Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Regional Review: Reaching New Heights In The Region Fall 2017 (Vol.4, No.1), Heather Garcia , Editor

Regional Campuses Publications

Sections include:

Save the date Chat with the Chancellor, Campus News, and Awesome Achievements for each of the three regional campuses.

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 58 Number 4, Fall 2017, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

18 - TIME FOR A BIG SHIFT We work and save for decades. And then what? A behavioral finance expert writes about the tough transition many face. By Meir Statman. Illustrations by Hanna Barczyk.

22 - WHAT WE OWE At the very least: stories that capture the contour of a life. A Pulitzer Prize– winning reporter on tales of human strife and resilience. By Tatiana Sanchez ’10.

28 - THE MOST IMPORTANT Lawsuit on the Planet It was first filed against the Obama administration and draws on decades of government records. It seeks no monetary damages. But advocates and critics …

Ethical Business Practice, Accountability, And Quality Assurance: Primary Drivers For Sustainable Tourism Development In Iceland, Abigail Harrison

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The tourism industry in Iceland has grown exponentially in the last decade, causing changes to the natural landscape and drastically shifting revenue streams in the economy. This rapid growth coupled with the recent development of Iceland’s tourism industry makes it the perfect case study for how to effectively mitigate tourism influxes. This unprecedented rate of growth impels the creation of sustainability measures within this industry in order to ensure a lasting vision of Icelandic tourism in the future. Both the government and private sector have already begun to institute sustainability measures in society and in business. The primary aim of …

The Role Of Young Environmental Activists In Iceland And Furthering Youth Engagement With Environmental Issues, Story Schwantes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper looks at the role of youth environmental activism in Iceland and how these actors view their work in a country which has long held a reputation as one of the greenest in the world. Much of the credit for that distinction goes not to careful choices, sacrifice, or excellent stewardship but rather to its ideal geography providing massive geothermal energy which Iceland turns into electricity, a clean renewable source. So are there young environmental activists in Iceland, and if so what do they do? Short answer: yes, and they study and talk. The long answer is more complex. …

Graduate Studies Newsletter, Graduate Studies Office

Newsletters

Pg. 2 & 3 - Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Marisol Cortes Rincon

Pg. 5 - Important Dates and Deadlines

Pg. 6 - Graduate Student Orientation Recap

Pg. 7 - Thesis & Project Submission Process Guide

Pg. 8 - Graduate Student & Alumni Profiles

Formalizing The Panarchy Adaptive Cycle With The Cusp Catastrophe, Martin Zwick, Joshua Hughes

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The panarchy adaptive cycle, a general model for change in natural and human systems, can be formalized by the cusp catastrophe of René Thom's topological theory. Both the adaptive cycle and the cusp catastrophe have been used to model ecological, economic, and social systems in which slow and small continuous changes in two control variables produce fast and large discontinuous changes in system behavior. The panarchy adaptive cycle, the more recent of the two models, has been used so far only for qualitative descriptions of typical dynamics of such systems. The cusp catastrophe, while also often employed qualitatively, is a …

Reactions To Imagery Generated Using Computational Aesthetic Measures, Prasad Gade, Mary Galvin, James O'Sullivan, Paul Walsh, Órla Murphy

Department of Computer Science Publications

This article examines whether textural generation system imagery evolved with computational aesthetic support can be judged as having aesthetic attributes, both when knowing and not knowing its true origin. Such a generation, depicting a digital landscape, is offered to two groups of participants to appraise. It is hypothesized that there will be no statistically significant difference between the groups on their appraisal of the image. Results from statistical analysis prove to be consistent with this hypothesis. A minority of participants, however, do exhibit significant differences in their perception of the image based on its means of production. This article explores …

Communiqué: College Of Humanities, Arts & Sciences Alumni Magazine, Volume 6, Fall 2017, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Humanities, Arts, And Sciences.

Communiqué: College of Humanities, Arts & Sciences Alumni Magazine

Inside this issue:
-- Message from the Dean
-- CHAS Briefs
-- Class Notes
-- Into the Woods
-- Wilson Lecture Turns 20
-- Environmental Ethics
-- Hearst Lectureship
-- Proud & Torn
-- Carver Grant Awarded
-- Physics 3 + 2 Program
-- Alum Speaks to UN
-- Clinic Director Named
-- Cornucopia
-- Woman in Innovation
-- Susan & Paul Rider

Man And Land: Competing Ontologies, Colonial Legacies, And The Quest For Food Sovereignty, Savannah Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Land is an ontological reality, which is at the center of different relationships to land. These relationships are situated in and a product of historical and spatial process that have an under lying power geometry. These different understandings of land tenure can create conflict when they intersect with competing interests in the same space. In Cameroon, this is currently the case in the form of large-scale land acquisitions, which often conflict with local communities as multinational corporations and local elites acquire land concessions with facilitation by the government in the name of development. This paper aims to understand this issue …

Climate Change And Migration: The Intersection Of Climate Change, Migration, And Gender Through Policy, Bridget E. Mccallum

Student Publications

This article explores the intersectional nature of the issue of climate change, especially as it relates to migration. Both migration and climate change are issues of global significance, with benefits and burdens distributed unevenly across gender, racial, and class lines. This intersectional approach takes note of the unequal power structures at play when attempting to combat these issues with policy.

A Critical Examination Of The Climate Change Vulnerability And Adaptation Literature In Nunavut, Canada, Sarah Prentice

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper attempts to study the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature in Nunavut, a province in the Canadian Arctic. The paper begins with a review of literature produced by Inuit organizations on colonization in the Canadian Arctic and Nunavut specifically, then systematically reviews the literature on climate change vulnerability and adaptation. Using a post-colonial analysis, this study found that while the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature attempts to attend to colonial histories and legacies, it often falls short. Climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature had minimal representation of colonization, residential schooling, sanatoria, and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. This may perpetuate …

Shift In Icelandic Plant Populations Due To Climate Change: Through The Lens Of Natural Dyes, Molly Pluenneke

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Northern residing plant species are at the highest risk for extinction due to temperature rise related to climate change (Schöb, Manuel, Choler & Veit, 2009). Climate change has also led to a northern shift in the geographic distribution of plant species (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). This could lead to a necessary alteration in the way natural resources are utilized in arctic countries like Iceland (Lim-Camacho et al, 2017). The purpose of this study is to analyze the way in which Icelandic plant species used in natural dye practices may shift in distribution due to climate change and the potential impact …

Exploring Rwanda's Continuing Education Capacity For Information Communications Technology (Ict) Skills, Li Keen Lim

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As Rwanda strives to become the ICT hub of the region, it will need to develop its greatest asset: its people, in ICT skills. This exploratory study used 30 semi-structured interviews, observation and secondary data from different sources, schools, students and NGOs, to answer a simple question: how does an everyday, working adult Rwandan learn new computers skills for a new computer age? This study found that a wide variety of suppliers fulfil different niches that give prospective students a range of prices, content, schedules, certification, practices, etc., and that demand is increasing for a host of different reasons. It …

Russia's Northern Rook: Nord Stream 2 On The European Energy Chessboard, David E. Wilson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline proposes to connect Germany to the world’s largest natural gas reserves in Russia, allowing the state-owned Russian energy behemoth Gazprom to double its export capacity through the ‘Northern Corridor’ transit route to Europe. This project has been the subject of sharp disapproval from Central and Eastern European countries, as well as the United States, which fear the prospect of increasing dependence on gas imports from a Russia perceived as politically aggressive and unreliable. This paper will identify the geopolitical and geoeconomic implications involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 by adopting a geostrategic worldview …

Automatic Music Transcription With Convolutional Neural Networks Using Intuitive Filter Shapes, Jonathan Sleep

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the challenge of automatic music transcription with a combination of digital signal processing and machine learning methods. Automatic music transcription is important for musicians who can't do it themselves or find it tedious. We start with an existing model, designed by Sigtia, Benetos and Dixon, and develop it in a number of original ways. We find that by using convolutional neural networks with filter shapes more tailored for spectrogram data, we see better and faster transcription results when evaluating the new model on a dataset of classical piano music. We also find that employing better practices shows …

The Santa Clara, 2017-09-28, Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara

No abstract provided.

In Place: September 24, 2017, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

In PLACE is a newsletter designed to keep the Linfield College community apprised of information related to PLACE activities, as well as ways to bring the program into classes. Included in this issue:

• PLACE: What's In It for Faculty?
• PLACE: What's In It for Students?
• PLACE in the News
• Last Week in PLACE

Notes On Eryx, Omega, And Ata, Victor Fet

Victor Fet

Observations on several Nabokov’s works (Pale Fire, Lolita) where geographic or zoological names provide sources for puns and hidden parallels.

The Teszler Times, Melissa Clapp

Library Publications

"The Teszler Times" is the faculty newsletter for the Sandor Teszler Library at Wofford College. The fall 2017 issue contains a message from Dean Kevin Reynolds, information about various services including our redesigned website with a special section for services for faculty, and an easy online form to use for submitting course reserves. The newsletter also features announcements for the upcoming banners to be hung outside the library and the new New Books area, now located adjacent to the Writing Center. Finally, statistics from the 2016-2017 school year show interesting facts about how the Sandor Teszler Library is used.

Computer Science And Cultural History: A Dialogue, David B. Dennis, George K. Thiruvathukal

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

History Of Computing, George K. Thiruvathukal, David B. Dennis

David B. Dennis

The social and organizational history of humanity is intricately entangled with the history of technology in general and the technology of information in particular. Advances in this area have often been closely involved in social and political transformations. While the contemporary period is often referred to by such names as the Computing and Information Age, this is the culmination of a series of historical transformations that have been centuries in the making. This course will provide a venue for students to learn about history through the evolution of number systems and arithmetic, calculating and computing machines, and advanced communication technology …

In Place: September 8, 2017, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

In PLACE is a newsletter designed to keep the Linfield College community apprised of information related to PLACE activities, as well as ways to bring the program into classes. Included in this issue:

• PLACE and What's the Big Idea?
• Spotlight On: The First Year Experience
• Our PLACE Theme in the News

Desert Pool {If Every Desert Was Once A Sea}, Karen Miranda Abel

The Goose

Desert Pool {If every desert was once a sea} is a site-specific art project by Canadian artist Karen Miranda Abel completed in 2016 while artist-in-residence at Joya: arte + ecología, an arts-led research centre situated in an alpine desert within a national park in southern Spain. The elemental installation represents an envisioning of the ancient sea that occupied the Sierra de María-Los Vélez Natural Park millions of years before the current desert ecology, a time when its highest mountain peaks may have been islands.

Multifractal Structure In Nonrepresentational Art, Jonas R. Mureika, C. C. Dyer, G. C. Cupchik

Jonas Mureika

Multifractal analysis techniques are applied to patterns in several abstract expressionist artworks, painted by various artists. The analysis is carried out on two distinct types of structures: the physical patterns formed by a specific color (“blobs”) and patterns formed by the luminance gradient between adjacent colors (“edges”). It is found that the multifractal analysis method applied to “blobs” cannot distinguish between artists of the same movement, yielding a multifractal spectrum of dimensions between about 1.5 and 1.8. The method can distinguish between different types of images, however, as demonstrated by studying a radically different type of art. The data suggest …

Sheaf Theoretic Formulation For Consciousness And Qualia And Relationship To The Idealism Of Non-Dual Philosophies, Menas Kafatos, Goro Kato

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Questions about the nature of reality, whether Consciousness is the fundamental reality in the universe, and what is Consciousness itself, have no answer in systems that assume an external reality independent of Consciousness. Ultimately, the ontological foundation of such systems is the absolute division of subject and object. We advocate instead what we consider to be an approach that is in agreement with the foundation of quantum reality, which is based on Rāmānuja’s version of Vedanta philosophy and non-dual Kashmir Śaivism. Quantum mechanics opened the door to consciousness, but it cannot account for consciousness. However, the quantum measurement problem implies …

History Of Computing, George K. Thiruvathukal, David B. Dennis

George K. Thiruvathukal

The social and organizational history of humanity is intricately entangled with the history of technology in general and the technology of information in particular. Advances in this area have often been closely involved in social and political transformations. While the contemporary period is often referred to by such names as the Computing and Information Age, this is the culmination of a series of historical transformations that have been centuries in the making. This course will provide a venue for students to learn about history through the evolution of number systems and arithmetic, calculating and computing machines, and advanced communication technology …

Student Fellows 2017-2018, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

This document provides biographies of PLACE student fellows at Linfield College for 2017-2018.

Faculty Fellows 2017-2018, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

This document provides biographies of PLACE faculty fellows at Linfield College for 2017-2018.

The Digital Citizen, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

This document explains the PLACE theme at Linfield College for 2017-2018 (The Digital Society: The Digital Citizen).

Gold Nanoparticle Colorants As Traditional Ceramic Glaze Alternatives, Raef H. Lambertson, Christie A. Lacy, Samuel D. Gillespie, Michael C. Leopold

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Historically, Roman stained glass has been a standard for high‐temperature color stability since biblical times but was not properly characterized as emission from nanoparticle plasmon resonance until the 1990s. The methods under which it was created have been lost, but some efforts have recently been made to recreate these properties using gold nanoparticle inks on glassy surfaces. This body of work employs gold nanoparticle systems ranging from 0.015% to 0.100% (wt/wt), suspended in a clear glaze body. The glazes are fired with traditional ceramic methods—in both gas reduction and electric oxidation kilns—in which nanoparticles are retained and can be imaged …