KU ScholarWorks

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Recent Submissions

Open Access
Soñadora: A Practice in Decolonial Listening
(University of Kansas, 2025-12-31) Lazaro Moreno, Jaime Caleb
Soñadora is a practice-based dissertation that examines how listening, creative exchange, and testimonio can function as decolonial research practices within a specific set of relationships. Working with five participants—Julie Unruh, Cristina Castelan, Addie Mehl, Vanessa Reynaga, and Kongo—I invited each to self-record a story on a topic of their choosing and to select an object of reflection to guide their narration. Participants produced audio, video, and images, and I created a musical response to each recording as a form of reciprocal interpretation rather than data analysis. Drawing from testimonio studies, sound studies, and decolonial theory, the project treats storytelling as a relational process grounded in accountability, care, and collaborative meaning-making. The dissertation argues that listening and creative reply can open forms of understanding that arise in the particular conditions of this project—its participants, its methods, and its commitments—rather than through generalizable procedure. Soñadora offers one example of how artistic practice can shape decolonial inquiry by marking the contours of a research relationship and attending closely to what emerges there.
Open Access
Breathing unequally: Racialization and U.S. media framing of environmental contamination in Cancer Alley
(University of Kansas, 2025-05-31) Abwao, Mauryne Kiruhiri
Abstract
Open Access
Assessing Processor Allocation Strategies for Online List Scheduling of Moldable Task Graphs
(University of Kansas, 2025-12-31) Pudota, Mary Jeevana
Scheduling a graph of moldable tasks, where each task can be executed by a varying number ofprocessors with execution time depending on the processor allocation, represents a fundamental problem in high-performance computing (HPC). The online version of the scheduling problem introduces an additional constraint: each task is only discovered when all its predecessors have been completed. A key challenge for this online problem lies in making processor allocation decisions without complete knowledge of the future tasks or dependencies. This uncertainty can lead to inefficient resource utilization and increased overall completion time, or makespan. Recent studies have provided theoretical analysis (i.e., derived competitive ratios) for certain processor allocation algorithms. However, the algorithms’ practical performance remains under-explored, and their reliance on fixed parameter settings may not consistently yield optimal performance across varying workloads. In this thesis, we conduct a comprehensive evaluation of three processor allocation strategies by empirically assessing their performance under widely used speedup models and diverse graph structures. These algorithms are integrated into a List scheduling framework that greedily schedules ready tasks based on the current processor availability. We perform systematic tuning of the algorithms’ parameters and report the best observed makespan together with the corresponding parameter settings. Our findings highlight the critical role of parameter tuning in obtaining optimal makespan performance, regardless of the differences in allocation strategies. The insights gained in this study can guide the deployment of these algorithms in practical runtime systems.
Open Access
MECHANICALLY-SPLICED HIGH-STRENGTH STEEL BARS IN EARTHQUAKE-RESISTANT RECTANGULAR WALLS
(University of Kansas, 2024-12-31) Neupane, Utsav
Three large-scale reinforced concrete rectangular slender structural walls were subjected to reversed-cyclic displacement demands to investigate the use of mechanical splices with Grade 100 (690) longitudinal bars in regions where yielding is expected. These tests were undertaken because ACI 318-19 prohibits both lap and mechanical splices for Grade 100 (690) bars in special structural walls where longitudinal reinforcement yielding is likely. The reinforcement detailing of the walls satisfied ACI 318-19 requirements for special structural walls, except that all longitudinal bars of the walls each had one of three types of mechanical splices located 2 in. (50 mm) from the top of foundation. The mechanical splice types considered were: taper-threaded (length = 3.3 and 3.9?? for the No. 4 (13 mm) bars in the web and No. 10 bars (32 mm) in the boundary elements, respectively), swaged-threaded (length = 11.7 and 12.8??), and shear screwed (length = 14.0 and 15.1??). These couplers satisfied requirements for Type 2 mechanical splices, which must be capable of developing 1.25?? and the specified tensile strength of the bars. The slender walls (?/(???) = 3) were 100 in. (2540 mm) long (ℓ?), 10 in. (254 mm) thick (??), and 300 in. (7620 mm) high (ℎ?). The impact of the mechanical splice on wall cracking, surface strains, bar strain demands, drift ratio capacity, and failure mode are examined.All three walls reached the same deformation capacity (at least one cycle to 3% drift ratio) irrespective of the splice connection type or length but differed in the failure mode, with Wall 1 losing strength due to bar fractures. Mechanical splices with a strength not less than the actual bar tensile strength, such that bars systematically fail in direct tension tests away from the splice, performed well. Such bar failure in direct tension tests should be required of mechanical splices used where yielding is expected. Mechanical splices satisfying ACI 318-19 Type 2 criteria resulted in better wall behavior than reported for lap splices, but bar fractures still occurred at the splice,so Type 2 splice requirements alone are insufficient to allow mechanical splices where yielding is expected. Splice length influenced crack distribution near the splices and wall failure mode. The taper-threaded splices (length < 0.05ℓ?) resulted in a relatively uniform crack distribution whereas swaged and shear-screwed splices (length > 0.1ℓ?) led to more concentrated cracks above the splices. The concentrated cracking led to larger longitudinal and shear strains (> 0.01 radians) measured on the concrete surface at larger drifts, resulting in shear-induced compression failures of those walls. Although the maximum shear force remained relatively constant after 1% drift ratio, average shear surface strain in a row-layer near the base of all three specimens continued to increase nearly proportionally to the average longitudinal surface strains in the same row-layer. Further study is necessary to examine whether average longitudinal and shear strains remain proportional as wall configuration and loading conditions change. A simple model was proposed for relating bar strains to wall drift ratio that estimated boundary element longitudinal bar strains that were nearly within 10% of the measured values at 2% and 2.5% drift ratio for the walls tested in this study. A parametric study conducted with the model suggests that for a given drift demand, bar strain demands increase as splice length increases and as splice relative elongation, wall aspect ratio, reinforcement grade, and longitudinal bar diameter decrease. The contribution of shear distortion to overall drift and concrete compressive strength have relatively small effects on calculated bar strain demands. Based on the test results and parametric study, it is recommended to limit mechanical splice length to 0.2ℓ? at the base of slender walls (ℎ?/ℓ?≥ 3) with Grade 100 (690) longitudinal reinforcement.
Embargo
Computationally Efficient Model Predictive Control Barrier Functions for Guaranteed Fixed-Wing Three-Dimensional Safety Along a Receding Horizon Given Uncertain Dynamics
(University of Kansas, 2025-08-31) Xu, Jeffrey
This dissertation explores the critical intersection of safety and stability in autonomous systems, specifically within the context of autonomous aircraft. It presents a novel model predictive control barrier function (MPCBF) safety filter that leverages control barrier functions (CBFs) and model predictive control (MPC) to guarantee safe operation in uncertain environments characterized by static and dynamic obstacles previously difficult or impossible to achieve. The proposed safety filter effectively addresses the challenges of aerial path-following guidance in complex and dynamically changing environments, subject only to the aircraft physical performance limitations, demonstrating its capability to maintain safety while facilitating dynamically feasible and efficient navigation and control through quadratic programming (QP).