Showing papers by "University of Central Florida published in 1970"

MuniGov 2.0, A New Residency Requirement: Local Government Professionals in Second Life

Abstract: The virtual world Second Life allows social interactions among avatars - online representations of real-life people – and is slowly adopted in the public sector as a tool for innovative ways to interact with citizens, interorganizational collaboration, education and recruitment (Wyld 2008). Governments are setting up online embassies, voting simulations, interactive learning simulations and virtual conferences. While there are very prominent and elaborate examples on the federal and state level of government, we have seen only a handful of applications on the local level. One of these local examples is MuniGov2.0 – a collaboration of municipal government professionals who regularly meet in Second Life. The goal of the group is to support each others geographically distributed implementation attempts to incorporate new technologies in the public sector. Interviews with the founding members and core group show clear mission-specific needs that Second Life collaboration can support, but that there are also technological and behavioral challenges involved using this highly interactive environment. The article will highlight the challenges, how they were met, lessons learned, future directions of the project and ends with recommendations for the use of Second Life in local government.

Dynamic Response Of Embedded Strip AndRectangular Foundations Using A PoroelasticBEM

Abstract: The dynamic response of embedded strip and rectangular shallow foundations subjected to time-harmonic vertical excitations is studied. A dynamic poroelastic plane strain BEM formulation is utilized to solve the strip foundation problems while a full three dimensional BEM is used for square and rectangular foundations. The paper aims to extend the previous work on the dynamic response of strip footings on the surface of poroelastic soil media to account for foundation embedment. The effect of different embedment ratios and permeability values of the soil on the vertical and horizontal compliance of such foundations is investigated.

Reconstruction Of Traction From Subsurface StrainData In Three-dimensional Elasticity Using BEM

Abstract: An inverse algorithm is developed in this paper to reconstruct boundary tractions from internal strains in three-dimensional elasticity using the boundary element method. The numerical instability problem associated with the solution of the inverse elasticity problem is overcome by employing a polynomial approximation of the unknown traction. Introduction of the polynomial approximation has the combined effect of enforcing smoothing conditions and reducing the number of unknowns. Further, global equilibrium conditions are also enforced to reduce the error in the computed tractions. As a result, stable solutions are obtained even for input strains with significant amount of random errors. Numerical examples are given to validate the proposed inverse algorithm.