Mountain Scholar

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Colorado State University, Fort Collins 27198
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Open Textbook Library Archive 25
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University Press of Colorado 1067
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Recent Submissions

Access status: Open Access ,
A conductor's analysis of Charles Carter's Overture for Winds
(2025) Wynja, Arjen S., author; Phillips, Rebecca, advisor; Taylor, Jayme, committee member; Herman, Christina, committee member
The senior thesis is a capstone project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Colorado State University Honors Program. To make this project relevant to my undergraduate degree in music education and future career, I choose to study the large ensemble rehearsal process. My advisor is Dr. Rebecca Phillips, Director of Bands at Colorado State University, and a former secondary school band director. Other committee members are Dr. Jayme Taylor and Dr. Christina Herman. The subject work of the thesis is Charles Carter's Overture for Winds, and the project contains the following exercises: a written conductor's analysis, meetings with Dr. Phillips throughout the term, and rehearsal and festival performance of Overture for Winds with the Fossil Ridge High School (FRHS) Symphonic Band. The performance is at the Rocky Mountain HS Concert Band Festival on November 20. The purpose of this project is to practice the process of detailed score study, learn how this study, in turn, allows for efficient rehearsal, and how the efficient rehearsal provides a platform for a successful performance for students. Additionally, this project will prepare me for larger scale works in graduate school. The score study and rehearsal process is a foundational skill that will serve me throughout my career. Finally, this analysis of Charles Carter's Overture for Winds will serve as a helpful resource for other conductors in their preparation of the work. The body of this thesis consists of two main sections. Section One is a biographical sketch about Charles Carter and analysis of his compositional voice, and Section Two is a theoretical and rehearsal analysis of Overture for Winds. In Section One, the biographical sketch discusses Carter’s early life, teachers and influences, major career phases, and relevant historical context. I also examine Carter's compositional voice through the elements of music, including form, melody, harmony, tonality, texture, rhythm/tempo, and orchestration, how he uses them in his music, and how this compares to the work of his contemporaries. Section Two is a theoretical and rehearsal analysis which covers all notable elements of music in each section of the work, ordered chronologically. The theoretical analysis explores Carter's use of the elements of music in the construction of the piece, while the accompanying rehearsal analysis discusses how a conductor might apply this content with their ensemble. This includes technical considerations, orchestration challenges, and other items covered in rehearsal. Musical figures and tables are used as needed.
Access status: Open Access ,
Performance driven global routing for large scale macro-cell based designs
(2005) Alkan, Cengiz, author; Chen, Thomas Wei, advisor
Technology scaling to the sub-micron feature sizes for complementary metal oxide silicon (CMOS) devices has led to decreased device cost and increased performance, but it has singled out interconnects which do not scale well. Such rapid scaling has introduced new challenges for CMOS interconnects. The main challenge is to support interconnect optimization with minimum performance cost. Thus, new design methodologies, algorithms as well as the integration of new materials, are needed to achieve the design closure. The ability to concurrently synthesize interconnects and logic to achieve the best overall solution is the key for next generation of very large scale integration (VLSI) designs. The traditional sequential design flow implies that block design be completed prior to routing. Routing and timing failures often require changes to the block design in the early stages of the design flow. Consequently, any change to the block design will have an impact on the routing. This expensive design loop may converge slowly or may not converge to a desired solution at all. To allow a net-centric design methodology, design of interconnects needs to be an integral part of the overall design flow. Routing-driven/aware design methodologies also contribute positively to the quality of the final solution. As design rules scale further down to the deep sub-micron region, achieving the design closure will get harder due to a variety of emerging problems: · Congestion management is critical since a detour around congested areas as well as the possible coupling in congested areas has a negative impact on delay. · More accurate delay analysis is needed to adequately address the nanometer effects. · Layer assignment has to be done with tighter integration of performance-driven routing-tree construction and buffer insertion to obtain an optimal routing. · Faster and more efficient algorithms are needed to accomplish the required tasks in reasonable time. Current methods attack the above issues separately in a sub-optimal fashion. A greedy sequential router or routing net-by-net suffers from slow convergence and does not scale well with design complexity. There is a certain degree of uncertainty and unpredictability to the final routing result since its result is net order dependent. A multi-commodity flow router attempts to solve this net ordering problem by routing all the nets concurrently, but often fails to minimize congestion. More importantly, it suffers from long run-time due to the size and complexity of the optimization model, routing-tree construction algorithms also suffer from sub-optimality by considering timing-driven Steiner-tree construction, layer assignment and buffer insertion separately. Addressing these issues due to the complexity of the overall global routing problem requires careful planning of runtime-quality trade-offs. In this dissertation, a new global routing solution to address the forementioned issues is implemented and presented. The approach to the global routing problem was to construct a performance-driven routing-tree simultaneously considering layer assignment and buffer insertion, and then optimizing the congestion, within the bounding box of the net to meet the projected delay requirements, using a mixed-integer programming routing model and a novel network-flow model. The global routier utilizes a new performance-driven buffered routing-tree construction algorithm, a mixed-integer programming pre-routing stage and a new network-flow routing model to complete the task. In the first stage, we present a routing-tree construction algorithm that considers multi-objectives of performance, power and congestion concurrently. In contrast to the traditional algorithms which assume underlying routing-tree already exists, a concurrent Steiner-tree construction, layer assignment and buffer insertion algorithm is used to obtain a better overall result in terms of delay violations and routing resources. As routing-trees are being constructed, critical nets are assigned to the appropriate metal layers and/or buffers are inserted to achieve a positive slack at sinks. Congestion is measured with balanced usage of routing resources among layers. An accurate delay calculation engine using an asymptotic waveform evaluation model is used to obtain delay violations at sinks. Simultaneous buffer insertion and layer assignment tends to produce routing-trees with shorter overall length. After synthesizing the routing-trees, We use a three-stage global-routing algorithm based on mixed-integer programming and a novel network-flow model. While the performance tuned routing-trees provided by our Steiner-tree construction algorithm are routed by mixed-integer programming model considering the congestion on global level, the network-flow model based router performs more localized congestion optimization. Furthermore, we introduced various methods to improve the routing quality sin terms of cross-talk and via count. The second stage provides a rough two-bend routing and manages congestion at the global level. This is achieved by utilizing zero-slack values of mixed-integer programming to determine if a routing segment can be minimized further. Since routing and congestion information was not known to the first stage, some nets might fail to route. A layer assignment algorithm based on quadratic programming is used to further tune the layer assignment. In the third stage, we center on the congestion on optimization and via reduction by bisecting the layout hierarchically for each routing layer. A novel network-flow model, which can be solved hundreds of times faster than a mixed-integer programming model, is used to minimize the congestion through a cut line. Similar to the second stage, zero-slack flows are used to determine which routing segment can be further optimized. Via reduction is achieved by assigning cost values to the network arcs such that bends have higher cost. In the fourth stage, a series of heuristics such as edge flipping, detour and a maze router are used to clear the remaining overflows and via pad violations. The results from various test cases including a subset of the routes on a commercial 64-bit microprocessor core show that our method outperforms commercial CCT router. On average, we achieved 29% less delay violations, 40% less repeater usage on the resulting routing-trees, 20% less maximum delay violation and better congestion distribution.
Access status: Open Access ,
The influence of sexual orientation on judgments of suicidal behavior and suicidal individuals
(2005) Cato, Jennifer Ellen, author; Canetto, Silvia, advisor; Asmus, Cheryl L., committee member; Bigner, Jerry, committee member; Viney, Wayne, committee member
Sexual minority young persons are more likely to engage in nonfatal suicidal behavior than their heterosexual peers. A frequently cited precipitant of nonfatal suicidal behavior among sexual minority youth is the personal and interpersonal turmoil associated with coming to terms with one's sexual identity. This study explored sexual minority (N =104) and heterosexual (N =145) university students' reactions to a suicidal decision and suicidal peer who became suicidal in response to one of the following precipitants: coming to terms with one's sexual orientation, being rejected by one's parents following "coming out," a relationship loss, an achievement failure, and a physical illness. Respondents evaluated the suicidal decision in terms of its valence and its activity/passivity. Consistent with past studies of attitudes about suicidal behavior, only physical illness was singled out as a relatively understandable precipitant for suicidal behavior. Sexual minority respondents viewed the suicidal decision less negatively than heterosexual respondents, independent of precipitant. Male respondents were more critical of the suicidal decision than were females, but not when past suicidal ideation and lifetime number of suicidal acts were controlled for. Persons who had recently engaged in suicidal behavior were less accepting of the suicidal decision. Respondents also evaluated the suicidal individual with regard to character, emotional adjustment, femininity/masculinity, and perceived suicidal intent. Persons who engaged in suicidal behavior as a result of a physical illness were perceived as less maladjusted than persons who became suicidal in response to any other precipitant. Sexual minorities rated the suicidal person as having more character and being more emotionally adjusted than did heterosexual respondents, independent of the precipitant of the suicidal behavior. Previous suicidal ideation enhanced this effect. Overall, the attitudes revealed in this study suggest a greater acceptance, on the part of sexual minority individuals, of suicidal behavior as a way to cope with a range of adversities, as well as more positive evaluations of suicidal peers.
Access status: Open Access ,
Arthropod damage in corn across site-specific management zones and differing water and nitrogen levels
(2005) Davidson, Silas Andrew, author; Peairs, Frank, advisor; Hein, Gary, committee member; Khosla, Rajiv, committee member; Holtzer, Thomas, committee member
Site-specific insect management has the potential to make pest management more efficient, but has yet to be implemented. One method of implementing site-specific management would be to make decisions at the management zone level. Management zones are homogenous subregions within a field that can be managed in a similar manner. No studies have yet related insect damage to management zones. In this study site-specific management zones (SSMZ) defined by yield potential were used with the purpose of determining whether arthropod damage differs across SSMZ. The influence of water and nitrogen levels were also analyzed. The study was conducted in a com (Zea mays L.) agroecosystem at Colorado State University's Agricultural Research, Development, and Education Center (ARDEC) near Fort Collins, Colorado from 2002 to 2004. Four common arthropod pests of com were studied: European com borer (Ostrinia nubilalis [Hübner]), western com rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera [Leconte]), western bean cutworm (Richia albicosta [Smith]), and Banks grass mite (Oligonychus pratensis [Banks]). Infestations of each pest were created within each SSMZ by artificially infesting pests or manipulating natural populations. Damage for western com rootworm and Banks grass mites was greater in high yielding areas. European com borer had differential survival across SMMZ. Differences in damage for western bean cutworm were unclear. The results indicated that arthropod damage for some pests did differ among SSMZ and therefore site-specific management might be beneficial.
Access status: Open Access ,
Beaver as drivers of hydrogeomorphic and ecological processes in a mountain valley
(2005) Westbrook, Cherie Jennifer, author; Cooper, David J., advisor; Binkley, Dan, committee member; MacDonald, Lee, committee member; Loftis, Jim, committee member
In aquatic and semi-aquatic environments of North America, beaver (Castor canadensis) affect landscape structure and dynamics at a level rivaled only by humans. The objective of this dissertation is to identify the influence of beaver dams on hydrologic, geomorphic, and ecological processes in a mountain valley. The influence of two in-channel beaver dams and a 10-year flood event on surface inundation, groundwater levels, and flow patterns was examined in a 1.5-km section of the Colorado River valley in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado during the summers of 2002-2005. The two beaver dams and associated ponds controlled surface water and groundwater flow patterns over a larger portion of the valley and for a longer duration than a 10-year recurrence-interval flood. Most importantly, the primary hydrologic effects occurred downstream of the dams rather than being confined to the near-pond area. The dams attenuated the expected water table decline in the drier summer months for 9 and 12 ha of the 56-ha study area. My results suggest that beaver can create hydrologic regimes suitable for the formation and persistence of wetlands on large floodplains. The mechanism of beaver meadow formation was also examined by measuring sediment deposition, nutrient availability and plant species cover in a 4.3-ha area of the valley that was hydrologically influenced by one of these beaver dams. The in-channel dam triggered overbank flooding in the study area, killing vegetation in areas that were deeply flooded and deposited ~750 m3 of sediment on the floodplain and terrace west of the river. The study area formed a spatially heterogeneous beaver meadow after the dam failed and the area drained. Bare sediment was quickly colonized by Carex utriculata and C. aquatilis forming sedge-dominated communities on wet sites and early successional grasses such as Critesion jubatum and Agrostis scabra forming grasses-dominated communities on dry sites. Willow and aspen seedlings were found throughout the beaver meadow, suggesting that the sedge and grass plant communities may succeed to a shrub-carr community, facilitating future reoccupation of the site by beaver.