Digital Commons Network^™

Toward Using Games To Teach Fundamental Computer Science Concepts, Jeffrey Michael Edgington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video and computer games have become an important area of study in the field of education. Games have been designed to teach mathematics, physics, raise social awareness, teach history and geography, and train soldiers in the military. Recent work has created computer games for teaching computer programming and understanding basic algorithms.

We present an investigation where computer games are used to teach two fundamental computer science concepts: boolean expressions and recursion. The games are intended to teach the concepts and not how to implement them in a programming language.

For this investigation, two computer games were created. One is designed …

Composing Music In Constrained Search Environments, Jeffrey Keene

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Composing music with computers in constrained search environments adds complexities and problems not present in the traditional problem domain of generative music. The traditional and well researched mechanisms of Markov chains, genetic algorithms and data driven rule based systems do not directly map to a problem domain in which pitch choice and rhythm choice are likely to be highly limited.

We therefore explore several possible solutions to generating rhythms in extremely constrained environments with the goal of generating music that adheres to user specified constraints and is aesthetically pleasing.

Greening The Green Revolution: Moving Beyond Chemicals To Sustainable Agricultural Practices, Elizabeth G. Crawley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Agriculture has dominated the economy of many developing countries for centuries, which has led to development policies that center on agricultural development. An obvious approach to improved production is to decrease agricultural losses in the fields and increase efficiency to markets. This study focuses on the developmental role of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on non-traditional agricultural export farming and the adoption of IPM techniques. With farmers in the Comayagua Valley of Honduras, an Asian vegetable production center for the country, as the study population, the costs and benefits of planting oriental vegetables was examined. Statistical analysis was used to examine …

Creating A Habitat Suitability Index Model For Argali Sheep (Ovis Ammon), And Siberian Ibex (Capra Sibirica) In Ikh Nartin Reserve, Mongolia, Nanette Bragin

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Mongolia is a country with a park system of protected areas, preserving native flora and fauna. In order to inform decision makers about the status of endangered species and park land health, two species of concern, the Argali sheep (Ovis ammon) and Siberian ibex Capra siberica) in the Ikh Nart Reserve in Mongolia were studied. A Habitat Suitability Index Model was developed to study the Argali and ibex habitat preference and discern if the reserve and core zone offer optimal habitat. A total of 57 animals were examined, creating 95% and 50% home range kernels, and minimum convex polygons. The …

Using Transitivity With Nearest Neighbor To Reduce Error In Sample-Based Pearson Correlation Coefficients, Taylor Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients are a well-practiced quantification of linear dependence seen across many fields. When calculating a sample-based correlation coefficient, the accuracy of the estimation is dependent on the quality and quantity of the sample. Like all statistical models, these correlation coefficients can suffer from overfitting, which results in the representation of random error instead of an underlying trend.

In this paper, we discuss how Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficients can utilize information outside of the two items for which the correlation is being computed. By introducing a relationship with one or more additional items that meet specified criterion, our …

Measurement Of Thermoelectric Properties Of Amorphous Silicon Based Thin Films, Rubina Sultan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is important to understand thermal transport behavior in materials for technological and fundamental physics applications. Many efforts have been made in the past for explaining thermal conduction in solids. It has been observed that thermal transport properties may change with reducing size of the sample, especially as sample size approaches the nanoscale regime. The deviation in these properties, mainly in thermal conductivity, may change the choice of the material for different applications such as thermoelectricity. Thermoelectric materials are a possible source of sustainable energy and can play an important role in the fight against the present energy crisis. Recently, …

Strong Orbit Equivalence And Residuality, Brett M. Werner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we consider notions of equivalence between minimal Cantor systems, in particular strong orbit equivalence. By constructing the systems, we show that there exist two nonisomorphic substitution systems that are both Kakutani equivalent and strongly orbit equivalent. We go on to define a metric on a strong orbit equivalence class of minimal Cantor systems and prove several properties about the metric space. If the strong orbit equivalence class contains a finite rank system, we show that the set of finite rank systems is residual in the metric space. The last result shown is that set of systems with …

Item Order Effects On Attitude Measures, Pei-Hua Chen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the effects of altered item order on attitude measures for both computerized adaptive and conventional survey formats. Based on items modified from a dissertation/thesis completion survey (Green & Kluever, 1997) with three scales, three survey versions were generated with items ordered by difficulty as hard-to-easy (H-E), easy-to-hard (E-H), and five medium trait level items presented first followed by randomly ordered items (M-R) for conventional survey format. Significant differences in item difficulty and item discrimination were found for two of the three scales. Differences in scale reliability were detected for the procrastination and …

Novel Photochemical Methodologies For Diversity Oriented Synthesis And Screening Of Combinatorial Libraries, Roman Askatovich Valiulin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main goal of this project was to develop an efficient methodology allowing rapid access to structurally diverse scaffolds decorated with various functional groups.

Initially, we discovered and subsequently developed an experimentally straightforward, high-yielding photoinduced conversion of readily accessible diverse starting materials into polycyclic aldehydes and their (hemi)acetals decorated by various pendants. The two step sequence, involving the Diels-Alder addition of heterocyclic chalcones and other benzoyl ethylenes to a variety of dienes, followed by the Paternò-Büchi reaction, was described as an alkene-carbonyl oxametathesis. This methodology offers a rapid increase in molecular complexity and diversity of the target scaffolds.

To develop …

Lifting Module Maps Between Different Noncommutative Domain Algebras, Jonathan Von Stroh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The classical Carathéodory interpolation problem is the following: let n be a natural number, a₀, a₁, . . . , a_N be complex numbers, and D the unit disk. When does there exist an analytic function F : D → C and complex numbers a_N+1, a_N+2, . . . such that F(z) = a₀ + a₁z + a₂z² + . . . + a_Nz^N + a_N+1z^N+1 + . . . and ||F||_∞ < 1? In 1967, Sarason used operator theory techniques to give an elegant solution to the Carathéodory interpolation problem. In 1968, Sz.-Nagy and Foias extended Sarason's approach into a commutant lifting theorem. Both the theorem and the technique of the proof have become standard tools in control theory. In particular, the commutant lifting theorem approach lends itself to a wide range of generalizations. This thesis concerns one such generalization.

Arias presented generalizations of the original …

A Location Aware P2p Voice Communication Protocol For Networked Virtual Environments, Gabor Papp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multiparty voice communication, where multiple people can communicate in a group, is an important component of networked virtual environments (NVEs), especially in many types of online games. While most research has been conducted on one-to-one communication, we focus on group communication. In this dissertation, we present the first measurement study on the characteristics of multiparty voice communications and develop a model of the talking and silence periods observed during multiparty communication. Over a total of 5 months, we measured over 11,000 sessions on an active multi-party voice communication server to quantify the characteristics of communication generated by game players, including …

Emergent Geographies In Green Energy, Sean Tierney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A consensus on climate change is spurring an energy transition, but the geography of this transition is uneven and this paper evaluates the energy landscape globally, in the United States and in Colorado. Developed countries have taken the lead in installations and of next generation energy technology ownership. Green electricity has still not achieved parity with fossil fuels, which puts their adoption in the hands of policy makers who are trying to spur innovation with minimal financial disruption. Yet the future of green electricity is in question due to weak and fragmented policy regimes, but also because of inadequate R&D …

Mechanistic Importance Of Redox Potentials And Conformational Flexibility In Electron-Transferring Flavoproteins, Michael Anthony Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The mitochondrial matrix flavoproteins electron transfer flavoprotein (ETF) and electron transfer flavoprotein-ubiquinone oxidoreductase (ETF-QO) are responsible for linking fatty acid β-oxidation with the main mitochondrial respiratory chain. Electrons derived from flavoprotein dehydrogenases are transferred sequentially through ETF and ETF-QO to ubiquinone and then into the respiratory chain via complex III. In this study, the effects of changes in ETF-QO redox potentials on its activity and the conformational flexibility of ETF were investigated.

ETF-QO contains one [4Fe-4S]^2+,1+ and one flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). In the porcine protein, threonine 367 is hydrogen bonded to N1 and O2 of the flavin ring …

Particle Matter Measurements For Inspection/Maintenance Programs, Daniel Joseph Pope

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Particle emissions from Heavy Duty Diesel Vehicles (HDDVs) are currently measured by opacity or dynamometer gravimetric analysis. The Electronic Tailpipe Particle Sensor (ETaPS) is an inexpensive measurement device purported to give real time response to particle mass and was proposed as a possible addition to Inspection/Maintenance (I/M) programs. There were three goals to this study. The first was to verify ETaPS response to particle mass of HDDV exhaust. Integrated ETaPS signal was plotted against filter weight from dynamometer gravimetric analysis and a correlation was found. The second goal was to find a correlation between ETaPS readings and the Remote Sensing …