Rhythm is one of the most fundamental and important elements of musical performance, but many scholars maintain that rhythm sight-reading remains one of the biggest challenges for musicians in high school ensembles. The purpose of this study was to determine the rhythm sight-reading strategies of accomplished high school instrumentalists and whether the strategies they used were aligned with their respective visual, aural, kinesthetic, or read/write learning styles as determined by their VARK Questionnaire responses. The five questions that guided this inquiry were: (1) What learning strategies do Florida All-State musicians demonstrate while previewing challenging notated rhythm rhythms? (2) What learning strategies do Florida All-State musicians demonstrate while sight-reading challenging notated rhythms? (3) What sensory learning styles (visual, aural, read/write, and kinesthetic) do these demonstrated learning strategies represent? (4) Which sensory learning styles do these All-State musicians generally prefer while learning, according to their VARK Questionnaire results? (5) How do the learning strategies used successfully and unsuccessfully by these All-State musicians while sight-reading notated rhythms relate to their sensory learning style preferences? The 30 participants included 11th- and 12th-grade band musicians who had successfully auditioned into the Florida All-State Band or Orchestra multiple times. The verbal protocol analysis (VPA) technique was used to identify each student’s rhythm sight-reading strategies as they previewed and performed challenging rhythms on a keyboard. Data were coded and scored a minimum of two times. Each student musician’s strategies were then compared with his or her learning style preferences as determined by their responses to the VARK Questionnaire. The findings revealed that the participants used a wide variety of sight-reading strategies during both their preview time and while performing rhythms. Participants’ modality preferences, as determined by their responses to the VARK Questionnaire, were aural (83.3%), kinesthetic (73.3%), read/write (56.7%), and visual (53.3%). A comparison of the participants’ learning strategies to their preferred learning style preferences revealed that all 30 of the participants aurally or internally vocalized the rhythm patterns using “dut” or “1-e-&-a” syllables. Additionally, all but one of them utilized kinesthetic pulse strategies. The results of the study suggest that musicians may benefit from learning varied kinesthetic pulse and aural rhythm pattern strategies, as well as visual strategies, in order to select the ones that they like to use and best facilitate the execution of rhythms successfully. Additional findings indicate that high school musicians should be given adequate practice time so they can develop and apply their preferred strategies.

Nicole Wilton is the program manager of the Community Music Education Program at the University of Saskatchewan. Huili Hong and Renee Rice Moran are assistant professors who teach literacy classes in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (CUAI) at East Tennessee State University. LaShay Jennings is a clinical instructor in CUAI who works with field-based student teachers. Ed Dwyer is a professor who teaches literacy classes in the same department. Nicole, Huili, Renee, LaShay and Ed have a great deal of interest in integrating artistic, social, and experiential strategies within instructional programs designed to enhance literacy achievement. According to these experts, students need to become physically, experientially, and emotionally as well as academically involved when learning sight words and in learning in general. Emphasis is placed on encouraging teachers and other instructional personnel to foster self-efficacy among their students through activities that generate success through products produced and learning experienced. Preparing a sturdy and attractive book focused on sight vocabulary in context is presented herein as a key strategy for both promoting self-efficacy and enhancing reading competence among students in the primary grades. Although the activity presented focuses on promoting sight word acquisition among primary grade readers, the strategies are adaptable to a wide variety of learning endeavours.

This study is an attempt to understand if backgrounds with color impact physiology and the ability of a viewer to see color.

The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) paradigm is expected to enable various practical applications such as environmental monitoring, underwater exploration, and disaster prevention. Supporting the concept of IoUT requires robust underwater wireless communication infrastructure. Optical wireless communication has the superiority of wide bandwidth, low latency, and high data capacity over its counterparts, namely, acoustic and radio-frequency. However, the transmission of the optical beam has inherent drawbacks in a harsh environment. Obstructions such as geometrical underwater terrains and underwater turbulence can pose a serious challenge to the alignment of the transmitter and the receiver. Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) configuration is a generalized alignment scheme between the transmitter and the receiver such that the strict requirement of precise alignment (point-to-point) is no longer needed. In this dissertation, the effectiveness of NLOS to withstand challenging underwater turbulence is examined. Thermal gradients with a maximum temperature difference of 10 ◦C had a negligible effect on the received power. The presence of air bubble clouds caused an increase of 38% of the received power when the bubble area increased from 5.2 to 80 mm$^2$. Additionally, various salinity concentrations ranging between 30-40‰ are emulated. A gain of 32.5% in the signal-to-noise ratio is observed when the salinity gradient increased from 0.08 to 0.4‰·cm$^{−1}$. Moreover, a reduction of 2.35 dB/m of the pathloss is noticed. The bit-error ratio is used to examine the communication quality using on-off-keying modulation scheme. In addition, this dissertation shows a practical wavelength-division multiplexing method based on large-area detection and wide field-of-view (FoV) photonic receiver. The dual-antenna is made of scintillating fibers with distinctive characteristics. An aggregated data rate of 1 Gbps is achieved. Two methods of wavelengths separation are demonstrated. Additionally a field deployment verification in an outdoor water pool is conducted at a maximum separation distance of 10m. The presented promising results pave the way for a robust underwater wireless optical sensor network that serves as a building block for achieving the goal of establishing IoUT.

Sight-reading is the act of performing a piece of music at first sight. This can be a difficult task to master, because it requires extensive knowledge of music theory, practice, quick thinking, and most importantly, a wide variety of musical material. A musician can only effectively sight-read with a new piece of music. This not only requires many resources, but also musical pieces that are challenging while also within a player's abilities. This thesis presents PiaNote, a sight-reading web application for pianists that algorithmically generates music based on human performance. PiaNote's goal is to alleviate some of the hassles pianists face when sight-reading. PiaNote presents musicians with algorithmically generated pieces, ensuring that a musician never sees the same piece of music twice. PiaNote also monitors player performances in order to intelligently present music that is challenging, but within the player's abilities. As a result, PiaNote offers a sight-reading experience that is tailored to the player. On a broader level, this thesis explores different methods in effectively creating a sight-reading application. We evaluate PiaNote with a user study involving novice piano players. The players actively practice with PiaNote over three fifteen-minute sessions. At the end of the study, users are asked to determine whether PiaNote is an effective practice tool that improves both their confidence in sight-reading and their sight-reading abilities. Results suggest that PiaNote does improve user's sight-reading confidence and abilities, but further research must be conducted to clearly validate PiaNote's effectiveness. We conclude that PiaNote has potential to become an effective sight-reading application with slight improvements and further research.

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Channel impulse responses collected on the Virginia Tech campus show combinations of specular multipath and diffuse scattering at LMDS frequencies. An algorithm is presented that estimates link performance based on the channel impulse response. Presented and analyzed are representative impulse responses (one is primarily specular in nature and one shows significant diffuse scattering) to show that the proposed algorithm is appropriate for analyzing channels exhibiting either of these characteristics. Monte Carlo simulations logged the sequence number of each bit error to gain an understanding of the distribution of errors over time. The results show that for these static channels the errors occur randomly rather than in bursts, leading to the conclusion that average bit-error rate statistics are appropriate for channel characterization. Zero-Forcing (Z-F) and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) equalizers employed on these channels had a significant impact on the link quality. In many cases, the performance of the MMSE equalizer performed only slightly better than the Z-F equalizer. However, when deep nulls were present in the channel response, the MMSE equalizer performed significantly better. Algorithms for determining the number of taps necessary to approach an optimum equalization are presented for both types of equalizers and a '98%' rule of thumb is presented. The algorithm's role in adaptive and cognitive radio systems is discussed and two applications are presented to illustrate its utility. / Ph. D.

Measuring periodic changes in the line-of-sight velocities of stars via spectroscopy (the “radial velocity technique”) is a well-established method to detect planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. As those distant stars orbit their system’s center of mass the radial velocity technique confirms that companions exist and allows for the measurement of fundamental parameters: companion masses, orbital characteristics, and, in some cases, aspects of atmospheric chemistry. Until recently Doppler spectrometers have been limited to detecting radial velocity signals of larger than one meter-per-second, a constraint that significantly hinders our discovery and characterization of small rocky worlds similar to our own. This is the motivation for developing instruments sensitive to extremely precise radial velocities (EPRVs, ??? < 1ms−1). This dissertation describes critical aspects of the development of one such spectrometer: the Palomar Radial Velocity Instrument (PARVI).Chapter 2 presents the characterization of the fine-guiding camera used in the fiber injection unit that couples light from Palomar’s extreme adaptive optics to the spectrograph’s single-mode fiber feed. Chapter 3 describes the data acquisition and data reduction pipelines for PARVI. It includes the methodology for acquiring data with a Teledyne H2RG array, the description of the wavelength calibration using a laser frequency comb, and the process for reducing the 2D echellogram down to a 1D spectrum. Chapter 4 reveals the discovery of a new and significant, polarization-dependent, instrument noise and a warning for those considering using single-mode fibers for high resolution spectroscopy. Chapter 5 contains the first results from PARVI commissioning data. This includes the detection of the Rossiter-Mclaughlin signal of the transiting planet HD 189733 b, and presence of water and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of HD 189733 b via transmission spectroscopy.

Understanding the process and the dynamics involved in news translation, as well as the challenges news translators face in my country of origin - The Gambia- has been a long-held goal, considering my background and experience as a former bilingual editor for Kuwait Oil Company and a senior news translator for Al-Watan Daily in Kuwait. The quest to unravel the enigmas surrounding news translation practices has always been a subject of great interest to me. With the intent of proffering pragmatic solutions to the attendant challenges of news translation in the Gambia, my focus is on providing well-researched recommendations. The study specifically seeks to answer questions regarding news translation processes and practices and how they have evolved over time in the Gambia. Furthermore, this study sheds light on the manifold professional and technical obstacles that confront news translators in the Gambia as they endeavour to render news content originally produced in English into Mandinka, which is one of the prominent Indigenous languages. It also delves into the broader linguistic landscape in the Gambia and other colonized territories from an indigenous perspective. Colonialism looms large over my study, considering the fact that news is translated from English, a minority colonial language imposed on the majority speakers of indigenous languages. The legacy of colonialism still lingers, with the news still being read in English first before it gets rendered in indigenous languages. Using qualitative methodology, my research explores the evolution and importance of news translation in the Gambia and the underlying factors behind the professional and technical challenges that Gambia’s news translators continue to wrestle with. Dowling, Lloyd, and Suchet-Pearson (2016) posit that this methodology is employed to comprehend the spatialities, interpretations, and experiences of social life. The undertaken field study has availed me of the opportunity to have a deeper understanding of some of those challenges and come up with recommendations that might hopefully address them, including language planning, the development of a monolingual Mandinka dictionary, translator training, the development of unique Mandinka writing systems, among others. My research participants were enthused to participate in the study, affirming that it was the first time ever a researcher approached them to have an idea about the dynamics of their work and include their findings in a thesis—an assertion that sustained the momentum throughout the journey.

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