Digital Commons Network^™

Accounting For Financial Instruments: Difficulties With Fair Value Measurement And Reporting, Lindsey T. Byrne

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

What Motivates Composers To Compose?, Brian Fanning

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Gradual Generalization Of Nautical Chart Contours With A B-Spline Snake Method, Dandan Miao

Master's Theses and Capstones

B-spline snake methods have been used in cartographic generalization in the past decade, particularly in the generalization of nautical charts where these methods yield good results with respect to the shoal-bias rules for the generalization of chart contours. However, previous studies only show generalization results at particular generalization (or scale) levels, and show only two states of the algorithm: before and after generalization, but nothing in between. This thesis presents an improved method of using B-spline snakes and other auxiliary functions and workflows for generalization in the context of nautical charts which can generalize multiple nautical chart features from large …

An Iot Based Service System As A Research And Education Platform, Thomas Peter Kimsey

Master's Theses and Capstones

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a rapidly expanding space for researchers, students, and professionals. Development of IoT applications is hindered by the lack of available design tools, methodologies, and interoperability. The creation of a standards-based, open source hardware and software platform paired with full documentation and educational materials greatly aids in the accelerated development of IoT applications. This thesis provides a complete example of such a platform and provides a fertile ground for Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) educational opportunities.

Syntheses And Characterizations Of Linearly Extended Thiazinium Salts As Organic Semiconductors, Yanmei Rong

Master's Theses and Capstones

Organic semiconductors have been the subject of both academic and industrial interest due to their potential advantages over inorganic semiconductors. Based on the type of charge transporting (hole or electron), organic semiconductors can be categorized as n-type (electron transporting) or p-type (hole transporting). Most attention has been concentrated on the development of p-type organic semiconductors and their development has led to dramatic enhancements in the performance of hole transporting material. However, the investigation and application of electron transporting organic semiconductors has not drawn as much attention. In this project, we focus on the exploration, design, synthesis and characterization of novel …

Performance And Cavitation Characteristics Of Bi-Directional Hydrofoils, Ivaylo Petrov Nedyalkov

Doctoral Dissertations

Hydrofoils have a wide range of applications - from hydro-power generation to marine propulsion. Bi-directional hydrofoils have (comparatively) identical performance when operating in both directions of reversing flows. A typical application of such foils is tidal current power generation; where by using bi-directional blades the need for aligning the rotor (yaw) or blades (pitch) of the turbines to account for the changing flow direction is eliminated. This leads to lower initial, and more importantly, maintenance costs.

A numerical test-bed was developed for studying bi-directional hydrofoils, and foils in general. The test-bed generates all necessary files for flow simulations in OpenFOAM, …

The Ability Of Adventure Education To Influence The Social Skill Development Of Urban Middle School Students, Paul J. Shirilla

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the ability of adventure education to impact the social skill development of United States urban middle school students. The Project Adventure Inc. RESPECT adventure education program was delivered to students at three Boston Public middle schools over the course of three academic years. Students at two neighboring Boston Public middle schools were used as a comparison group. The RESPECT program was a comprehensive, whole-school program facilitated by school administrators and teachers trained by Project Adventure staff.

Social skill ability was measured by the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) Student Form, which was administered at the beginning and …

Quantifying The Impact Of Urbanization On N And P Inputs, Transformations, Removal And Fluxes In Watersheds Draining To The Plum Island Estuary, Nathaniel Burr Morse

Doctoral Dissertations

A five-fold global urban population increase over the last century is driving global land use change and causing coastal eutrophication and dead zones. This dissertation was designed to better understand how suburbanization in the Ipswich and Parker River watersheds, the two major rivers draining to the Plum Island Estuary, affects nutrient loading the Plum Island Estuary. I used an almost 17-year long-term nutrient record to test whether ongoing watershed suburbanization has affected net fluxes of nutrients to the Plum Island Estuary over the study period. Additionally, I paired this long-term study with spatial sampling of headwater watersheds across a range …

Computational Study Of Droplet And Capsule Flow In Channels With Inertial Effects, Robert Carroll

Doctoral Dissertations

The flow of droplets and capsules in channels is important for a variety of industrial and biological applications. Droplet flow is common in microfluidic devices and emulsion processing as well as oil recovery from porous materials. Capsules are used to encapsulate sensitive materials and can be used to study the mechanical properties of biological cells. A computational method was developed to study the two-phase flow of drops with and without surfactants, and capsules surrounded by a thin elastic membrane. This new computational method allowed for the inclusion of inertial effects on droplet and capsule flow which has not received much …

The Complexities Of Family Health: Effects On Women's Employment, Jessica Aimee Carson

Doctoral Dissertations

An extensive sociological literature links women's health, their children's health, and their disproportionate designation as unpaid caregivers to variation in women's labor supply and earnings. However, there is a dearth of research that simultaneously considers the health of multiple family members to explore how the distribution of chronic conditions within and across families may relate to women's work. Using data from the 2007 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (and its supplemental surveys, the Child Development Supplement and the Transition into Adulthood Study), this dissertation conceptualizes health as a family-level construct and explores how the distribution of chronic conditions in families …

Conserving Wetlands For Humans And Amphibians: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Understanding The Social And Ecological Effectiveness Of New England's Wetland Policies, Jessica Veysey Powell

Doctoral Dissertations

Freshwater wetland ecosystems are a valuable resource, but current policies fail to prevent their continuing destruction. Policy-makers increasingly use decentralized wetland-buffer programs to address such policy failings, but scant research has evaluated whether these programs are both ecologically and socially effective. In the following dissertation, I address this gap using two complementary projects.

For the first project, I assessed whether forested buffers are an effective tool for maintaining viable populations of pool-breeding amphibians. Such species spend their early life stages in vernal pools, which are small, highly productive wetlands, but use the surrounding forest during juvenile and adult life-stages. Though …

The Foliose Bangiales (Rhodophyta) In The Northern Part Of The North Atlantic And The Relationship With The North Pacific Foliose Bangiales - Diversity, Distribution, Phylogeny And Phylogeography, Agnes Mols-Mortensen

Doctoral Dissertations

Foliose Bangiales species have a long history of study in the North Atlantic, but regions, especially in the northern parts, need more attention. Based on both new collections and herbarium material from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, West Greenland, UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Northwest Atlantic coast (from Newfoundland to Florida) the aim was to document diversity and distribution of foliose Bangiales species in the North Atlantic and to make floristic comparisons between the geographical areas. Species Identification was based on DNA sequences using the mitochondrial cox1, chloroplast rbcL and 3' rbcL + 5' rbcL-S markers. The North Atlantic species …

Competencies For The 21st Century: Teaching An Understanding Of Others, Critical Thinking, Leadership And A Sense Of Obligation. Perceptions Of Educational Leaders., Michael F. Schwartz

Doctoral Dissertations

In the 18th century, utilitarian writers highlighted the importance of a sense of obligation, an understanding of others, and the ability to think critically (Daniels, Bizar, & Zemelman, 2001; Kant, 1785/2008). Additionally, scholars stressed the importance of leadership (Burns, 1978). Teacher instruction in the 19th century incorporated many of these values (Kliebard, 2004). However as the common school developed in the early 19th century there was a shift from these values toward a common curriculum meeting industrial needs (Tyack, 1974). As the 20th century ended, significant federal and state legislation further funneled school curriculum to focus on very specific instruction …

Asymmetry In The Magnocellular And Parvocellular Pathways, Jenny Louise Lang

Doctoral Dissertations

Why humans are less sensitive to increment than decrement contrast remains unknown. One hypothesis is that the psychophysical asymmetry in increment and decrement thresholds results from an asymmetry in respective ON and OFF cell contrast gains. Contrast gain also differs, however, by the visual pathway within which the ON and OFF cells travel. Cells show greater contrast gain in the magnocellular (M) than parvocellular (P) pathway. Therefore, the asymmetry in increment and decrement thresholds may also differ by visual pathway. My first three experiments established that observers were more sensitive to decrement than increment contrast in both pathways, in monocular …

Causes And Consequences Of Diversity Within Experimental Biofilms Of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Kenneth Mark Flynn

Doctoral Dissertations

Currently, we do not understand how much biodiversity may be maintained in any environment, especially not in the structured environments of biofilms, which constitute the dominant mode of microbial life. Although maintenance is associated with the complex spatial structure of biofilm architecture and resulting ecological opportunities, how both the abiotic and biotic environment defines available niches remains poorly understood. Here, we experimentally evolved three replicate populations founded by Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PA14 for 540 generations under conditions favoring a regular cycle of biofilm formation and dispersal. Utilizing a variety of laboratory and genomic sequencing approaches, we characterize the population genetic …

Towards The Understanding Of The Effect Of Functional Monomers On Latex Particle Morphology Formed By Emulsion Polymerization, Amit Kumar Tripathi

Doctoral Dissertations

Emulsion polymerization is a multiphase reaction process and the overall kinetics depend on the reaction rates in both the aqueous and particle phases. The morphology development within composite latex particles is controlled by both kinetic and thermodynamic factors. Functional monomers like acrylic acid and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate are widely used in emulsion polymerization at low concentrations (usually < 10% to total monomers) to improve various properties like shear and freeze thaw stability of the latex, adhesion of the polymer to metal and paper, and to create the possibility for post-polymerization chemical modifications. These monomers are highly water soluble and very much more polar than the commonly used acrylate and styrene monomers. This dissertation deals with the effect of such functional monomers on the reaction kinetics during the emulsion polymerization and on the resulting morphology of the composite latex particles.

A detailed examination of the distribution behavior of vinyl acid and hydroxy (meth)acrylate functional monomers between the nonfunctional monomer phase and the aqueous phase is reported here. Due to the dimerization and multimer formation capabilities of vinyl acid and hydroxy (meth)acrylate monomer via hydrogen …

Estimating Proximity To The Asymmetric Reconnection X-Line, Matthew Argall

Doctoral Dissertations

Magnetic reconnection is a process that changes magnetic topology, allows plasma transport across boundaries, and converts field potential energy to particle kinetic energy. All of these processes are tied to the X-line, or site of reconnection, yet current methods of locating the reconnection site either do not uniquely identify the the X-line or have not been tested when asymmetries in field strength and plasma density and temperature are present. Furthermore, identification of spacial structures (such as the X-line) as they traverse satellites is limited by hardware constraints. This thesis proposes a new method of locating the reconnection site for asymmetric …

Full-Waveform And Discrete-Return Lidar In Salt Marsh Environments: An Assessment Of Biophysical Parameters, Vertical Uncertatinty, And Nonparametric Dem Correction, Jeffrey Nickerson Rogers

Doctoral Dissertations

High-resolution and high-accuracy elevation data sets of coastal salt marsh environments are necessary to support restoration and other management initiatives, such as adaptation to sea level rise. Lidar (light detection and ranging) data may serve this need by enabling efficient acquisition of detailed elevation data from an airborne platform. However, previous research has revealed that lidar data tend to have lower vertical accuracy (i.e., greater uncertainty) in salt marshes than in other environments. The increase in vertical uncertainty in lidar data of salt marshes can be attributed primarily to low, dense-growing salt marsh vegetation. Unfortunately, this increased vertical uncertainty often …

Development Of Genomic Resources And Identification Of Marker-Trait Associations In Strawberry, Lise L. Mahoney

Doctoral Dissertations

Crosses were performed and progeny populations were developed in diploid and octoploid strawberry (Fragaria) species for the purposes of genetic analysis and breeding. A high throughput genotyping platform - the Affymetrix IStraw90® Axiom® strawberry SNP array - was evaluated and employed for these purposes. Phenotyping was conducted with respect to several traits of interest, including flower color, flower and fruit pigment compositions, and verticillium wilt resistance, for the ultimate purpose of identifying marker-trait associations useful in breeding. In the ancestral diploid species Fragaria iinumae, an F2 mapping population was developed from a cross between two accessions previously collected in Hokkaido, …

Syntheses And Characterizations Of Novel Organic Semiconductors, Yushu Li

Doctoral Dissertations

The desire for portable, flexible and affordable electronic devices provides the driving force for the development of new organic semiconductors. Organic semiconductors can be solution processed, potentially enabling high-rate fabrication of electronic devices on flexible substrates. Devices of interest include organic field effect transistors (OFETs), organic photovoltaics (OPVs) and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Research presented here has focused on the synthesis and characterization of three different classes of organic semiconductors: a water soluble pentacene, a disulfide-linked pentacene oligomer and several [60]fullerene-pentacene adducts. In addition, an aromatization reaction leading to bis(organothio)pentacenes has been systematically studied.

The first water soluble pentacene, …

Streamline Geometry Analysis Of Turbulent Fluid Flows, Michael Dunstan

Master's Theses and Capstones

Energy in turbulent flows is transported down coherent vortical structures of different shapes and sizes. Experiments have shown that the vortical structures contain field lines that are curved in nature. Several procedures have been investigated to determine the size and location of the coherent vortical motions, as of yet there has not been a widely accepted method that exactly depicts these structures. Among the current methods of determining the coherent features of the flow, structures determined by the second largest eigenvalue of the symmetric part of the gradient of the Navier-Stokes equation has received recent attention. Another method proposed is …

Gender Composition And Salary Gaps In Association Of Research Libraries (Arl) Institutions, Eleta Exline

Master's Theses and Capstones

While the presence of information technology (IT) work is ubiquitous in libraries, an increase in the number of male-dominated IT jobs has not increased the percentage of men (37%) working in female-dominated research libraries. Instead, the introduction of IT work may have resulted in a reorganization of librarians into gendered areas of specialization, changing the nature and degree of gender segregation within the occupation and potentially widening the overall pay gap between male and female librarians. Using data from the ARL Salary Survey, gender compositions and salary gaps of library positions between 1985 and 2010 were compared. Twelve of 17 …

Resource Allocation Of Super Pacs: An Analysis Of The 2012 Congressional Election Cycle, Christina Marie Pretorius

Master's Theses and Capstones

Independent expenditure-only committees, known as super PACs, have emerged as substantial actors in the electoral arena. They have surpassed every other type of campaign organization in the 2012 election, including political parties, and have become an appealing alternative to traditional political action committees due to their limited restrictions. This study explores the characteristics of the races in which super PACs participated, which allows the researcher to examine the various motives of these new organizations. An analysis of the 2012 congressional election cycle found that super PACs are sensitive to race competitiveness, suggesting they are interested in seat maximization, but not …

Investigating The Effects Of Single-Event Upsets In Static And Dynamic Registers, Patrick Nsengiyumva

Master's Theses and Capstones

Radiation-induced single-event upsets (SEUs) pose a serious threat to the reliability of registers. The existing SEU analyses for static CMOS registers focus on the circuit-level impact and may underestimate the pertinent SEU information provided through node analysis. This thesis proposes SEU node analysis to evaluate the sensitivity of static registers and apply the obtained node information to improve the robustness of the register through selective node hardening (SNH) technique. Unlike previous hardening techniques such as the Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) and the Dual Interlocked Cell (DICE) latch, the SNH method does not introduce larger area overhead. Moreover, this thesis also …

Measurments Of Haptoglobin, Serum Amyloid A, Fibrinogen, And Leukocytes To Evaluate Stress In Organically Managed, Pasture-Fed And Conventional Managed, Totally Mixed Ration-Fed Jersey Cattle., Dorothy Ann Perkins

Master's Theses and Capstones

In cattle sub-acute inflammatory disorders are difficult to assess because visual symptoms of diseases are not easily detectable with large numbers of dairy cattle in loose housing. In addition, inflammation is not always followed by leukocytosis in cattle, which makes the use of common blood tests like total white blood cell counts less reliable as a diagnostic tool. More sensitive and objective methods are needed to evaluate health status. Research has been focused on the use of acute phase proteins (APPs) to diagnose acute and chronic illness in cattle, because acute phase proteins respond very quickly when an inflammation event …

A Whole Grain Education Program For Older Adults: Its Effectiveness On Older Adults' Knowledge And Intake Of Whole Grains And Its Implications For Use With Younger Adults, Kristin Emily Davis

Master's Theses and Capstones

The average adult in America eats less than one serving of the recommended three serving minimum of whole grains each day. Consumption of whole grains in older adults is particularly low; consumption in college students is even lower. This pilot study investigated the effectiveness of a three-session nutrition education program, entitled "Is It Whole Grain?" to improve older adults knowledge, identification and consumption of whole grains. Based on the analysis of pre- and post- intervention whole grain questionnaire responses from 157 older adults, aged 60 or older, residing in New Hampshire and Iowa, significant improvements in older adults' knowledge and …

Automatic Updating Of Structural Models Using Inspection Report Data, Timothy Foy

Master's Theses and Capstones

In the current economic climate, bridge managers are continually working to maximize the impact of each expense. One way to keep costs down is to streamline maintenance procedures and to first address problems that require immediate attention. Thus, it is important to fully understand the behavior of the bridge. Typically, this assessment is based on regularly scheduled visual bridge inspections. Visual bridge inspections provide valuable information, but are subjective in nature and limited to areas that are visible. Instead bridges should be analyzed and evaluated as a system.

The current procedure used to evaluate bridges is based on assessing each …

Kingswood Lake Management Plan, Sarah Martina Tierney

Honors Theses and Capstones

High water quality and natural buffers exist on Kingswood Lake located in Brookfield, New Hampshire. A comprehensive lakes inventory (CSI) was recorded and health of the land, wildlife, and waterways were observed. Educational outreach was taken to inform the local community and to instruct them on proper stewardship of the land. A completed watershed management plan was constructed including key recommendation of limiting nitrogen loading in the area, checking septic systems for leaching, stabilizing shoreline from erosion, and establishing man-made rain gardens to help preserve water quality. The Kingswood watershed management plan acts as a guide for the town of …

A Study Of The Effects Of Foreign Direct Investment On The Economy Of The State Of New Hampshire Since 1973, Eric J. Allain

Honors Theses and Capstones

The purpose of the thesis is to determine the impact that foreign direct investment has had on New Hampshire. New Hampshire as a state was impacted far less severely than much of the rest of the country, which could be considered surprising given the relatively high cost of housing in the state. I believe that part of what made New Hampshire more recession resistant is having the right foreign companies providing employment. To do this, I will be looking at FDI as a percentage of GDP over the previous 40 years and looking for a correlation between a higher percentage …

The Cold Surrender Of Midnight's Passing, Dana Marie Roach

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.