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Ammonia emissions from animal feeding operations (AFOs) have recently come under increased scrutiny. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has come under increased pressure from special interest groups to regulate ammonia. Regulation of ammonia is very difficult because every facility has different manure management practices. Different management practices lead to different emissions for every facility. Researchers have been tasked by industry to find best management practices to reduce emissions. The task cannot be completed without equipment that can efficiently and accurately compare emissions. To complete this task, a measurement system was developed and performance tested to measure ammonia. Performance tests included uncertainty analysis, system response, and adsorption kinetics. A measurement system was designed for measurement of gaseous emissions from ground level area sources (GLAS) in order to sample multiple receptors with a single sensor. This multiplexer may be used in both local and remote measurement systems to increase the sampling rate of gaseous emissions. The increased data collection capacity with the multiplexer allows for nearly three times as many samples to be taken in the same amount of time while using the same protocol for sampling. System response analysis was performed on an ammonia analyzer, a hydrogen sulfide analyzer, and tubing used with flux chamber measurement. System responses were measured and evaluated using transfer functions. The system responses for the analyzers were found to be first order with delay in auto mode. The tubing response was found to be a first order response with delay. Uncertainty analysis was performed on an ammonia sampling and analyzing system. The system included an analyzer, mass flow controllers, calibration gases, and analog outputs. The standard uncertainty was found to be 443 ppb when measuring a 16 ppm ammonia stream with a 20 ppm span. A laboratory study dealing with the adsorption kinetics of ammonia on a flux chamber was performed to determine if adsorption onto the chamber walls was significant. The study found that the adsorption would not significantly change the concentration of the output flow 30 minutes after a clean chamber was exposed to ammonia concentrations for concentrations above 2.5 ppm.

The purpose of this research was to determine if personality type and system response time have any effect on state anxiety and user response time. The sample for this study consisted of senior and graduate level college students who possessed basic know 1 edge of a text editor. Each test subject was administered the Jenkins Activity Survey to determine scores for Type A versus Type B, speed and impatience, involvement, and competitiveness. The test subjects were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups (good, variable, and poor system response time). They were required to edit a text file which contained multiple errors. The test subjects were provided hard copies of the file with errors (errors highlighted) and the file as should appear without the errors. The test situation for each test subject was identical, except for changes in system response time. The A-state scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was administered to the test subjects immediately prior to the edit task in order to determine pre-task state anxiety levels. The A-state scale of the STAI was again administered immediately after the edit task in order to determine post-task state anxiety levels. Analysis of variance, analysis of covariance, regression, and two sample t-tests were used to analyze the data collected. All hypotheses were tested at the alpha .05 level. The most significant finding of this study was the positive relationship between state anxiety and system response time. It was originally predicted that the Type A personality would experience a greater increase in state anxiety than the Type B personality. However, that was not found to be true. Both Type A and Type B individuals experience an increase in state anxiety during periods of poor or variable system response time. This study also confirms prior research regarding user and system response time. There is a significant positive relationship between user response time and system response time. Personality type, specifically the Type A personality, contributes toward this relationship.

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The increasing popularity of the World Wide Web (WWW) has created a new market: Web access through television to accommodate those who either cannot afford existing hardware or are intimidated by computers. Current efforts to combine the WWW and television have targeted potential novice users. One of the approaches for creating a WWW browsing system that is both simple to use and inexpensive is the utilization of the existing cable system to provide Web access through television. Some unique characteristics of this browsing system are fast access to the Web, the use of nine buttons on a universal remote control, and an index structure for reaching Web sites. Since browsing the Web through television is relatively new, many interface issues need to be examined. The purpose of this research was to investigate potential user interface designs for this WWW browser and to evaluate the usability of the nine-button interface. Sixteen volunteers participated in the experiment and were asked to navigate to specific Web sites with two interface formats, five different system lag times (0.2, 0.7, 1.3, 2.0, and 3.0 seconds), and three feedback styles (active feedback, passive feedback and no feedback). Participants were prescreened for their experience with computers and browsing the Web. The experiment was conducted in a living room setting to simulate real life situations and participants were given a total of 42 tasks to complete throughout the experiment. Each task consisted of navigating through the tree structure with either one of the two interface formats until reaching a designated Web site. The number of errors committed and task completion times were recorded. In addition, participants were asked to rate the WWW browser system after each task as well as after the entire experiment. Participants preferred the 0.2 second system lag and the active feedback style. Overall, they committed fewer errors and took less time to complete tasks with the tabbing interface than with the one-to-one mapping interface. Experienced participants committed more errors than did the inexperienced ones. Increase of system lag time was determined to have a greater adverse effect on the tabbing interface than on the one-to-one mapping interface. / Master of Science

Outcrops of late Quaternary deposits along the north–east coast of Mallorca were examined, and a high resolution chronological framework established using optically stimulated luminescence of quartz and feldspar grains. Coastal sections at Es Barrancar and Cala Mata record a complex succession of alluvial fan deposition with a minor aeolian component, mainly deposited during the last two glacial cycles. For the last ~200ka different orbital configurations appear to have produced a series of subtly different climatic scenarios that resulted in great variations in the regional availability of moisture. In turn, each of these climatic scenarios set in motion a distinct set of sedimentary processes, which imprinted themselves upon the character of fluvial system response recorded in the alluvial archives on Mallorca. Within the resulting complex of sediments were units of fluvially reworked aeolianite which, although truncated in places, were traceable laterally along wide sections of the sea front outcrops of both fan systems. These archives yielded 47 new OSL and pIRIR290 ages which suggest a number of previously unrecognised periods of enhanced fluvial activity. Luminescence ages identify significant ephemeral fluvial activity taking place during MIS 6, MIS 5 sub-stages d/c, b/a, and across the MIS 5/4 boundary. Another major phase of reworking corresponds with the middle part of MIS 3, and continued sporadically into the Last Glacial Maximum. These fluvial reworking events have been interpreted as having taken place during cold arid climatic intervals, when vegetation was at a minimum, precipitation was low and displayed a much higher degree of seasonality, enhancing the effects of runoff.

The utilisation of navigation systems in cars has given rise to road safety concerns, and the design and functionality of such systems must therefore be adjusted to the users’ needs, since they have to divide their attention between driving and the operation of the navigation system. The study was aimed at finding the optimum system response time (SRT) which would enable a driver to focus as much as possible on the road while attaining an efficient task completion time using an electronic navigational system. The research project consists of two separate experiments and was completed by 10 subjects. Experiment 1 included a temporal reproduction task and a secondary memory task. The subjects had to memorise two symbols and then reproduce six time spans ranging from 1 to 30 s to provide a baseline measurement of their time estimation abilities. Experiment 2 consisted of a simulated automobile driving task. While driving in the simulator the subjects completed a memorising task displayed on a touch screen. The task was presented with seven different system response times (SRTs) ranging from 0 to 30 s. The effects of different SRTs on the eye movement from road to monitor, regarding the duration of fixation and the frequency of change were evaluated. The distribution of gazes to the secondary task was analysed to provide information about the time estimation performance in the driving simulator. Other dependent variables tested were the accuracy of selected items, memory game performance, drive performance and the subjective state of the test person. The results of this study can be employed to find the optimum duration of inter-task delays for in-vehicle technical devices. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

This thesis recounts the experimental study of the dynamic response of a blast resistant glazing system to explosive loading. A combination of triaxial force sensors, pressure gauges, and laser displacement gauges capture the response in detail over a wide range of scenarios. The scenarios include low level blast loading to characterize the reaction at points around the perimeter of the window, moderate level blast loading to examine the repeatability of the blast scenario, and high level blast loading to capture the response during failure as the tensile membrane forms. The scenarios are modeled via an analytical Single-Degree-of-Freedom model as well as finite element modeling in ANSYS Explicit Dynamics. In addition, this study investigates some of the differences between experimental data and the predictions made by modeling.