Night vision enhancement systems (NVESs) have been developed to improve visibility at night through supplementing drivers' direct vision with additional information shown on a display, rather than replacing drivers' direct vision. Existing studies have shown that NVESs may increase recognition distance, but may also increase drivers' mental and visual distraction (eyes-off-road). Each scan of the display of the night vision enhancement system involves some visual and mental cost to the driver. Automatic pedestrian warnings (APWs) have been integrated... ]]> Linzhen Nie http://iris.lib.neu.edu/elec_comp_theses/108 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/elec_comp_theses/108 Tue, 14 May 2013 12:09:24 PDT Collecting data continuously from Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) with limited power and bandwidth is a challenging problem. Such networks have potential utility in a wide range of disciplines such as medical, industrial, environmental, and military applications. For long-term monitoring and surveillance applications, the objective is often times to cover as large an area as possible while still acquiring high-resolution information about the sensed environment. The main challenges involve energy-efficiency and scalability of the techniques used to acquire the substantial amount of data from the sensor network. Addressing these challenges, we propose a method that effectively exploits both spatial and temporal... ]]> Daniel Parker http://iris.lib.neu.edu/biology_theses/24 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/biology_theses/24 Tue, 14 May 2013 11:42:56 PDT Environmental fluctuations associated with both natural events and anthropogenic impacts can appreciably alter the functioning of ecosystems. For example, in the Gulf of Maine, there is substantial spatial and temporal variation in availability of nutrients that fuel primary production. Macroalgae are important primary producers in intertidal and shallow benthic habitats, and they play essential roles in absorbing nutrients (e.g., inorganic C, N, and P) and mediating their availability (e.g., as organic C, N, and P) to the communities that they support. The ability of macroalgae to take up nutrients depends on nutrient availability. However, sometimes a nutrient in short supply... ]]> Valerie Catlin Perini http://iris.lib.neu.edu/criminal_justice_theses/4 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/criminal_justice_theses/4 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:17:15 PDT The goal of many self-help books on interpersonal relationships is for the reader to learn how to "just act natural." There are certain processes that interfere with one's ability to follow such advice, namely, the imposition of calculation of what is `natural' will not generate a reality where the "just natural" interaction that is occurring is believed. This thesis examines several implications of this as it relates to the social organization of experience and the limitations of self-help books in aiding in the learning production of that experience of expression games in informal interaction. These implications and limitations are examined... ]]> Michael Wesley Raphael http://iris.lib.neu.edu/english_diss/17 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/english_diss/17 Mon, 13 May 2013 10:07:03 PDT This dissertation examines the career arcs of four representative current poets in order to develop a tentative narrative to account for recent and emergent poetic practice. Poets who began publishing between the 1970s and 1990s inherited two powerful aesthetic traditions. On the one hand, they write in the shadow of postmodern poets who find liberation in the embrace of radical linguistic, epistemological/ontological, or subjective uncertainty and exhibit intense skepticism about intellectual closure or claims of privilege for aesthetic production. On the other hand, they also find aesthetic reserves in the work of high modernists who felt they faced similar philosophical... ]]> James A. Richie