Virtual Reality (VR) opens up new possibilities for developers to create immersive worlds and experiences. While it’s possible to craft unique and engaging interactive environments with unprecedented realism, the virtual world is constrained by the real one. Current approaches to player navigation in VR applications include joystick controls, teleportation, and motion-based movement. While these methods are effective in certain scenarios to overcome real-world limitations, my research introduces a novel approach that leverages room scale-based movement, with portals, to traverse a given VR world. This work presents algorithms that accurately predict the percentage of play area utilized, and rules to implement typical game elements to allow large scale virtual immersion under real world constraints.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / A study of the history of the idea of State-sponsored popular education to mold common loyalties and values in the interest of national unity. The study finds that this idea has implied rivalry with competing sources of meaning, including traditional religion. This rivalry has taken the form not only of excluding "sectarian" teaching from the common school, but also of seeking to provide its equivalent: a "common faith". In so doing, it has led repeatedly to conflict with parents who do not accept the values and beliefs inculcated by the State and its educationists. The first attempt, by the French Jacobins in 1792, to implement this "common school agenda" in an antireligious form was a failure because of the resistance of parents, but their Dutch allies were more successful implementing common schools saturated with lowest-common-denominator religious and moral teaching. It was Dutch "common school religion" that inspired French and American reformers in the 1830's in the creation of State-sponsored common schools. Implementation of the common school program in Massachusetts encountered resistance from orthodox Protestants as well as Catholics to what they rightly perceived as its religious content, but Protestant leadership closed ranks around the common school when faced by the threat of cultural diversity as a result of Catholic immigration. The final chapter describes the "triumph of the common school" in France and the United States, but its defeat in the Netherlands, where orthodox Protestants and Catholics gained full tax support for confessional schools. The continuing conflict over popular education raises troubling questions in a democracy. How can the pluralism that we claim to value, the liberty that we prize, be reconciled with a "State pedagogy" designed to serve State purposes? Can government somehow assure that every child is educated in the essentials required by the social, political and economic order, without seeking to impose uniformity?

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An important theme of wildlife ecology is understanding how animals move through their landscapes and inferring the strategies of resource acquisition. Eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallapavo silvestris) are a model species for evaluating the responses of movements and habitat selection to spatiotemporal variability of resources. I hypothesized that scales of area-restricted search (ARS) would change with variation in the landscape. I identified the ARS locations of high first passage time values using segmentation algorithms and hidden Markov models, and evaluated spatial variations in habitat selection for foraging-like activities of wild turkeys using Dirichlet multinomial models. The ARS scale for daily movement paths did not change over time substantially. Wild turkeys placed home ranges in heterogeneous landscapes to maximize forage availability. However, continuous-time Markov chain models demonstrated that habitat selection varied between individuals indicating that fine-scale selection may depend on the local resource availability and status of individuals.

This research investigates the effect of ionic charge and size on the mobility of specific metal ionic species in sandy soil under an electric field. During Phase-I experiments, three ions: lithium, lead and, aluminum were initially selected for study. Since the resistance of the cell varied with time, power could not be maintained constant. Therefore, a numerical integration technique was adopted to compare the results. These results show that the mobility of the ions increased with the increase in valence of the ions (for lithium and lead). However, aluminum interacted with and adsorbed to sand. To overcome this problem, aluminum spiked sand was used for Phase-II testing. During this phase, lithium, lead, and yttrium ions were evaluated. These results suggest that the mobility of the ions increased with increase in valence of the ions (Y > Pb >Li). However, ionic size did not have a substantial effect on the ionic movement.

Aquatic vegetation provides important habitats for fish, but these habitats are increasingly being altered anthropogenically. My research evaluated the movement and habitat use of three small rare fish species, the blackchin shiner Notropis heterodon (BCS), blacknose shiner Notropis heterolepis (BNS), and banded killifish Fundulus diaphanous, in a Minnesota lake. BCS and BNS traveled farther in spring than summer, but selection of habitat based upon macrophyte biovolume did not explain these differences. All three fish species traveled long distances (> 1,800 m) and were capable of reaching all available habitats in Square Lake. Macrophyte species richness and prey (zooplankton) abundance were not correlated with fish abundance; however, ordination techniques suggested several macrophyte species were important to the habitat use of these fishes in Square Lake. Proactive management for the conservation of these sensitive fish species in Square Lake should focus on protecting vegetated habitats and preserving water quality

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