates, while the defective DRJ load redistributions are relatively mild. Between the two primary types of bondline gaps considered for the DRJ configuration, the gap corresponding to the splice plate, a more mature manufacturing operation and also a more easily inspected location than the insert-to-face sheet interface, is noted to be more severe. A direct joint-to-joint mass-comparison reveals a 164% increase in mass, per unit thickness, between the CSJ and DRJ. To put this in perspective, a second comparison is made using a four-segment sandwich panel barrel. A 3.51% increase in mass is observed between the CSJ and DRJ-based cylinders. Also, for a simplified sizing philosophy, based solely on the peak stresses in the adhesive domain, a CSJ may require a 1.5-inch longer joint overlap than a DRJ. The mass-estimate is recomputed, and the mass percent-increase of the segmented cylinder is reduced to 2.61% over a CSJ configuration. / Master of Science

A comprehensive fuel load assessment of all plant communities in Bryce Canyon National Park is provided. Fuel loads by community type are pooled into "fuel type associations" based on similarity in predicted fire behavior, and the fuel type associations are mapped throughout the Park. For each fuel type association, a series of fire behavior simulations is presented describing expected rates of spread and intensities for typical conditions in each month of the fire season and for a worst-case scenario. These fire behavior predictions provide guidelines for writing prescribed burning prescriptions or for quickly assessing the need for possible fire suppression and the amount of effort required to suppress particular fires.

It is generally recognized that the State of Utah attempts to provide schooling to a higher proportion of youth than other states in the nation. Utah has the largest proportion of high school graduates (50 per cent) in its adult population, and also the highest median school years completed (12.2 years) by adults 25 years old and older. These are some of the highlights of the 1961 edition of the "Rankings of the States," an annual publication in which the National Education Association compares all 50 states in terms of educational effort and achievement.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis student team Jaguar has been participating in the electric Formula SAE (FSAE) vehicle competitions in the past few years. There is an urgent need to develop a design tool for improving the performance of the vehicle. In this thesis, multibody dynamics (MBD) models have been developed which allow the student team to improve their vehicle design, while reducing the required time and actual testing costs. Although there were some studies about MBD analyses for vehicles in literature, a detailed modeling study of key parameters is still missing. Specifically, the effect of suspension system on the vehicle performance is not well studied. The objective of the thesis is to develop an MBD based model to improve the FSAE vehicle’s performance. Based on the objective and knowledge gap, the following research tasks are proposed: (1) MBD modeling of current suspension systems; (2) Modification of suspension systems, and (3) Evaluation of performance of modified suspension systems. The models for the front suspension system, rear suspension system, and full assembly are created, and a series of MBD analyses are conducted. The parameters of the vehicle by conducting virtual tests on the suspension model and overall vehicle model are studied. In this work, two main virtual tests are performed. First, parallel wheel travel test on suspension system, in which the individual suspension system is subject to equal force on both sides. The test helps understand the variation in stability parameters, such as camber angle, toe angle, motion ratio, and roll center location. Second, skid-pad test on full assembly of the vehicle. The test assists in understanding the vehicle’s behavior in constant radius cornering and the tire side slip angle variation, as it is one of the important parameters controlling alignment of the vehicle in this test. Based on the vehicle’s dynamics knowledge obtained from the existing vehicle, a modified version of the FSAE vehicle is proposed, which can provide a better cornering performance with minimum upgrades and cost possible. Based on the results from the parallel wheel travel test and skid-pad test, the lateral load transfer method is used to control the vehicle slip, by making changes to the geometry of the vehicle and obtaining appropriate roll center height for both front and rear suspension system. The results show that the stiffness in front suspension system and rear suspension system are controlled by manipulating roll center height. This study has provided insightful understanding of the parameters and forces involved in suspension system and their variations in different events influencing vehicle stability. Moreover, the MBD approach developed in this work can be readily extended to other commercial vehicles and sports vehicles.

In the 21th century, we see a trend in which CPU processing power is not evolving at the same pace as it did in the century before. Also, in the current generation, the data requirements and the need for higher speed are increasing every day. This increasing demand requires multiple middlebox instances in order to scale. With recent progress in virtualization, middleboxes are getting virtualized and deployed as software (Network Function (NF)s) behind commodity CPUs. Various systems perform Load Balancing (LB) functionality in software, which consumes extra CPU at the NF side. There are research work in the past which tried to move the LB functionality from software to hardware. Majority of hardware­based load balancer only provides basic LB functionality and depends on NF to provide the current performance statistics. Providing statistics feedback to LB consumes processing power at the NF and creates an inter­dependency.   In this thesis work, we explore the possibility of moving the load balancing functionality to a Smart Network Interface Card (smartNIC). Our load balancer will distribute traffic among the set of CPUs where NF instances run. We will use P4 and C programming language in our design, which gives us the combination of high­speed parallel packet processing and the ability to implement relatively complex load balancing features. Our LB approach uses latency experienced by the packet as an estimate for the current CPU loading. In our design, higher latency is a sign of a more busy CPU. The Latency Aware smartNIC based Load Balancer (LASLB) also aims to reduce the tail latency by moving traffic from CPUs where traffic experiences high latency to CPU that processes traffic under low latency. The approach followed in the design does not require any statistics feedback support from the NF, which avoids the tight binding of LB with NF.   Our experiment on different traffic profiles has shown that LASLB can save ~30% CPU for NF. In terms of fairness of CPU loading, our evaluation indicates that in imbalanced traffic, the LASLB can load more evenly than other evaluated methods in smartNIC­ based LB category. Our evaluation also shows that LASLB can reduce 95th percentile tail latency by ~22% compared to software load balancing.

There is a high prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms (MSS) among manual material handling (MMH) workers. However, limited investigations have been undertaken among one large group of workers using a particular MMH method called traditional posterior load carriage (PLC). Such load carriage is typically done without the use of an assistive device (e.g., backpack) in developing countries, and involves exposure to known risk factors for MSS such as heavy loads, non-neutral postures, and high levels of repetition. The current work was completed to investigate the characteristics of the PLC task and physical effects on workers, and to evaluate a practical intervention that may help improve the task. The first study investigated, through structured interviews with 108 workers, the types, prevalence, and impacts of MSS. PLC workers incur a relatively high MSS burden, primarily in the lower back, but also in the feet, knees, shoulders, and neck. These MSS were reported to interfere with daily activity, but only few workers sought medical treatment. Workers suggested several task improvements including the use of a belt, hook, or backpack/frame, and changes in the carriage method. The second and third study investigated, in a laboratory setting involving nine healthy males, the effects of load mass and size, and the use of a simple intervention, respectively, on factors related to low back pain risks during PLC. Increasing load mass caused increased torso flexion, lumbosacral flexion moment, abdominal muscle activity, and torso movement stability in the frontal plane. Increasing load size also caused higher torso flexion, peak torso angular velocity and acceleration, and abdominal muscle activity. Complex interactive effects of load mass and size were found on paraspinal muscle activity and slip risk. The intervention, involving a simple frame to support a load, and use with a higher load placement was found to be potentially beneficial as indicated by reduced lumbosacral moment and ratings of perceived discomfort in several anatomical regions compared to the traditional PLC. Outcomes of this research can facilitate future ergonomic guidelines and interventions to improve working conditions and occupational health and safety for PLC workers. / Ph. D.