ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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The purpose of this project was to commission, perform, and discuss a new work for an instrument pairing not often utilized, oboe and percussion. The composer, Alyssa Morris, was selected in June 2009. Her work, titled Forecast, was completed in October of 2009 and premiered in February of 2010, as part of a program showcasing music for oboe and percussion. Included in this document is a detailed biography of the composer, a description of the four movements of Forecast, performance notes for each movement, a diagram for stage set-up, the full score, the program from the premiere performance with biographies of all the performers involved, and both a live recording and MIDI sound file. The performance notes discuss issues that arose during preparation for the premiere and should help avoid potential pitfalls. TrevCo Music, publisher of the work, graciously allowed inclusion of the full score. This score is solely for use in this document; please visit the publisher's website for purchasing information. The commission and documentation of this composition are intended to add to the repertoire for oboe in an unusual instrument pairing and to encourage further exploration of such combinations.
ContributorsCreamer, Caryn (Author) / Schuring, Martin (Thesis advisor) / Hill, Gary (Committee member) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / Micklich, Albie (Committee member) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
A good production schedule in a semiconductor back-end facility is critical for the on time delivery of customer orders. Compared to the front-end process that is dominated by re-entrant product flows, the back-end process is linear and therefore more suitable for scheduling. However, the production scheduling of the back-end process is still very difficult due to the wide product mix, large number of parallel machines, product family related setups, machine-product qualification, and weekly demand consisting of thousands of lots. In this research, a novel mixed-integer-linear-programming (MILP) model is proposed for the batch production scheduling of a semiconductor back-end facility. In the MILP formulation, the manufacturing process is modeled as a flexible flow line with bottleneck stages, unrelated parallel machines, product family related sequence-independent setups, and product-machine qualification considerations. However, this MILP formulation is difficult to solve for real size problem instances. In a semiconductor back-end facility, production scheduling usually needs to be done every day while considering updated demand forecast for a medium term planning horizon. Due to the limitation on the solvable size of the MILP model, a deterministic scheduling system (DSS), consisting of an optimizer and a scheduler, is proposed to provide sub-optimal solutions in a short time for real size problem instances. The optimizer generates a tentative production plan. Then the scheduler sequences each lot on each individual machine according to the tentative production plan and scheduling rules. Customized factory rules and additional resource constraints are included in the DSS, such as preventive maintenance schedule, setup crew availability, and carrier limitations. Small problem instances are randomly generated to compare the performances of the MILP model and the deterministic scheduling system. Then experimental design is applied to understand the behavior of the DSS and identify the best configuration of the DSS under different demand scenarios. Product-machine qualification decisions have long-term and significant impact on production scheduling. A robust product-machine qualification matrix is critical for meeting demand when demand quantity or mix varies. In the second part of this research, a stochastic mixed integer programming model is proposed to balance the tradeoff between current machine qualification costs and future backorder costs with uncertain demand. The L-shaped method and acceleration techniques are proposed to solve the stochastic model. Computational results are provided to compare the performance of different solution methods.
ContributorsFu, Mengying (Author) / Askin, Ronald G. (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Muhong (Thesis advisor) / Fowler, John W (Committee member) / Pan, Rong (Committee member) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
During the twentieth-century, the dual influence of nationalism and modernism in the eclectic music from Latin America promoted an idiosyncratic style which naturally combined traditional themes, popular genres and secular music. The saxophone, commonly used as a popular instrument, started to develop a prominent role in Latin American classical music beginning in 1970. The lack of exposure and distribution of the Latin American repertoire has created a general perception that composers are not interested in the instrument, and that Latin American repertoire for classical saxophone is minimal. However, there are more than 1100 works originally written for saxophone in the region, and the amount continues to grow. This Modern Latin American Repertoire for Classical Saxophone: Recording Project and Performance Guide document establishes and exhibits seven works by seven representative Latin American composers.The recording includes works by Carlos Gonzalo Guzman (Colombia), Ricardo Tacuchian (Brazil), Roque Cordero (Panama), Luis Naón (Argentina), Andrés Alén-Rodriguez (Cuba), Alejandro César Morales (Mexico) and Jose-Luis Maúrtua (Peru), featuring a range of works for solo alto saxophone to alto saxophone with piano, alto saxophone with vibraphone, and tenor saxophone with electronic tape; thus forming an important selection of Latin American repertoire. Complete recorded performances of all seven pieces are supplemented by biographical, historical, and performance practice suggestions. The result is a written and audio guide to some of the most important pieces composed for classical saxophone in Latin America, with an emphasis on fostering interest in, and research into, composers who have contributed in the development and creation of the instrument in Latin America.
ContributorsOcampo Cardona, Javier Andrés (Author) / McAllister, Timothy (Thesis advisor) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / Hill, Gary (Committee member) / Pilafian, Sam (Committee member) / Rogers, Rodney (Committee member) / Gardner, Joshua (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Finger motion and hand posture of six professional clarinetists (defined by entrance into or completion of a doctorate of musical arts degree in clarinet performance) were recorded using a pair of CyberGloves® in Arizona State University's Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing Laboratory. Performance tasks included performing a slurred three-octave chromatic scale in sixteenth notes, at sixty quarter-note beats per minute, three times, with a metronome and a short pause between repetitions, and forming three pedagogical hand postures. Following the CyberGloves® tasks, each subject completed a questionnaire about equipment, playing history, practice routines, health practices, and hand usage during computer and sports activities. CyberGlove® data were analyzed to find average hand/finger postures and differences for each pitch across subjects, subject variance in the performance task and differences in ascending and descending postures of the chromatic scale. The data were also analyzed to describe generalized finger posture characteristics based on hand size, whether right hand thumb position affects finger flexion, and whether professional clarinetists use similar finger/hand postures when performing on clarinet, holding a tennis ball, allowing hands to hang freely by the sides, or form a "C" shape. The findings of this study suggest an individual approach based on hand size is necessary for teaching clarinet hand posture.
ContributorsHarger, Stefanie (Author) / Spring, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Hill, Gary (Committee member) / Koonce, Frank (Committee member) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Stauffer, Sandy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This dissertation transforms a set of system complexity reduction problems to feature selection problems. Three systems are considered: classification based on association rules, network structure learning, and time series classification. Furthermore, two variable importance measures are proposed to reduce the feature selection bias in tree models. Associative classifiers can achieve high accuracy, but the combination of many rules is difficult to interpret. Rule condition subset selection (RCSS) methods for associative classification are considered. RCSS aims to prune the rule conditions into a subset via feature selection. The subset then can be summarized into rule-based classifiers. Experiments show that classifiers after RCSS can substantially improve the classification interpretability without loss of accuracy. An ensemble feature selection method is proposed to learn Markov blankets for either discrete or continuous networks (without linear, Gaussian assumptions). The method is compared to a Bayesian local structure learning algorithm and to alternative feature selection methods in the causal structure learning problem. Feature selection is also used to enhance the interpretability of time series classification. Existing time series classification algorithms (such as nearest-neighbor with dynamic time warping measures) are accurate but difficult to interpret. This research leverages the time-ordering of the data to extract features, and generates an effective and efficient classifier referred to as a time series forest (TSF). The computational complexity of TSF is only linear in the length of time series, and interpretable features can be extracted. These features can be further reduced, and summarized for even better interpretability. Lastly, two variable importance measures are proposed to reduce the feature selection bias in tree-based ensemble models. It is well known that bias can occur when predictor attributes have different numbers of values. Two methods are proposed to solve the bias problem. One uses an out-of-bag sampling method called OOBForest, and the other, based on the new concept of a partial permutation test, is called a pForest. Experimental results show the existing methods are not always reliable for multi-valued predictors, while the proposed methods have advantages.
ContributorsDeng, Houtao (Author) / Runger, George C. (Thesis advisor) / Lohr, Sharon L (Committee member) / Pan, Rong (Committee member) / Zhang, Muhong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Hydropower generation is one of the clean renewable energies which has received great attention in the power industry. Hydropower has been the leading source of renewable energy. It provides more than 86% of all electricity generated by renewable sources worldwide. Generally, the life span of a hydropower plant is considered as 30 to 50 years. Power plants over 30 years old usually conduct a feasibility study of rehabilitation on their entire facilities including infrastructure. By age 35, the forced outage rate increases by 10 percentage points compared to the previous year. Much longer outages occur in power plants older than 20 years. Consequently, the forced outage rate increases exponentially due to these longer outages. Although these long forced outages are not frequent, their impact is immense. If reasonable timing of rehabilitation is missed, an abrupt long-term outage could occur and additional unnecessary repairs and inefficiencies would follow. On the contrary, too early replacement might cause the waste of revenue. The hydropower plants of Korea Water Resources Corporation (hereafter K-water) are utilized for this study. Twenty-four K-water generators comprise the population for quantifying the reliability of each equipment. A facility in a hydropower plant is a repairable system because most failures can be fixed without replacing the entire facility. The fault data of each power plant are collected, within which only forced outage faults are considered as raw data for reliability analyses. The mean cumulative repair functions (MCF) of each facility are determined with the failure data tables, using Nelson's graph method. The power law model, a popular model for a repairable system, can also be obtained to represent representative equipment and system availability. The criterion-based analysis of HydroAmp is used to provide more accurate reliability of each power plant. Two case studies are presented to enhance the understanding of the availability of each power plant and represent economic evaluations for modernization. Also, equipment in a hydropower plant is categorized into two groups based on their reliability for determining modernization timing and their suitable replacement periods are obtained using simulation.
ContributorsKwon, Ogeuk (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald T (Committee member) / Pan, Rong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Owen Middleton (b. 1941) enjoys an established and growing reputation as a composer of classical guitar music, but his works for piano are comparatively little known. The close investigation offered here of Middleton's works for piano reveals the same impressive craftsmanship, compelling character, and innovative spirit found in his works for guitar. Indeed, the only significant thing Middleton's piano music currently lacks is the well-deserved attention of professional players and a wider audience. Middleton's piano music needs to be heard, not just discussed, so one of this document's purposes is to provide a recorded sample of his piano works. While the overall repertoire for solo piano is vast, and new works become established in that repertoire with increasing difficulty, Middleton's piano works have a significant potential to find their way into the concert hall as well as the private teaching studio. His solo piano music is highly effective, well suited to the instrument, and, perhaps most importantly, fresh sounding and truly original. His pedagogical works are of equal value. Middleton's piano music offers something for everyone: there one finds daring virtuosity, effusions of passion, intellectual force, colorful imagery, poetry, humor, and even a degree of idiomatic innovation. This study aims to reveal key aspects of the composer's musical style, especially his style of piano writing, and to provide pianists with helpful analytical, technical, and interpretive insights. These descriptions of the music are supported with recorded examples, selected from the works for solo piano written between 1962 and 1993: Sonata for Piano, Childhood Scenes, Katie's Collection, and Toccata for Piano. The complete scores of the recorded works are included in the appendix. A chapter briefly describing the piano pieces since 1993 concludes the study and invites the reader to further investigations of this unique and important body of work.
ContributorsMoreau, Barton Andrew (Author) / Hamilton, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / Campbell, Andrew (Committee member) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / Gardner, Joshua (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
As clarinet compositions created by Taiwanese composers have not been widely discussed and published in academia, this research paper examines three unaccompanied clarinet works by three Taiwanese composers: Ballade by Hsiao-Wen Tseng, Chin Thoughts III by Ling-Huei Tsai, and Pointe de Flame by Chia-Lin Pan, all commissioned by the author in 2007. This research also includes a compact disc with recordings of these works, aiming to document the creativity of Taiwanese composers. This research paper examines these three commissioned works by analyzing their overall musical styles, notations, formal structures, rhythmical and melodic materials, unconventional clarinet techniques as well as the influence of Chinese musical elements. The analysis reveals the distinctive characteristic of each piece. Moreover, the author provides composers' insights and performance guides to help interested readers practice these pieces. To further understand how the composers create these pieces by drawing upon different life experiences, the paper also includes information about their backgrounds, program notes, lists of compositions, and music examples for reference. The author found that collaborating with these composers helped to establish a closer composer-performer relationship in interpreting the music. It is hoped that this compact disc recording will help make Taiwanese composers' clarinet works more accessible to a wider audience. Moreover, this research paper hopes to generate more interest in performing and appreciating music composed by Taiwanese composers.
ContributorsChuang, Yenting (Author) / Spring, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Schuring, Martin (Committee member) / Campbell, Andrew (Committee member) / Jiang, Danwen (Committee member) / Hackbarth, Glenn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Christopher Caliendo is a guitarist/composer who has written for a variety of performance mediums. His works been performed on international concert stages and recorded for film and television media. His compositions have garnered him the Henry Mancini Award for Film Composition, the Artin Arslanian Scholarship for Humanities, and the Peabody Grant for Scholarship. He has also received two commissions from the Vatican in 1992 and 1995. In 1988, he received an Emmy nomination for his work with the television series Paradise. The purpose of this project is to present a study of selected clarinet works by Christopher Caliendo: The Tango Concerto No. 1 is a three-movement work that Caliendo arranged for clarinet and piano in 2010, The Little Gypsy was written for solo clarinet, and Jal, Ven a mis Brazos, Amanacer, La Milonga, Acariciame, Amor Perdido, Caliente, Impulso, and Passione comprise a series of nine guitar/clarinet duos that were composed or arranged between 2009 and 2010. The document is comprised of a brief description of the career and compositions of Christopher Caliendo, a performer's guide to the selected works, a track listing for the performance recording, and a list of Caliendo's other clarinet and chamber music compositions that are intended for the concert stage. It is the hope of the author that this project can generate more interest in Christopher Caliendo's clarinet repertoire throughout the clarinet community.
ContributorsQuamo, Jeff (Author) / Spring, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Gardner, Joshua (Thesis advisor) / Kocour, Michael (Committee member) / Hackbarth, Glenn (Committee member) / Schuring, Martin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The repertoire of the saxophone has advanced significantly since its invention circa 1840. Performers are required to adapt to the demands of composers - many of whom are exploring new and unconventional sounds and techniques. Numerous texts exist to identify and explain these so-called "extended" techniques, but there are very few resources for the initial stages of performance. In order to offer performers a resource, the author of this text composed forty original etudes (or studies) that incorporate extended techniques in a variety of ways. After identifying common extended techniques that a performer might face, the author focused on four different ways each individual technique might appear in actual repertoire. The resulting work is entitled Pushing Boundaries: Forty Etudes on Extended Techniques. Each etude offers a practical approach to what is generally a single extended technique. Although this text is not pedagogical in the sense of identifying the mechanics and anatomical requirements of each technique, it does contain a performance analysis of each etude. This analysis identifies areas where performers might struggle and offers helpful suggestions. To this end, the etudes accompanied by performance analysis provide a paced, systematic approach to the mastery of each technique.
ContributorsMurphy, Patrick Joseph (Author) / Hill, Gary (Thesis advisor) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / McAllister, Timothy (Committee member) / Micklich, Albie (Committee member) / DeMars, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013