Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universitat̋ St Gallen, 1998. / "Dissertation Nr. 2122." Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-360).

Automatic analysis of conversations is important for extracting high-level descriptions of meetings. In this work, as an alternative to linguistic approaches, we develop a novel, purely bottom-up representation, constructed from both audio and video signals that help us char- acterize and build a rich description of the content at multiple temporal scales. Nonverbal communication plays an important role in describing information about the communication and the nature of the conversation. We consider simple audio and video features to extract these changes in conversation. In order to detect these changes, we consider the evolution of the detected change, using the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) at multiple temporal scales to build an audio-visual change scale-space. Peaks detected in this representation yields group turn based conversational changes at dierent temporal scales. We use the NIST Meeting Room corpus to test our approach. Four clips of eight minutes are extracted from this corpus at random, and the other ten are extracted after 90 seconds of the start of the entire video in the corpus. A single microphone and a single camera are used from the dataset. The group turns detected in this test gave an overall detection result, when compared with dierent thresholds with xed group turn scale range, of 82%, and a best result of 91% for a single video. Conversation overlaps, changes and their inferred models oer an intermediate-level de- scription of meeting videos that are useful in summarization and indexing of meetings. Since the proposed solutions are computationally e cient, require no training and use little domain knowledge, they can be easily added as a feature to other multimedia analysis techniques.

This dissertation rhetorically analyzes the ways in which ineffable moments of awakening are constructed in the context of three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Zen. Close textual analysis revealed that awakening is constructed differently in all three religions and that ineffability itself assumed different meanings in all cases. The conventional understanding of language as arbitrary and as based on human convention does not apply to Hebrew which takes itself to be a sacred language. Words are understood in this tradition as creative elements that convey more than trivial information and the term ineffability does not occupy much thought in Judaism. Christianity is grounded in a representative model of language and equates words with mortality and temporality. Awakening is constructed ontologically as moments in which textuality and corporality are transcended and one merges with the infinite divine. Zen is cautious about the ways in which language constructs the illusion of distinct identities, but ineffability is not constructed as an ontological concept in this tradition. Awakening is understood as beyond all words. The tropes recognized in the Jewish construction of awakening are metonymy, dialogue, differences, juxtapositions, particularities, haunting, and intertextuality. In Christianity, the dominant tropes are allegory, typology, metaphors, substitution, replacement and abstraction. Awakening is modeled after the resurrection of Jesus and is understood as a dramatic and ineffable event. The dominant rhetorical moves in Zen are suchness, nonsense, and paradoxes. Differences are also found between the construction of subjectivity, the perception of time, aesthetics, the linguistic model and ineffability. Judaism views itself as an architecture of time, but this time is not linear and is instead understood by the qualitative moments of the events. Awakening maintains the reverberations of past events into the present, but present moments are given significant attention. In Christianity, man is understood as grounded in space and progressing on a linear axis of time from birth towards his telos. Ineffability is constructed spatially and the event of awakening divides life into before and after. Zen attempts to deconstruct time and views it as sunyata, or “emptiness”. / text

The objective of this study was to determine the safety impacts of right turn followed by U-turn movements (RTUT) at signalized intersections as well as median openings. RTUT movements are the most common alternatives to direct DLT movements(DLT). In order to achieve such data in a shorter amount of time, conflict analysis was chosen to be useful in this study as opposed to crash analysis. Additionally, data collection sites were divided dependent on certain geometric criterion and conflict data was recorded by the use of video recording equipment. Seven out the eleven conflict types used during the study were related to RTUT movements while the remaining observed conflicts were related to DLT movements. The safety comparison of right turns followed by U-turns to direct left turns at traffic signal sites indicated that DLT movements generated two times more conflicts per hour than RTUT movements. When the effects of traffic volumes have been taken into consideration, RTUT movements had a 5 percent higher conflict rate than DLT movements. At median opening sites, DLT movements generated 10 percent more conflicts per hour than RTUT movements. Furthermore, the other conflict rate, which takes the effect of traffic volumes into consideration, was 62 percent higher for DLT movements as compared to RTUT movements.Impacts of separation distance on safety of RTUT movements were investigated by a regression model. The model investigated impacts of U-turn bay locations and the number of lanes on major arterial on separation distance requirements. The model results indicated that U-turn bays located at signalized intersections and greater number of lanes on major arterials increases the minimum separation distance requirements. Finally, on four lane arterials U-turn distributions at median openings were analyzed to investigate how U-turns are accommodated at such locations. A u-turn regression model was developed to investigate impacts of median modifications on signalized intersection safety. The model results indicated that median modifications across the high volume driveways may cause safety problems at downstream signalized intersection.

Modeling of electrical machines play a very important role in a variety of applications such as performance analysis, characterization, fault diagnosis, condition monitoring and stress analysis of the machines. One of the important parameter while modeling the electrical machine is the magnetic characteristics of the core material. This plays a huge role in the performance characteristics and analysis of the electrical machines. Existing techniques available to determine the magnetic characteristics of a material are mainly Epstein and single sheet tester. These two tests are invasive and destructive method of testing the magnetic characteristics of the material. This research work takes up this problem and comes with a simple yet effective solution to determine the average magnetic characteristics of the material in the salient pole synchronous machine (SPSM). An FE model of the SPSM was developed to closely emulate the characteristics of the experimental machine. This FE model was first subjected to magnetostatic simulation under different field currents using a known magnetic material. Ampere turn distribution technique was used to determine the magnetic characteristics of the material. Following the determination of the new material, this material was used in the FE simulation of the SPSM running as a motor and a generator under varying load condition and field currents. Then these results were compared with the real machine to determine the effectiveness of the developed scheme. / Graduate

This Master’s Thesis seeks to explain the process of initiation undergone by Henry James’s characters. Characters are chosen for initiation into forbidden knowledge, and, like the Biblical Adam and Eve, are exiled as a result. Though initiation is erotic, it is not sexual, and society falsely perceives a sexually charged relationship between the initiator and the initiate, also called the complementary pair. The initiate faces exile and death because of his forbidden knowledge. He no longer has a place in his society, which leads to his social death and eventually physical death. James’s reader is initiated along with the characters, becoming a critical reader who no longer sees reading as a passive activity but brings his own judgment to the text. The Jamesian Reader does not face the same fate as the initiate, but he does change substantively as a result of his new perspective on the text.

The Victorian governess occupied a difficult position in Victorian society. Straddling the line between genteel and working-class femininity, the governess did not fit neatly into the rigid categories of gender and class according to which Victorian society organized itself. This troubling liminality caused the governess to become implicitly associated with another disturbing domestic presence caught between worlds: the Victorian literary ghost. Using Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw as a touchstone for each chapter, this thesis examines how the spectral mirrors the governess’s own spectrality – that is, her own discursive construction as a psychosocially unsettling force within the Victorian domestic sphere.

The National Agency for Education (Skolverket) and The Swedish National Curriculum stated that equality between female and male students is important. The present study investigates students in the subject English in Swedish upper secondary school and municipal school for adult education from the perspective of gender dominance in English conversation with a teacher present, with the focus on turn-taking. Two separate observations were made in three classes in adult education and two classes in upper secondary school. The research questions of this investigation are; which gender dominates the on-going conversation in English with a teacher present, how the turns were allocated, given or taken, and if the gender patterns differ between a municipal school for adults and an upper secondary school. The potential impact of the teacher's sex on the patterns of domination is also taken into consideration. Female dominance as well as male dominance is revealed in the result of the investigated classes' gender patterns. The results also reveal that the teacher's sex could have an impact on the patterns of domination.

Gas turbine blade/vane cooling is obtained by circulating the high pressure air from compressor to the internal cooling passage of the blade/vane. Heat transfer and cooling effect in the rotating blade is highly affected by rotation. The typical rotation number for the aircraft engine is in the range of 0~0.25 and for the land based power generation turbine in the range of 0~05. Currently, the heat transfer data at high rotation numbers are limited. Besides, the investigation of heat transfer phenomena in the turn region, especially near hub portion is rare. This dissertation is to study the heat transfer in rectangular channels with turns in the tip or the hub portion respectively at high rotation numbers close to the engine condition. The dissertation experimentally investigates the heat transfer phenomena in a two-pass rectangular channel (AR=W/H=2:1) with a 180 degree sharp turn in the tip portion. The flow in the first passage is radial outward and after the turn in the second passage, the flow direction is radial inward. The hydraulic diameter (Dh) of the channel is 16.9 mm. Parallel square ribs with an attack angle (alpha) of 45 degrees are used on leading and trailing surfaces to enhance the heat transfer. The rib height-to-hydraulic diameter ratio (e/Dh) is 0.094. For the baseline smooth case and the case with rib pitch-to-height ratio (P/e) 10, channel orientation angles (beta) of 90 degrees and 135 degrees were tried to model the cooling passage in the mid and rear portion of the blade respectively. Two other P/e ratios of 5 and 7.5 were studied at beta=135 degrees to investigate their effect on heat transfer. The data are presented under high rotation numbers and buoyancy parameters by varying the Reynolds number (Re=10,000~40,000) and rotation speed (rpm=0~400). Corresponding rotation number and buoyancy parameter are ranged as 0~0.45 and 0~0.8 respectively. The dissertation also studies the heat transfer in a two-pass channel (AR=2:1) connected by a 180 degree U bend in the hub portion. The flow in the first passage is radial inward and after the U bend, the flow in the second passage is radial outward. The cross-section dimension of this channel is the same as the previous one. To increase heat transfer, staggered square ribs (e/Dh=0.094) are pasted on leading and trailing walls with an attack angle (alpha) of 45 degrees and pitch-to-height ratio (P/e) of 8. A turning vane in the shape of half circle (R=18.5 mm, t=1.6 mm) is used in the turn region to guide the flow for both smooth and ribbed cases. Channel orientation angles (beta) of 90 degrees and 135 degrees were taken for both smooth and ribbed cases. The heat transfer data were taken at high rotation numbers close to previous test section.

This thesis reports the use of Paramics microscopic simulation software to model the differences between the performance of ten Christchurch intersections under the existing New Zealand road rule which requires left turning vehicles to give way to vehicles turning right into the same road, and a changed rule that would see the right turning vehicle have priority. Previous research concerning this issue is reviewed and the history of the existing road rule and recent moves to change it are discussed. At each of the ten intersections a range of traffic volume combinations was assessed and the journey times and queue lengths were compared. The ten intersections represent a range of different layouts and forms of control including give way signs, stop signs and traffic signals. The impact of a rule change on the use of shared lanes at intersections using a Paramics model of the Christchurch Central Business District, as developed for the Christchurch City Council, is also reported. Conclusions are drawn about which types of intersections and traffic volume combinations are likely to be affected by a rule change. The features of intersections that contribute to this susceptibility are identified and conclusions drawn about whether positive or negative effects are likely. It is concluded that there is no compelling intersection performance reason why the rule could not be changed. The successful implication of such change would require a review of the road network to identify critical intersections. Some monitoring and mitigation measures may also be required.