Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. John O. Sobanjo, Florida State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Civil Engineering. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 16, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

The dissertation is devoted to the development of a systematic theory of political experience. While this project involves, at first, the synthesis of the pragmatist tradition in political philosophy into a theory of reconstructive empiricism, it also entails the elaboration of this revision of political epistemology into a paradigmatic theory of human action. Using this paradigmatic theory of human action as the basis of analysis, an examination then follows of three generalized modes of political experience, and of the relationships which hold between them. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The moved sand caused by the wave is one of the important issue in coastal engineering. Moved sand of the coastal refers that wave and current ,cause sand suspended and moved, and it also caused the change of seabed along the coast. To estimate the change of sediment and establish the mechanism of sediment is very important in coastal engineering design. The series of hydraulic model experiments in wave flume are used to observation the relationships between moved sand and incident water wave condition. In this thesis, the movable-bed model of slope 1/45¡B1/30 ,which moved sand were estimated with surveyed from images of flume glass, and use image processing technique, we can calculate actual situation of movable-bed change. We also use the braces of sensor which was new design, set braces near surf zone, obtain the change of the pore pressure under the movable-bed and analysis the relationships between moved sand and incident water wave condition.

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Flexible electronics have gained great attention recently. Applications such as flexible displays, artificial skin and health monitoring devices are a few examples of this technology. Looking closely at the components of these devices, although MEMS actuators and sensors can play critical role to extend the application areas of flexible electronics, fabricating movable MEMS devices on flexible substrates is highly challenging. Therefore, this thesis reports a process for fabricating free standing and movable MEMS devices on flexible silicon substrates; MEMS flexure thermal actuators have been fabricated to illustrate the viability of the process. Flexure thermal actuators consist of two arms: a thin hot arm and a wide cold arm separated by a small air gap; the arms are anchored to the substrate from one end and connected to each other from the other end. The actuator design has been modified by adding etch holes in the anchors to suit the process of releasing a thin layer of silicon from the bulk silicon substrate. Selecting materials that are compatible with the release process was challenging. Moreover, difficulties were faced in the fabrication process development; for example, the structural layer of the devices was partially etched during silicon release although it was protected by aluminum oxide which is not attacked by the releasing gas . Furthermore, the thin arm of the thermal actuator was thinned during the fabrication process but optimizing the patterning and etching steps of the structural layer successfully solved this problem. Simulation was carried out to compare the performance of the original and the modified designs for the thermal actuators and to study stress and temperature distribution across a device. A fabricated thermal actuator with a 250 μm long hot arm and a 225 μm long cold arm separated by a 3 μm gap produced a deflection of 3 μm before silicon release, however, the fabrication process must be optimized to obtain fully functioning devices on flexible silicon.

this thesis is an exploration of how the existing site and structure of a 1908 schoolhouse can be transformed and given a new life as a community arts center in marion, virginia. existing geometry, structure and openings are examined in order to design a project which integrates old and new elements. the design strives to create indoor and outdoor gathering spaces that promote creativity and arts education. / Master of Architecture

A robot should be able to autonomously modify and utilize its environment to assist its task completion. While mobile manipulators and humanoid robots have both locomotion and manipulation capabilities, planning systems typically just consider one or the other. In traditional motion planning the planner attempts to find a collision free path from the robot's current configuration to some goal configuration. In general, this process entirely ignores the fact that the robot has manipulation capabilities. This is in contrast to how humans naturally act - utilizing their manipulation capabilities to modify the environment to assist locomotion. If necessary, humans do not hesitate to move objects, such as chairs, out of their way or even place an object, such as a board, on the ground to reach an otherwise unreachable goal. We argue that robots should demonstrate similar behavior. Robots should use their manipulation capabilities to move or even use environment objects. This thesis aims at bringing robots closer to such capabilities. There are two primary challenges in developing practical systems that allow a real robotic system to tightly couple its manipulation and locomotion capabilities: the inevitable inaccuracies in perception as well as actuation that occur on physical systems, and the exponential size of the search space. To address these challenges, this thesis first extends the previously introduced domain of Navigation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO), which allows a robot to move obstacles out of its way. We extend the NAMO domain to handle the underlying issue of uncertainty. In fact, this thesis introduces the first NAMO framework that allows a real robotic systems to consider sensing and action uncertainties while reasoning about moving objects out of the way. However, the NAMO domain itself has the shortcoming that it only considers a robot's manipulation capabilities in the context of clearing a path. This thesis therefore also generalizes the NAMO domain itself to the Navigation Using Manipulable Obstacles (NUMO) domain. The NUMO domain enables a robot to more generally consider the coupling between manipulation and locomotion capabilities and supports reasoning about using objects in the environment. This thesis shows the relationship between the NAMO and NUMO domain, both in terms of complexity as well as solution approaches, and presents multiple realizations of the NUMO domain. The first NUMO realization enables a robot to use its manipulation capabilities to assist its locomotion by changing the geometry of the environment for scenarios in which obstructions can be overcome through the usage of a single object. The system led a real humanoid robot to autonomously build itself a bridge to cross a gap and a stair step to get on a platform. A second NUMO realization then introduces reasoning about force constraints using knowledge about the mechanical advantages of a lever and battering ram. The discussed system allows a robot to consider increasing its effective force though the use of objects, such as utilizing a rod as a lever. Finally this thesis extends the NUMO framework for geometric constraints to scenarios in which the robot is faced with a substantial lack of initial state information and only has access to onboard sensing. In summary, this thesis enables robots to autonomously modify their environment to achieve task completion in the presence of lack of support for mobility, the need to increase force capabilities and partial knowledge.

Cranes are often the most conspicuous machines on a construction site. This is due to their large size, in addition to the important role they have in transporting heavy payloads vertically and horizontally. There are two major families of construction cranes: tower cranes and mobile cranes. Mobile cranes that are mounted on tracks are a subgroup referred to as ``crawler cranes''. Crawler cranes are widely used on construction sites, and are a backbone of the United States construction industry, thus a detailed study of these cranes' behavior is essential. This research studies the tip-over stability of crawler cranes in heavy-lifting applications. Two major applications are discussed: crawler cranes using movable counterweights and crawler cranes in tandem lifting.

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Changes in the bed of Geum River (L=130 km from Daechung regulation dam to Geum River estuarial bank) in South Korea were predicted using the 1-D HEC-RAS model and the 2-D CCHE2D model. Three movable weirs have been installed and dredging has been carried out in Geum River under the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project (2009-2012). Inflow data of sub basins were calibrated with daily runoff data generated by PRMS based on a hydrologic unit map. To determine the gate opening height for maintaining the management water level, unsteady analysis was performed using HEC-RAS. Thereafter, long-term riverbed changes through quasi-unsteady analysis were simulated for 20 years. In order to investigate the effect of movable weirs, sediment analysis was done for three cases of gate opening: case 1 is fully close, case 2 is fully open, and case 3 is regulating gates by the operating rule. Also, short-term riverbed changes were predicted with CCHE2D for 11 days in the problem area, depending on the results of 1-D model, and the effect of dikes was examined. In future, gate operation and structural methods such as dikes must be in step with each other in order to manage sediment and rivers in an ecofriendly manner.