Two things are examined in this ethnography. The first regards a local stigmatization of the northern lights tourism industry in Iceland. A stigma, which this thesis argues, is related to a commercial saturation – or, pollution – of Icelandic national identity. The second regards the northern lights and their recent, though continual, cultural objectification, as a result of this commercialization. This will be illustrated with reference to how the northern lights are performed by guides on northern lights coach tours. These two topics will then be analyzed in view of Handler’s (1988) definition of cultural objectification: as the means with which tradition – national identity – is produced. In view of the above, the Icelandic tourism industry has boomed in the last decade. Tourists that come to Iceland desire its advertised pristine wilderness and exotic culture. Against this desire, the northern lights often fail to conform, relative to tourists’ expectations. Drawing from Baudrillard (1998) it will thus be argued that the northern lights are hyperreal and that the Icelandic nation, as a result, has come to acquire theme park like qualities. Taken together, this thesis analyzes the northern lights, and the northern lights coach tours, from the perspective of nationalism and cultural objectification.

A follow-up study of students who had attended Northern Lights College in 1978, was conducted two years later. The proposal for the study was submitted to the College Board and received partial funding. The population studied included all full-time students who had begun a programme of at least 30 days during the 1978 calendar year. The survey instrument was a one-page, mailed questionnaire. Students received the initial mailing, a reminder postcard and a telephone reminder and second questionnaire, if necessary. The response rate was 53%, based on the number of questionnaires assumed to have reached the students. The goals of the study were: to assess student satisfaction with their college experience and determine reasons for early withdrawal; to assess the relevance (from the students' point of view) of the college educational experience to employment and to further education; and to assess the change both in students' socio-economic status and job satisfaction prior to enrolment at the College compared with two years after leaving the College. Data were statistically analyzed using Chi-square, z-tests and analysis of variance. It was found that students were generally satisfied with their college experience. Reasons for early withdrawal were investigated, but the small sample size did not allow conclusive statements. Students' expectations for good job preparation were met two-thirds of the time. Two years after college, most respondents wished to be employed in their fields of study and the reasons some were not were examined. There was evidence of problems in the implementation of the apprenticeship programme; specifically, funding during training and the availability of adequate, appropriate work afterwards. One-quarter of respondents indicated they had gone on for further studies and most of those continued in areas related to their programmes at Northern Lights College. A large proportion of those continuing their education stayed within the college system and many returned to Northern Lights. Most students were satisfied with their preparation for further studies. The number of respondents employed full-time increased significantly after college. There was a significant difference in full-time employment by sex both before and after college, but no significant difference between college-age and adult-age respondents. Changes in occupational group after college were reviewed: groups showing the greatest increase in numbers were the skilled and semi-skilled occupations. The change in job status, as measured by the Blishen socio-economic scale, was significant and the difference in job status between the sexes was significant with males in lower ranking socio-economic groups both before and after college. Job satisfaction increased significantly after college for both sexes and both age groups. Two-thirds of respondents reported some increase in salary after college. The study concludes with 13 recommendations, based on student responses, to the College Board. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Pedestrian safety is among one of the largest concerns in the transportation profession. Many treatments have been developed and implemented to improve pedestrian safety. This current research focuses on the efficiency of in-pavement warning lights systems and involves multiple objectives. The primary objective is to evaluate the yielding rates and crosswalk usage of existing and proposed in-pavement lights systems with comparisons including before and after data through a case study approach. A secondary objective is to evaluate where drivers are looking when they approach in-pavement lights systems and develop a model to evaluate their behavior. The research described herein formulated these objectives into two research hypotheses and used statistical evaluation methodologies to provide quantitative and/or qualitative responses to the developed hypotheses. Data on pedestrian and driver behavior in the field, and the interaction between, them was collected using video camera technology in the Amherst, Massachusetts area. Data regarding drivers scan patterns during the approach to a crosswalk with in-pavement warning light system was collected using a driving simulator and an eye tracker. In total, 1,949 non-staged pedestrians and 606 staged pedestrians were observed crossing at the seven crosswalk locations in the field experiment and a total of 32 drivers participated in 576 crosswalk scenarios in the driving simulator evaluation. The field evaluation resulted in increased yielding rates and crosswalk usage after installation of in-pavement warning lights, while driving simulator evaluation resulted in drivers not becoming accustomed to scanning for lights instead of a pedestrian. Recommendations include installation of in-pavement warning lights at traditional, midblock crosswalks and continued exploration of all crosswalks in the driving simulator evaluation.

The implementation of In-Vehicle Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) is becoming a common occurrence in modern vehicles. Automobile manufacturers are releasing vehicles with many forms of sophisticated technologies that remove much of the responsibility of controlling an automobile from the driver. These In-Vehicle Intelligent Transport Systems have stemmed from a genuine need in regards to road safety, however there are advantages and disadvantages associated with ITS. Each different form of technology has its own inherent compromises in relation to road safety, driver behaviour and driver comfort. This thesis outlines the benefits and detrimental effects associated with current In-Vehicle Intelligent Transport Systems and details the development and user interface testing of an adaptive brake light. The adaptive brakelight concept aims to provide drivers with the advantages of an In-Vehicle ITS whilst removing the disadvantages. The technology will help drivers judge the braking pattern of the car in front, thus allowing them to react appropriately and potentially reducing the occurrence of rear-end crashes. The adaptive brake light concept was tested in comparison to a standard brake light and BMW inspired brake light in a series of user interface tests. The adaptive brake light was shown overall to be an improved method of displaying the varying levels of deceleration of a lead vehicle. Whilst different age and gender groups responded differently to the adaptive brake light, it was shown to be of benefit to the majority and the most at risk groups responded positively to the adaptive brake light. This research shows that an adaptive brake light can provide a benefit in regards to road safety when compared to a standard brake light interface. It is hoped that further development of variable brake lights will result from this research and possibly lead to the implementation of the technology to automobiles and other forms of transport.

The boundaries of the cities are not immutable, they can be changed. With the development of the economies and societies, the population and pollution of cities are increasing. Some urban areas are expanding with more population or other dynamics of urbanization, while other urban areas are reducing with the changing of the dynamics. Therefore, detecting urban areas or delineating the boundaries of the cities is one of the most important steps for urban studies, which is closely related to human settlements and human activities. Remote sensing data (RS) is widely used to monitor and detect land use and land cover on the surface of the earth. But the extraction of urban areas from the ordinary RS data is not easy work. The Operational Linescan System (OLS) is the sensors of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). The nighttime lights from the DMSP/OLS provide worldwide remotely sensed data to analyze long-term light emissions which are closely related to human activities. But the nighttime lights imagery data contains inherent errors. Therefore, the approaches to calibrate the data and extract the urban areas from the data are complicated. The long-term objective of this thesis is to delineate the boundaries of the natural cities of the continental United States of America (USA) from 1992 to 2010 of nightlight imagery data with all the different satellites. In this thesis, the coefficients for the intercalibration of the nightlight imagery data have been calculated based on the method developed by Elvidge, et al. (2009), but the coefficients are new and available. The approach used to determine the most appropriate threshold value is very important to eliminate the possible data error. The method to offset this possible error and delineate the boundaries of the cities from nightlight imagery data is the head/tail breaks classification, which is proposed by Jiang (2012b). The head/tail breaks classification is also useful for finding the ht-index of the extracted natural cities which is developed by Jiang and Yin (2013). The ht-index is an indicator of the underlying hierarchy of the data. The results of this study can be divided into two categories. In the first, the achieved coefficients for the intercalibration of nightlight images of the continental USA are shown in a table, and the achieved data of the urban areas are stored in a data archive. In the second, the different threshold values of the uncalibrated images and the individual threshold value of the calibrated images are shown in tables, and the results of the head/tail breaks classification and power law test are also drawn. The results show that the acquired natural cities obey the power law distribution. And the results also confirm that the head/tail breaks classification is available for finding a suitable threshold value for the nightlight imagery data. Key words: cities’ boundaries; DMSP/OLS; head/tail breaks classification; nighttime lights; power law; urban areas

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Mitchell L. Neilsen / The mobile world is rapidly changing: Smartphones have gone from portable messaging and email devices to streaming-video machines that surf the Web at blazing speed. Now-a-days a smartphone can provide computing capabilities, wireless communication capabilities, run software and perform other tasks just like any traditional computer. These amazing features of a smartphone and Open Source Android market helped in the development of this project. The purpose of this project is to develop an Android application for controlling various elements of user environment. User Controlled Environment is an Android application for home. The environment consists of smart lights, an Android mobile devices for playing music and a display. The application sends the user’s preferred settings to the environment and the respective settings are applied. The preferences are displayed on the screen. The user will be able to view and adjust a variety of environmental preferences. The preferences include the light’s color, light intensity, and the music. When the user exits the application the environment goes to a default state. The users can set preferences which include moods, seven colors of light, three levels of light intensity and songs that the users can select.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Reducing spacecraft ground system operations costs are a major goal in all missions. The Fast Auroral Snapshot (FAST) flight operations team at the NASA/Goddard Spacecraft Flight Center developed in-house scripts and procedures to automate monitoring of critical spacecraft functions. The initial staffing profile of 16x7 was reduced first to 8x5 and then to “lights out”. Operations functions became an offline review of system performance and the generation of future science plans for subsequent upload to the spacecraft. Lessons learned will be applied to the challenging Triana mission, where 24x7 contact with the spacecraft will be necessary at all times.

The world of industrial manufacturing has changed a lot during the past decades. It has gone from a labour-intensive process of manual control of machines to a fully connected and automated process. The next big leap in industrial manufacturing is known as industry 4.0 or smart manufacturing. With industry 4.0 comes increased integration between IT systems and the factory floor. This change has proven challenging to implement into existing factories many with the intended lifespan of several decades. One of the single most important parameters to measure is the operating hours of each machine. This information can help companies better utilize their resources and save huge amounts of money.  The goal is to develop a solution which can track the operating hours of the machines using image analysis and the signal lights already mounted on the machines. Using methods commonly used for traffic light recognition in autonomous cars, a system with an accuracy of over 99% during the specified conditions, has been developed. It is believed that if more diverse video data becomes available a system, with high reliability that generalizes well, could be developed using similar methodology. / Industriell tillverkning har förändrats mycket under de senaste decennierna. Det har gått från en process som krävt mycket manuellt arbete till en process som är nästan helt uppkopplad och automatiserad. Nästa stora steg inom industriell tillverkning går under benämningen industri 4.0 eller smart tillverkning. Med industri 4.0 kommer en ökad integration mellan IT-system och fabriksgolvet. Denna förändring har visat sig vara särskilt svår att implementera i redan existerande fabriker som kan ha en förväntad livstid på flera årtionden. En av de viktigaste parametrarna att mäta inom industriell tillverkning är varje maskins operativa timmar. Denna information kan hjälpa företag att bättre utnyttja tillgängliga resurser och därigenom spara stora summor pengar. Målet är att utveckla en lösning som, med hjälp av bildanalys och de signalljus som maskinerna kommer utrustade med, kan mäta maskinernas operativa timmar. Med hjälp av metoder som vanligen används för trafikljusigenkänning i autonoma fordon har ett system med en träffsäkerhet på över 99% under de förutsättningar som presenteras i rapporten utvecklats. Om mer video med större variation blir tillgänglig är det mycket troligt att det går att utveckla ett system som har hög pålitlighet i de flesta produktionsmiljöer.

Neste trabalho são investigados alguns aspectos relacionados com a programação de tempos de semáforos isolados. A seguir são comentados os principais resultados obtidos. Os valores obtidos na cidade de São Carlos são os seguintes: tempo médio total (no início e no final) perdido no verde mais amarelo por fase veicular nos semáforos igual a 3,12 s (interseção em nível e fluxo sem conversão); velocidade média dos pedestres na travessia em semáforos igual a 1,28 m/s e velocidade correspondente ao 85 percentil igual a 1,00 m/s. Com exceção de alguns casos especiais, os valores do atraso fornecidos pelos métodos: Webster, HCM-2000, Simulador Integration e Simulador Corsim são da mesma magnitude e, portanto, perfeitamente viáveis de serem utilizados nos estudos práticos. Na determinação dos tempos que compõem a fase destinada à travessia de pedestres em semáforos, os métodos Ferraz e MUTCD são mais indicados que os métodos Webster/Denatran e CET-SP, uma vez que proporcionam adequada segurança sem \"assustar\" os pedestres e com o mínimo de prejuízo à capacidade do fluxo veicular. O emprego de fase exclusiva para pedestres em semáforos com duas fases veiculares leva aos seguintes acréscimos aproximados nos valores do atraso médio dos veículos: 40% para fluxos veiculares até 1000 v/h, 25% para fluxos veiculares da ordem de 1100 v/h e 20% para fluxos veiculares da ordem de 1200 v/h. / In this research some aspects related to time programming of single traffic lights are investigated. The main results are commented as follows. The values obtained in the city of São Carlos are: total average lost time (in the beginning and in the end) in the green and yellow phases in each vehicular signal phase equal to 3.12 s (level intersection and flow without conversion), pedestrians average speed on the traffic lights crossing equal to 1.28 m/s and speed corresponding to the 85º percentile equal to 1.00 m/s. Except for some special cases, the values of the delay provided by the Webster, HCM-2000, Simulator Integration and Simulator Corsim methods are of the same magnitude and, therefore, they are perfectly feasible to use in practical studies. In determining the periods of the pedestrian crossing stage for the traffic signals, the Ferraz and MUTCD methods are more indicated than the Webster/Denatran and CET-SP methods, since they provide appropriate safety without \"scaring\" the pedestrians and with minimal damage to the vehicular flow capacity. The use of exclusive pedestrian phase at two vehicular stage signals leads to the following approximate increases in the values of the vehicles average delay: 40% to vehicle flow up to 1000 v/h, 25% for vehicle flow about 1100 v/h, and 20% for vehicle flow about 1200 v/h. In this research some aspects related to time programming of single traffic lights are investigated.

Os equipamentos fotoativadores apresentam diferentes características e elas podem influenciar na polimerização de restaurações em resina composta. O objetivo desse estudo foi avaliar as características de quatro equipamentos fotoativadores e verificar sua influência na polimerização de duas resinas compostas bulk fill. Os equipamentos fotoativadores Bluephase 20i (Ivoclar Vivadent), Celalux 3 (Voco), Elipar DeepCure-S (3M ESPE) e Valo Grand (Ultradent) foram avaliados quanto ao diâmetro da ponteira, à potência, à irradiância, ao espectro de emissão e ao perfil do feixe de luz, e utilizados na fotoativação das resinas compostas Filtek Bulk Fill Posterior Restorative - A2 (3M ESPE) e Tetric EvoCeram Bulk Fill - IVA (Ivoclar Vivadent). Matrizes de Delrin® brancas foram utilizadas para confecção de espécimes de 12 mm de diâmetro e 4 mm de espessura, sendo a dureza nas superfícies de topo e fundo desses espécimes avaliadas com 97 endentações por superfície, no centro e em todas as direções. Uma matriz de dente foi confeccionada para a avaliação da dureza transversal de restaurações de 12 mm de largura e 4 mm de profundidade, sendo feitas endentações no centro e nas regiões mesial e distal (4,5 mm do centro), a cada 0,5 mm de profundidade. Após os ensaios de microdureza, os espécimes foram imersos em Tetrahidrofurano por 24 horas. A transmissão de luz através dos espécimes também foi avaliada. Os dados obtidos foram analisados estatisticamente com testes de ANOVA e Tukey, com nível de significância de 5%, e teste t. Os valores de dureza mensurados nos espécimes confeccionados com auxilio das matrizes de Delrin® mostram que os fatores resina composta e superfície mensurada exercem influência sobre os resultados (p<0,05). A interação entre o fator equipamento fotoativador e a região das endentações também influenciou os resultados, sendo que o uso do Valo Grand não resultou em diferenças estatisticamente significantes entre os valores mensurados no centro e na região externa (p>=0,05). Quando o Celalux 3 foi utilizado, houve diferença estatisticamente significante entre os valores obtidos nas regiões central e externa (p<0,05). Os resultados de dureza mensurados nos espécimes confeccionados com a matriz feita com uso de dente humano mostraram diferenças estatisticamente significantes entre 10 e 20 segundos de fotoativação (p<0,05). O fator resina composta também exerceu influência sobre os resultados. Houve diferença estatisticamente significante entre o centro e as regiões mesial e distal quando todos os equipamentos fotoativadores foram utilizados (p<0,05). Também foi observada diferença estatisticamente significante entre os valores obtidos nas caixas mesial e distal dos espécimes (p<0,05). Os resultados de transmissão de luz mostraram que pouca luz violeta chega ao fundo dos espécimes e a posição e o tamanho da ponteira dos equipamentos fotoativadores influenciam na irradiância da luz que chega no fundo das caixas proximais de restaurações MOD. Os equipamentos fotoativadores apresentaram diferenças, sendo que elas, associadas à diferentes protocolos de fotoativação, influenciaram na dureza de restaurações confeccionadas com resinas compostas bulk fill. / Light curing units can present different characteristics and they can influence the polymerization of composite resin restorations. The aim of this study was to analyze the characteristics of four light curing units and verify their influence on the polymerization of two bulk fill composite resins. The light curing units Bluephase 20i (Ivoclar Vivadent), Celalux 3 (Voco), Elipar DeepCure-S (3M ESPE) and Valo Grand (Ultradent) were analyzed regarding their tip diameter, radiant power, irradiance, emission spectrum and light beam profile, and used for the photoactivation of the composite resins Filtek Bulk Fill Posterior Restorative - A2 (3M ESPE) and Tetric EvoCeram Bulk Fill - IVA (Ivoclar Vivadent). White Delrin® matrices were used for the confection of 12 mm diameter and 4 mm depth specimens, being their hardness measured at the top and bottom surfaces, with 97 indents per surface, at the center and all the directions. One matrix, made using human tooth, was used for the confection of 12mm wide and 4 mm depth restorations, in which the transversal hardness was measured. Indents were made at the center and the mesial and distal regions (4,5 mm from the center) of the restorations, at every 0,5 mm in depth. After the microhardness tests, the specimens were immersed in Tetrahydrofuran for 24 hours. The light transmission through the specimens was also analyzed. The obtained data was statistically analyzed with the ANOVA and Tukey tests, with a 5% significance level, and t test. The hardness values measured at the specimen made with the Delrin® matrices showed that the factors composite resin and surface influenced the results (p<0,05). The interaction between the light curing unit and the region of the indents also influenced the results, when the Valo Grand was used, there was no statistically significant difference between center and the external regions (p>=0,05). When the Celalux 3 was used, there was a statistically significant difference between the central and external regions (p<0,05). The hardness results obtained with the specimen made using the matrix of human tooth showed statistically significant differences between the 10 and 20 second photoactivation times (p<0,05). The factor composite resin also influenced the results. There was a statistically significant difference between the center and the mesial and distal regions when all the light curing units were used (p<0,05). There was also a statistically significant difference between the values measured on the mesial and distal boxes of the specimen (p<0,05). The light transmission results showed that little violet light reaches the bottom of the specimens and the position and the light curing unit\'s tip diameters influence the irradiance of light that reaches the bottom of the proximal boxes of MOD restorations. The light curing units showed different characteristics and they, associated to different photoativation protocols, influence the hardness of bulk fill composite resin restorations.