Digital Commons Network^™

A Multi-User Network Game For Learning English, Moon Jung Kim

Theses

As the era changed, education programs have developed tremendously and there are more people who seek for a new way to study easier. A game is one way to learn new skills; Network games especially can be used most effectively to support the goal of education. I believe that people can gain more knowledge through competitive games than memorizing by them selves. Some might think network games are not needed because there is no need for other people when you can compete with a computer, but There are limitations using just a computer and people feel more competitive when they …

The Assessment Of Language Delays In Preschoolers With The Differential Abilities Scales, Tracey Walenta

Theses

Language-delayed preschoolers are a heterogeneous population with diverse language skills and needs. Research has demonstrated the need for more psychometrically sound assessment instruments to accurately identify preschoolers with language delays and their specific subtypes in the general preschool population. Research has also demonstrated the Differential Ability Scales to be an effective and psychometrically sound assessment measure for differentiating among preschoolers across a broad range of skills and abilities. The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of the Differential Ability Scales in distinguishing language-delayed preschoolers and specific subtypes of language delays in the general preschool population. It was …

Response Surface Methodology Of Die-Sink-Electro-Discharge Machined Surfaces, Bhairav Mehta

Theses

The performance of most manufacturing processes depends on numerous parameters and their interactions. Most of the time, selection of an appropriate set of machining parameters is done based on experience, trial and error or both. Electro-discharge machining (EDM) process is complicated and random in nature. The large number of parameters and the inherent complexity of removal mechanism taking place in EDM make it even more difficult to select machining conditions for optimal performance. The objective of this study is to provide information on the relationships between the key input variables and resultant surface roughness and to develop a response model …

Virtual Electro-Photographic Printer Model, Sunadi Gunawan

Theses

A halftone image in the computer is a bitmap matrix that contains either 0 or 1 , where 0 means the printer will not deposit any toner onto a paper and 1 means the printer will deposit some amount of toner onto a paper. The amount of toner that is put by the printer onto a paper for a given input signal pattern is characterized. The hypothesis was that the distribution of toner mass on the paper for a given input matrix pattern can be modeled with a toner point spread function, a toner transfer efficiency function, and a noise …

Effect On Participation In High School Extracurricular Activities On Grade Point Average, Nancy J. Aberasturi

Theses

Historically, studies have debated the relationship between student grade point average and student involvement in extracurricular activities. The present study investigated that relationship. A group of 47 high school sophomores and juniors voluntarily completed and returned a questionnaire designed by the researcher, which gathered data on involvement in all-inclusive extracurricular activities, plans for attending a college or university, gender, age, and date of birth. The sample included 22 females, 24 males, and I subject who did not indicate gender. Cumulative grade point average was determined by student records. A correlation analysis indicated that a significant, positive relationship existed between grade …

Assessment Of Groundwater Resources In Selected Areas Of Al Ain In The U.A.E., Fatma Abdullatif Al Shahi

Theses

The sustainable development of any region depends on the availability of water resources. In arid and semi-arid regions, the shortage in freshwater resources constitutes the major constraint against the expansion in agricultural and industrial activities. Therefore, every possible effort should be made to assess, develop and sustain the limited freshwater water resource in such regions.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is located in an arid region, where the climate is harsh and the renewable freshwater resources are very limited. Despite the severe shortage in water resources, water is misused and sometimes wasted. The per capita daily consumption in the UAE …

An Investigation Of Trace Cache Organizations For Superscalar Processors, Edward Mulrane Jr

Theses

Techniques such as out-of-order issue and speculative execution aggressively exploit instruction level parallelism in modem superscalar processor architectures. The front end of such pipelined machines is concerned with providing a stream of schedulable instructions at a bandwidth that meets or exceeds the rate of instructions being issued and executed. As superscalar machines become increasingly wide, it is inevitable that the large set of instructions to be fetched every cycle will span multiple noncontiguous basic blocks. The mechanism to fetch, align, and pass this set of instructions down the pipeline must do so as efficiendy as possible, occupying a minimal number …

Single Wall Carbon Nanotube-Nafion Composite Actuators, Brian Landi

Theses

Single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT)-Nafion composite actuators have been demonstrated for 0.1 - 18 %, w/w doping of purified SWNTs within the polymer matrix. The high purity SWNTs, >95%w/w, were prepared using thermal oxidation and acid treatments for both in-house synthesized pulse laser vaporization SWNTs and commercially obtained HiPco material. Characterization of the purified SWNTs was performed using thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, optical absorption and Raman spectroscopy. Homogeneous dispersions of SWNTs in a Nation polymer series were demonstrated using a combination of homogenization and high speed mixing techniques. Evaluation of SWNT-Nafion composites showed a "debundling" of the SWNT average …

Absent, Shu-Jin Huang

Theses

Inspired by the Romantic Movement, many artists have studied 'selfexploration' as I am doing now. Being uprooted from home and moving to a completely different culture can really influence a person. I am lucky to be exposed to a different culture and this leads me to examine myself in a different light. Who am I really and what makes me unique? In this thesis, I explore the concept of my work, 'Absent', its development, characteristics and the themes of the movements which influenced me.

Heat Transfer, Pressure Drop, And Dissolved Gas Effect During Flow Boiling In Microchannels, Mark Steinke

Theses

Microchannels are being considered in many advanced heat transfer applications, including automotive, fuel cells, and electronics cooling. However, there are a number of fundamental issues still unresolved with respect to heat transfer and fluid mechanics perspective. An experimental investigation of the heat transfer, pressure drop, and flow patterns during flow boiling in microchannels is performed. Six parallel microchannels with a mean hydraulic diameter of 207 micron are manufactured and tested. Flow patterns have been observed in the channels under diabatic conditions. Observations suggest that the conventional flow patterns also occur in microchannels, however, the Reynolds number range is significantly lower …

Aisimam - An Artificial Immune System Based Intelligent Multiangent Model, Srividhya Sathyanath

Theses

The goal of this thesis is to develop a biological model for multiagent systems. This thesis explores artificial immune systems, a novel evolutionary paradigm based on the immunological principles. Artificial Immune systems (AIS) are found to be powerful to solve complex computational tasks. The main focus of the thesis is to develop a generic mathematical model that uses the principles of the human immune system in multiagent systems (MAS). The components and properties of the human immune system are studied. On understanding the concepts of A/5, a literature survey of multiagent systems is performed to understand and compare the multiagent …

A New Electronic Image Array: The Active Pixel Charge Injection Device, George Lungu

Theses

This is a Ph.D. thesis dissertation in which a new type of image sensor is investigated as possible successor to the charge coupled device (CCD) for scientific applications. As a result of the work described in this dissertation, the active pixel charge injection device (AP-CID) has been developed. This device retains most of the positive features of both the charge injection device (CJD) imager (random readout, non destructive readout, antiblooming, increased UV sensitivity, radiation tolerance, low power consumption, low manufacturing price) and the CCD imager (low noise, high dynamic range). The device lacks most of the drawbacks of the aforementioned …

5 Photographs, Jim Johnson

Theses

None provided.

Variable Bit Rate Video Time-Series And Scene Modeling Using Discrete-Time Statistically Self-Similar Systems, Rajesh Narasimha

Theses

This thesis investigates the application of discrete-time statistically self-similar (DTSS) systems to modeling of variable bit rate (VBR) video traffic data. The work is motivated by the fact that while VBR video has been characterized as self-similar by various researchers, models based on self-similarity considerations have not been previously studied. Given the relationship between self-similarity and long-range dependence the potential for using DTSS model in applications involving modeling of VBR MPEG video traffic data is presented. This thesis initially explores the characteristic properties of the model and then establishes relationships between the discrete-time self-similar model and fractional order transfer function …

Eye Tracking Observers During Color Image Evaluation Tasks, Jason Babcock

Theses

This thesis investigated eye movement behavior of subjects during image-quality evaluation and chromatic adaptation tasks. Specifically, the objectives focused on learning where people center their attention during color preference judgments, examining the differences between paired comparison, rank order, and graphical rating tasks, and determining what strategies are adopted when selecting or adjusting achromatic regions on a soft-copy display. In judging the most preferred image, measures of fixation duration showed that observers spend about 4 seconds per image in the rank order task, 1.8 seconds per image in the paired comparison task, and 3.5 seconds per image in the graphical rating …

Text And Image, David Reed

Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to create images that juxtapose forms of the English language, with both related and non-related imagery, to create the illusion of realistic situations. My images will be expressed through computer-imaging processes, and non-toxic printmaking techniques, and will include the printing procedures and the problems associated with it. I will discuss not only the similarities and differences of artists who have influenced my work, but also my source material. The latter having been derived from observing and recording various uses of the English language, both as humor or social comment, and in the form of …

Between The Ankle And The Soul, Christine Carlson

Theses

None provided.

The Evolution Of The Long Term Performance Of Fiber Reinforced Composites Materials Based On Vinyl Easter Resin, Nasser Abdullah Ali-Al Ghailani

Theses

Fiber reinforced polymer (plastic) FRP composites are different from traditional

structural materials such as steel or aluminum since the an-isotropic nature of a Fiber _ reinforced composite material creates a unique opportunity of tailoring its properties according to the design requirements. With the accelerated change in the technological sphere, FRP composite materials

have taken a paramount importance in various structural applications, where they successfully replaced conventional materials such as steel. Such success is based on the advantages offered by composite materials such as a high strength to weight ratio. However one aspect that is still delaying full acceptance of these …

Masseter Muscle Activity Resulting From Stimulation Of Hypothalamic Behavioral Sites : Wavelet Analysis, Anne Marie Petrock

Theses

Patterns of electromyographic (EMG) activity can give an insight into muscle activity associated with a given behavioral state. The masseter muscle is positioned closely to the temporomandibular joint and controls the position and movement of the jaw. The hypothalamus is the region of the brain associated with emotional behavior. In an effort to further understand the muscle activity underlying emotional display, the hypothalamus in two cats was stimulated to evoke a stereotyped emotional response, known as the "rage response." Unsheathing of the claws, retraction of the ears, significant pupillary dilation and vocalization (hissing) characterize this behavior. EMG data obtained at …

Electrical Properties Of Ultra Thin Al2o3 And Hfo2 Films As Gate Dielectrics In Mos Technology, Vishal R. Mehta

Theses

The rapidly evolving silicon industry demands devices with high-speed and low power consumption. This has led to aggressive scaling of the dimensions in metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs). The channel length has been reduced as a result of this scaling. The industry favorite, SlO₂, has reached limitations in the thickness regime of 1-1.5 nm as a gate dielectric. High-_κ gate dielectrics such as Al₂0₃ and HfO₂ and their silicates are some of the materials that may, probably, replace SlO₂, as gate dielectric in the next four to five years. …

An Algorithm For Estimating The Quality Of Microarrays, Ajeet S. Sodhi

Theses

Microarray technology is currently one of the most valuable gene expression tools in molecular biology allowing the experimenter to simultaneously quantify the expression of thousands of genes. It is also one of the most difficult tools to use accurately as each microarray produces a large amount of information that needs to be inspected and normalized before analysis. As the size of a microarray or number of replicates increase, the use of manual inspection becomes impractical. The aim of this thesis is to introduce an algorithm that evaluates each feature of a microarray from the scanned data file. A quality score …

Protection And Restoration Algorithms For Wdm Optical Networks, Pitipatana Sakarindr

Theses

Currently, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical networks play a major role in supporting the outbreak in demand for high bandwidth networks driven by the Internet. It can be a catastrophe to millions of users if a single optical fiber is somehow cut off from the network, and there is no protection in the design of the logical topology for a restorative mechanism. Many protection and restoration algorithms are needed to prevent, reroute, and/or reconfigure the network from damages in such a situation. In the past few years, many works dealing with these issues have been reported. Those algorithms can be …

Quantitative Assessment Of Reflex Blood Pressure Regulation Using A Dynamic Model Of The Cardiovascular System, Tanha Patel

Theses

A quantitative understanding of the changes in coronary, pulmonary and systemic hemodynamic variables and their effects on the regulation mechanism is important to the better postoperative management of patients with impaired cardiac function. The arterial baroreflex plays a key role in blood pressure homeostasis, and its impairment may result in exaggerated blood pressure fluctuations and an increased risk of cardiovascular morbid events.

The objective of this work was to construct a mathematical model of the cardiovascular system, which will allow us to simulate the effects of the baroreceptor reflex regulation on sudden changes in blood pressure, caused by sudden changes …

Crystallographic Structure And Mechanical Properties Of Tantalum Coatings On Steel Deposited By Dc Magnetron Sputtering, Charanjeet Singh Paur

Theses

Tantalum metal exhibits excellent erosion and corrosion resistance property. Hence, tantalum coatings are investigated for protection of steel surface exposed to mechanical stresses, high temperature, and corrosive environment. Such conditions exist inside large army gun barrels. The goal of this work was to contribute to the development of technology for tantalum coating of steel, which would replace the presently used electrochemical chromium deposition. A DC magnetron sputtering process was used to deposit tantalum coatings on steel substrates. In sputtering, tantalum is deposited in two phases: ductile, body-centered cubic (bcc) phase (a-phase) and a metastable, brittle tetragonal ß-phase. Only a-phase of …

Intramural, Collaborative Learning Systems, Robert S. Friedman

Theses

This thesis focuses on three related concepts: problem-based collaborative learning; the use of multimedia tools in learning systems; and participatory design as a software engineering methodology to create multimedia tools to be used in learning systems. A literature review of the three areas is followed by an overview of the pedagogical, technological, and business trends that affect the direction of innovation in education, including problem-based learning. A discussion of a software engineering project to develop a multimedia application that enhances the learning of geography skills and puts the programming, interface design and multimedia systems capabilities of college students into action …

Statistical Image Analysis Of Spotted Arrays, Filippo Posta

Theses

There is a lot of systematic and specific variability in microarray experiments, this variability affects measured gene expression levels, leading to unreliable gene profiling or an heavy load of extra experiment to statistically confirm the data observed in one experiment.

The aim of this work is to systematically analyze, using statistics, the image derived from a cDNA microarray experiment to have a better understanding of this variability and thus a better confidence over the data obtained from an experiment.

Using technologies available at the Center for Applied Genomics, Newark, New Jersey. Selected images derived from different type of microarray experiments …

Dimensional Study Of Desaminotyrosyl Polyarylates, Kalsank Vaishali Pai

Theses

Synthetic polymers have found widespread usage and acceptance in various areas of the medical device industry. The recognition that no polymeric biornaterials are truly biocompatible has led to the search for bioerodible materials with desirable biological and physical properties for use as tissue engineering scaffolds and to enable in-vivo devices. Several methodologies have been tried and tested to invent the "ideal" biopolymer. The ideal polymeric biomaterial would be one that offers a favorable response at both the cellular and the systemic level with minimum alteration to its mechanical properties and chemistry. The systematic investigation of process-structure-property space to determine the …

Omaha Beach : A Tragedy Of Errors, David P. Stanley

Theses

The American assault on the small strip of sand code-named Omaha Beach, has become one of the most longstanding examples of American military triumph. Yet, at the same time, it is an event synonymous with death and destruction. There, in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, over 3000 American soldiers either lost their lives or were wounded in an attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and an enemy force that was ready for their arrival.

The assault on Omaha was not one that had been briefly or incompletely planned. In fact, it was over a year in the …

Atomic Force Microscopy Used To Determine The Young's Modulus Of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells, Samuel C. Lieber

Theses

The Young's modulus of cultured mouse and rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) was measured with an atomic force microscope (AFM). The AFM can image the three-dimensional structure of biological cells in a physiological environment enabling real-time biochemical and physiological processes to be monitored at a resolution similar to that obtained for the electron microscope (EM). Cellular mechanical properties were determined by indenting the cell's body, and analyzing the indentation data with classical infinitesimal strain theory. This calculation was accomplished by modeling the AFM probe as a cone. as well as a blunted cone. The blunted cone geometry fits the …

On Chip Implement Of Deadlock Avoidance In Wormhole Networks, Kiran K. Gururaj

Theses

This thesis gives a detailed description of the Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) design to avoid deadlocks in Wormhole Networks. Deadlock avoidance is the most critical issue while considering wormhole networks and should be avoided by any routing protocol and algorithm. A novel architecture for the Turn Prohibition Based Routing (TPBR) protocol has been proved to be efficient and was developed as a part of this work. This architecture for implementing the algorithm is divided into three parts. The first part determines the order of selccuon of the nodes, in the network to run the algorithm. The second part deals …