Digital Commons Network^™

¿Qué Es La Patria?: Peruvian National Identity And José María Arguedas, Sydney S. Welch

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Hand Adjustable Position Override For Large Exit Bin, David J. Michalik, Alex Wiseman, Kelsey Grover, David Bryan

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Sales And Operations Planning Implementation On Supply Chain And Financial Metrics, Matthew Nolte

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Methodology For Generating Simplified Cross Section Data Sets For Neutron Transport Calculations, Thomas Jay Harrison

Doctoral Dissertations

Neutron shielding problems involve radiation transport calculations over a wide range of energies. Fission neutrons have initial energy on the order of MeV, fusion neutrons have initial energy on the order of 10s of MeV, and space-origin neutrons have initial energy on the order of 100s of MeV or higher. Shielding calculations must track the neutrons from their initial energies until they are no longer of interest; for deep-penetration neutrons, this final energy can be on the order of eV before the neutron is no longer tracked. Thus, for deep-penetration space radiation shielding problems, the calculation may require tracking the …

Understanding The Influence Of Non-Covalent Interactions And Nanoparticle Geometries In Carbon Based Polymer Nanocomposites, Bradley Carroll Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

Low-loading polymer nanocomposites (PNC) are an area of great interest in polymer science. As nanoparticles (NP) are typically expensive in comparison to matrix materials; the low loading regime makes the most efficient use of materials, and represents the optimum for realizing cost effective, high-performance PNCs. However, formulating effective low-loading composites is not without challenges. In addition to the typical requirement of good dispersion for efficient translation of NP properties to the bulk, low-loading composites can sometimes exhibit anomalous (non-classical) dynamics, and unpredictable properties. It is within this context that this thesis aims to examine the effects of NP geometry and …

Synthesis And Characterizations Of Stimuli-Responsive Polymeric Materials For Biomedical Applications, Shuangcheng Tang

Doctoral Dissertations

Stimuli-responsive polymeric materials have been now widely researched toward the biomedical applications including therapeutic delivery, bio-sensor surface modification, and tissue-engineering, etc., considering their desirable biocompatibility, tunable properties, and sensitivity toward physiological stimuli. Beyond the monoresponsive materials, polymers with responsiveness simultaneously toward multiple stimuli are paid great attention to because the control of responsive behaviors could be achieved at a more accurately and delicately level in a complex local environment. However, many challenges still exist such as maintaining integrity of the structure, shaping the morphology at micro- and macro-scale, and regulating a controllable and predictable transition behavior.

The objectives of this …

Physiological Characterization Of Prochlorococcus Under Abiotic Stressors Temperature And Hydrogen Peroxide, Lanying Ma

Doctoral Dissertations

Cyanobacteria of the genus Prochlorococcus are the smallest and most abundant phytoplankters in the ocean. Temperature is a major influence on Prochlorococcus abundance and distribution in the ocean, but the physiological basis for this relationship is not well understood. In other microbes, lipid and fatty acid composition have been shown to be influenced by temperature, and temperature has also been proposed as a relevant factor for setting the elemental allocation in marine phytoplankton. In this study, we found that percentage of fatty acids unsaturation was negatively related with temperature in some Prochlorococcus strains, but this was not universal. Temperature had …

Integrated Internet Marketing Communications For The Global Market: An Empirical Examination, Philip Jean Boutin Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

Strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and performance of Internet (online) marketing communications (IOMC) by companies when they attempt to target, reach, and communicate with the global market (i.e., both domestic and foreign markets) in order to promote and sell products to the members of that market was the broad phenomenon examined. The specific focus was on the use of a globally integrated marketing communications (GIMC) approach with IOMC and the creation of the global Internet integrated marketing communications (GI-IMC) concept.

Relevant theories and theoretical models were identified and leveraged to serve as the theoretical foundation for the general theoretical framework, the …

Assessment Of Biomass Burning And Mineral Dust Impacts On Air Quality And Regional Climate, Xinyi Dong

Doctoral Dissertations

East Asia is frequently influenced by dust storms and biomass burning. This study conducts a comprehensive investigation of its kind based on data analysis with surface measurements, satellite products, and model simulations. The objective of this study is to improve the understanding of the impacts of biomass burning and dust on air quality and regional climate. The study period covers March and April from 2006 to 2010. Biomass burning from Peninsular Southeast Asia (PSEA) has significant annual variations by up to 60% within the study period. The impact of biomass burning on air quality is mainly confined within the upper …

Analysis And Control Of Vsc Based Hvdc System Under Single-Line-To-Ground Fault Conditions, Xiaojie Shi

Doctoral Dissertations

To take full advantage of multilevel modular converter (MMC) and extend its application in high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems, the ability to deal with severe unbalanced conditions, especially under single-line-to-ground (SLG) fault, is a key requirement.

This dissertation deals with the development of a fault handling strategy, which helps HVDC systems achieve continuous energy supply and desired operation performance under temporary SLG fault conditions while ensuring a smooth and fast black start for MMC-HVDC particularly if the system has to shut down when a permanent SLG fault occurs. Several related research topics will be discussed in this dissertation. …

The Perpetration Of Adulthood Animal Abuse And Intimate Partner Violence In Men And Women Arrested For Domestic Violence, Jeniimarie Febres

Doctoral Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs at devastatingly high rates in the United States. The current interventions for perpetrators of IPV are limited in their effectiveness. Research regarding characteristics of perpetrators of IPV may provide needed insights about their aggression in order to inform more effective treatments. This cross-sectional study employed the newly developed Interactions with Animals Scale, an original measure of a form of aggression that lacks comprehensive examination despite its demonstrated association with IPV, adulthood animal abuse (AAA). The prevalence, frequency, initiation, motivation, type of animal victimized, and recency of AAA was obtained from a sample of men ( …

Quantification Of Fast-Neutron Sources With Coded Aperture Imaging, Timothy Donald Jackson

Doctoral Dissertations

Quantification of the mass of plutonium in facilities that process plutonium is important for both nuclear safeguards concerns and safety concerns, and multiple methods to nondestructively quantify plutonium sample characteristics have been proposed, particularly when the sample is located directly adjacent to or within the measurement device. In prior work, coded-aperture fast neutron imaging has been developed to demonstrate the imaging of neutron emitting radiation sources in a qualitative fashion, where the sources may be located meters to tens of meters away. Building upon prior work, this work develops the use of a Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization (MLEM) reconstruction technique …

Elucidating Mechanisms Of Lipid Droplet Formation In The Fission Yeast, Schizosaccharomyces Pombe, Alexander William Meyers

Doctoral Dissertations

Cellular function relies on the proper sequestration of fats in organelles called lipid droplets. Lipid droplet metabolism is inherently linked to many disorders including obesity, type-2 diabetes, and atherosclerosis, so further elucidation of the bio-physical phenomena governing these diseases, is crucial for their respective treatments.

Once widely regarded as inert, these neutral lipid storage depots are highly dynamic and are increasingly shown to affect a wide array of biological processes. Droplet formation requires the accumulation of neutral lipids and related factors at specific cellular domains, however because this occurs at nanometer length-scales, details are lacking. Here, we try to provide …

“You Came To Not Normal Land”: Nurses' Experience Of The Environment Of Disaster: A Phenomenological Investigation, Stasia Elizabeth Ruskie

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research suggests US nurses are unprepared for disaster, and suffer from adverse psychosocial outcomes following their disaster response. Current disaster preparedness focuses on providing hospital-centric trauma and acute care in fully resourced Western conditions, and does not include the environmental realities of the disaster setting. This study utilized an existential phenomenological approach to explore the meaning of the nurse’s experience of the disaster environment. Eleven nurses with broad disaster expertise and training levels participated in this research. The essence of their disaster experiences can be summed up by the central theme of “You came to not normal land.” Four …

Analysis Of Productivity Indicators: Perceptions Of Administrators And Faculty Serving At Religiously Affiliated Private Colleges And Universities, Mark Jeremy Farley

Doctoral Dissertations

Since national attention has been placed on accountability and productivity, it is useful for policy makers at religiously affiliated colleges and universities to understand and influence the increase in outputs, given limited sources of inputs and how productivity should influence institutional decision making. The relationship between these institutional outputs and required inputs has become the resounding chorus for numerous higher education productivity research projects (Bogue & Hall, 2003; Hunt, Carruthers, Callan, & Ewell, 2006; NCHEMS, 2009; PASSHE, 2011; SHEEO, 2005; Spellings, 2006; Vedder, 2004). However, little research exists regarding the importance of productivity …

Characterization Of Optimal Cyber Attacks On Control Systems, Anis Drira

Doctoral Dissertations

Securing control systems which manage the nation's critical physical infrastructures and key resources is becoming one of the highest priorities and can no longer be ignored. Several researches and incidents have confirmed the real vulnerability of these systems. Due to the vital role of control systems, the study and the development of advanced strategies to overcome these cyber-security breaches are very important. Control systems are mainly composed of sensors and actuators, which cyber-security is vital for the security of the whole control system.

Characterizing and guarding against worst case attack scenarios is important to secure control systems. This dissertation proposes …

Health Assessment Of Two Reintroduced Populations Of American Martens (Martes Americana) In Michigan, Maria Catherine Spriggs

Doctoral Dissertations

The American marten (Martes americana) was extirpated from Michigan during the early-20th century due to loss of vast areas of mature conifer forest and unregulated trapping. The species was reintroduced into the Upper Peninsula (UP) and Northern Lower Peninsula (NLP) during the mid-20th century. While the American marten population in the UP has grown and is doing well, the population in the NLP has been less successful. The reasons for the limited success of the NLP population are unknown, but may include lack of suitable habitat, limited reproductive success, poor genetic diversity, disease, or negative environmental impacts. American …

Subordinate Humor And Leader-Member Exchange Relationships: Laugh And The Boss Laughs With You?, Nancy Marietta Scott

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation used a political lens to investigate humor in a leader-member exchange (LMX) framework to explore how subordinates can use humor to manage relationships with their superiors and the subsequent outcomes associated with the quality of these relationships. This dissertation linked humor to outcomes that had not previously been studied, such as political skill and employee guarding tactics. This dissertation uniquely contributes to the current body of research by 1) empirically investigating subordinate humor in an LMX framework, 2) exploring how political skill affects the relationship between humor and LMX relationship quality, and 3) examining an unexplored outcome of …

Three-Phase Power Converter Based Real-Time Synchronous Generator Emulation, Liu Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

To bridge the gap between power system research and their real application in power grids, a Hardware Test-Bed (HTB) with modular three-phase power converters has been developed at the CURENT center, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to emulate transmission level power systems with actual power flowing.

This dissertation focuses on the development and verification of a real-time synchronous generator (SG) emulator in the HTB. The research involved in this dissertation aims at designing a proper control to achieve emulator performance goal and investigating the sources of error and its influence on interconnected SG-emulator networks.

First, different interface algorithms (IAs) are …

Prognostic Algorithm Development For Plant Monitoring And Maintenance Planning, Them Hill Bui

Doctoral Dissertations

The economic goals in a typical industrial plant are to improve product quality, maximize equipment up-time, reliability, and availability, and minimize spare part inventories and maintenance costs. Modern facilities are comprised of thousands of subsystems with critical unique components. Simple components and more complex engineering systems alike are typically engineered to perform satisfactorily. Their lives can be predicted under normal operation runtime. It should be the same with chronological time lapse from the moment of installation. However, their ages accelerate faster than chronological time lapse if they are operated under unfavorable working conditions, making their remaining life predictions likely not …

Back From The Brink: The Process Of Revitalization At A Small, Private, Religious Institution, Samantha K. Brown

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the recession of 2008, small, private institutions have faced increased challenges, including little to no return on endowments, reductions in philanthropic support, escalating overhead costs, competition for students, families in need of additional financial aid, and growing public concern about the cost of higher education (Brown, 2011). From 2002 to 2012, 49 four-year, private, not-for-profit higher education institutions closed (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012). Many were in a state of decline for years before closure (Porter & Ramirez, 2009). However, closure is not the only outcome of institutional decline. Institutional revitalization is an alternative to closure. Limited …

Energy-Efficient And Power-Dense Dc-Dc Converters In Data Center And Electric Vehicle Applications Using Wide Bandgap Devices, Weimin Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

The ever increasing demands in the energy conversion market propel power converters towards high efficiency and high power density. With fast development of data processing capability in the data center, the server will include more processors, memories, chipsets and hard drives than ever, which requires more efficient and compact power converters. Meanwhile, the energy-efficient and power-dense converters for the electric vehicle also result in longer driving range as well as more passengers and cargo capacities. DC-DC converters are indispensable power stages for both applications. In order to address the efficiency and density requirements of the DC-DC converters in these applications, …

How Therapy Affects The Counselor: Development Through Play Therapy Practice And Supervision, Tiffany Paige Brooks

Doctoral Dissertations

Therapeutic relationships and counselor qualities as contributions to therapeutic relationships are widely recognized as critical to counseling outcome (Norcross, 2011). Counselors in training (CITs) tend to possess certain traits at certain stages, such as high anxiety, lack of confidence, and a high focus on self in an early stage of development. Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) represents a specialization within counseling, and the current research highlights how the CITs learn CCPT within the classroom (Fall, Drew, Chute, & More, 2007; Homeyer & Rae, 1998; Kao & Landreth, 1997; Lindo et al., 2012; Ray, 2004; Ritter & Chang, 2002; Tanner & Mathis, …

Rogue And Deviants: A Game-Theoretic Perspective On Opportunism In Strategic Alliance Relationships, Anton Pavol Fenik

Doctoral Dissertations

Opportunistic behavior is often studied in interfirm relationships, yet we don’t know the different types of behavior that are hidden behind the general opportunism label. Therefore, using game theory as guidance, this dissertation examines the roots of and influences on two types of opportunistic behaviors in strategic alliances. Specifically, the author suggests that the strategic alliances literature would benefit from recognizing that opportunistic behaviors don’t always originate from the firm (rogue-firm opportunism), but instead often originate from individual alliance employees (deviant-personal opportunism). Moreover, this dissertation examines how relational factors between two alliance partners impact these two types of opportunistic behaviors. …

The Design Of Novel Dcb-3503 Analogues: Ligand-Based And Structure-Based Approaches, Yundi Gan

Doctoral Dissertations

This research centers around a tylophorine analogue, DCB-3503, a lead compound that possesses potent growth inhibitory activities against all 60 human-derived cell lines screened by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In comparison with other known antitumor compounds using the NCI’s COMPARE analysis, it is apparent that the compound is acting through a unique mechanism—one decidedly different from that of other known anticancer drugs. Additionally DCB-3503 has shown inhibitory activities against HepG2 (human hepatocellular cancer, HCC), PANC-1 (human pancreatic ductal carcinoma) and chemotherapeutic-resistant KB cell lines in the hands of our collaborator, Dr. Yung-Chi Cheng of Yale University School of Medicine. …

Labor Unions And Economic Inequality In The Wealthy Democracies, Eric Graig Castater

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research on the determinants of economic inequality in the wealthy democracies has found that differences in the size and constitution of labor unions accounts for much of the cross-national and over time variation in economic inequality. Despite numerous theoretical and empirical reasons to suppose the contrary, most of this research assumes that the union effect on economic inequality is independent of the particular socio-economic and political environment unions are situated within and the types of workers actually unionized. The broad purpose of this dissertation is to push back against these assumptions and examine whether the union effect on economic …

Characterization Of Hypothalamic Neuropeptides In Mammalian Reproduction, Valeria Tanco

Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding of regulation of reproduction at the level of the brain changed dramatically with the discovery of reproductive neuropeptides. To date there have been no studies to characterize the distribution of reproductive neuropeptides in the bovine hypothalamus at different stages of the estrus cycle or to determine the physiological effects of peripheral administration of Gonadotropin inhibiting hormone (GnIH) in intact female cattle and ovariohysterectomized bitches.

The goal of the first study was to determine distribution and connectivity of kisspeptin, dynorphin, and GnIH in the hypothalami of sexually mature female cattle during the estrous cycle. To this end, hypothalami of female …

Rare Earth Production And Characterization Studies, Jake Anson Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations

The rare earths include elements Sc, Y, and La through Lu are important in many modern technologies. With the exception of Sc and Ce the rare earths are all have similar chemical behaviors with the preferred oxidation state in aqueous solution being +3. Currently, industrial purification of the rare earths is completed by counter current solvent extraction (CCSX). In most CCSX separations, Y extracts with Ho making their separation difficult. However, in a few systems Y exhibits an itinerant behavior. Carboxylic acids of varying sizes and substitutions were investigated in a study of Y itinerant behavior. It was found when …

The Supervisory Relationship: How Style And Working Alliance Relate To Satisfaction Among Cyber And Face-To-Face Supervisees, Lauren Elizabeth Bussey

Doctoral Dissertations

Online supervision, or cyber supervision, is an emerging field in counselor education, however, little is known about the differences of the relationship of FtF and cyber supervision. The purpose of this dissertation study was to examine counseling supervisees perceptions of satisfaction with the supervisory relationship and how those perceptions compared for supervisees in face-to-face (FtF) and online, or cyber, supervisees. In doing this, the variables that relate and/or predict satisfaction were studied. These variables were those from the Supervisory Styles Inventory (SSI) and the Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory (SWAI). The dependent variable of satisfaction came from the Supervisory Satisfaction Questionnaire …

Study Of Secondary Particles Produced From Heavy-Ion Interactions, Pi-En Tsai

Doctoral Dissertations

The study of secondary particles produced from heavy-ion interactions is important in heavy ion radiotherapy, space radiation protection, and shielding at accelerator facilities. This dissertation focuses on the study of secondary neutron production as they are of special concern among all secondary particles.

The first part of this dissertation is the measurement of secondary neutrons created from ⁴He [helium] stopped in various target materials together with the model calculations accomplished by PHITS, FLUKA, and MCNP transport codes. The comparison results show that the physics models need improvements particularly in the predictions of 1) neutrons created from the ⁴He …