Digital Commons Network^™

A Qualitative And Quantitative Inquiry Into The Learner Engagement Construct, Charles Dye

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study seeks to develop a situated construct of learner engagement within an instructional experience. Despite compelling potential benefits to instructional practice, extant learner engagement research has been limited to either within-the learner constructs or adding a simplistic behavioral component to a model and largely discounting the effects of diverse learning environments, instructional techniques and educational technology, and their collective effects on the learner’s attitudes, behaviors, perceptions, and performance while learning. The present study seeks to develop a construct of learner engagement applying a situated cognition theoretical framework to evaluate the effects of diverse learning environments on the …

An Integrated Flow-Curing Model For Predicting Residual Stresses In Textile Composites, Weijia Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

Fiber-reinforced composites have been widely employed in structural applications due to their high stiffness-to-weight ratio and easily-tailored mechanical properties. However, manufacturing of these lightweight materials involves an infusion and curing process, and flow-induced defects and residual stresses can easily occur, which can compromise the mechanical performance of the composite structures. The purpose of this work is to develop an integrated flow-curing processing model to accurately predict the resin flow front and the residual stresses in the Liquid Composite Molding (LCM) process. In the infusion model, the fiber fabrics are treated as a homogeneous and porous material, and the resin flow …

Human Dimensions Of Roadside Forest Management To Reduce Utility Infrastructure Vulnerability, Danielle Kloster

Doctoral Dissertations

During major storm events in 2011 and 2012 (Tropical Storm Irene, Storm Alfred, Hurricane Sandy), approximately 90% of power outages in Connecticut were caused by falling trees or limbs. The storms brought attention to the vulnerability of utility infrastructure and, in response, more focus was placed on vegetation management. People play a role in each step of the vegetation management process: government and utility officials planning for infrastructure resilience, tree crews conducting the management, and property owners mediating management by consenting or objecting to proposed tree pruning and removal. My research explored the human dimensions of roadside vegetation management. Media …

Exploiting Memristors For Compressive Sensing Applications, Fengyu Qian

Doctoral Dissertations

The amount of sensory signal is increasing dramatically as we’re stepping into the era of Internet of Things (IoT). Compressive Sensing (CS), feature as Sub-Nyquist sampling rate and low complexity sensing architectures, is very promising for these kinds of applications where resources are restricted. Through applying this novel compression technology, data size of sensory signals are largely compressed such that it is very efficient within the signal processing, data transmitting and storage processes. Compared to conventional codec method, CS technique requires less hardware resources and achieve lower power consumption within sensor nodes.

However, there are several bottle-necks of existing compressive …

Late-Stage Deformation And Exhumation Of A High-Pressure Metamorphic Belt In An Active Arc-Continent Collision, Taiwan, Michael Chojnacki

Master's Theses

Structural analyses and fluid inclusion microthermometry were conducted within the blueschist facies, Yuli Belt in the Taiwan arc-continent collision in order to better understand the kinematics and pressure and temperature conditions associated with rapid exhumation (~10 km/myr) of high-pressure rocks. The most recent ductile deformation, observed as a penetrative fabric, S3, and relatively late, steeply dipping, mineral-filled, mode-I fractures, was characterized by vertical shortening, top-to-the southwest shear, and northeast-southwest extension. The late-stage veins record entrapment conditions ranging from 200°C to 450°C. To generalize, this structural and metamorphic history is interpreted to reflect the later stages of exhumation of the Yuli …

Exploring Parallel Algorithmic Choices For Graph Analytics, Akif Rehman

Master's Theses

Sequential graph algorithms are implemented through ordered execution of tasks to achieve high work efficiency. Exposing parallelism in these ordered workloads tends to be an elusive problem. Strict-ordered parallel implementations find nodes that don't have read-write dependencies and hence can be executed in parallel. They have the work efficiency of their sequential counter-parts due to strict ordering constraints. Larger amount of parallelism can be achieved at the expense of redundant work. Relax-ordered implementations remove the global order and only impose the local order. They go through multiple iterations and have the property of monotonically increasing or decreasing output values allowing …

Keeping Track Of Change: Developmental Insights Into The Ability To Represent Objects In Episodic Terms, Emily Yearling

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Allies In Training: The Construction & Management Of Cis Allyship At State University, Davida J. Schiffer

Master's Theses

Many universities provide LGBT Ally Training Programs, but who are the allies who attend them? My research examines how participants conceptualize cis allyship and how they enact it in their professional and personal lives. In describing the gendered and racialized role of cis allyship, I situate my analysis in theories of doing gender & performativity (West & Zimmerman 1987; Johnson 2013) and the scholarship around white allies in academic diversity narratives (Bonilla-Silva 2006; Collins & Bilge 2016). Focusing on an Ally Training program at State University, I conducted an ethnography of 4 Ally Trainings and performed 21 interviews with 12 …

Atrial Fibrillation Detection From Smartwatch Based Photoplethysmography Signals, Syed Khairul Bashar

Master's Theses

Detection of atrial fibrillation (AF) from a wrist watch photoplethysmography (PPG) signal is important because the wrist watch form factor enables long term continuous monitoring of arrhythmia in an easy and non-invasive manner. We have developed a novel method not only to detect AF from a smart wrist watch PPG signal, but also to determine whether the recorded PPG signal is corrupted by motion artifacts or not. In order to detect the motion and noise artifacts from PPG signal, we have used both the accelerometer signal and variable frequency complex demodulation based time-frequency analysis of the PPG signal. After the …

Signaling Mechanisms And Genetic Regulation Of Follicle Cell Maturation And Ovulatory Competence In Drosophila, Elizabeth M. Knapp

Doctoral Dissertations

Female fertility is essential for reproduction, and within the ovary requires the proper development of a competent preovulatory follicle and subsequent ovulation. Follicle development into ovulatory competency is intricately orchestrated through successions of temporally coordinated signaling networks within the somatic follicle cells. However, there still remains a lack of understanding of the genetic regulation of this process. The objective of this dissertation is to characterize this process of follicle maturation and ovulatory competency in Drosophila to establish its utility as a model system to study folliculogenesis and ovulation. How follicle cells develop in the final stages leading up to ovulation …

Fabrication, Characterization And Application Of Zinc Oxide And Zinc Magnesium Oxide Nanostructures, Abdiel Rivera

Doctoral Dissertations

Zinc oxide is a wide bandgap semiconductor with relatively large exciton energy of 60 meV, and longitudinal optical phonon energy of 72 meV. ZnO can be grown in any nanostructure (nanoribbons, nanowires, nanorods, films, core-shell, among others), under any growth condition (metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), molecular beam epitaxial (MBE), hydrothermal, radio-frequency sputtering, sonochemical, etc) to be implemented in a variety of applications. For instance, by adding Mg to ZnO, the energy band separation increases and shift to a lower wavelength. Using ZnMgO, in the form of vertical nanowires, can improve the resolution of solar-blind UV-detectors. Nevertheless, the sol-solubility of …

Inequity And Resistance: Latinx Students And The College Readiness Process, Israel Velez

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study used Youth Participatory Action Research and Community Cultural Wealth Framework (Yosso, 2005) to understand how Vamos a La Universidad (VALU), a high school bilingual college preparation program, impacts first-generation Latinx ninth grade students’ community cultural wealth and understanding about college. This study expands our understanding of how Latinx students interpret the college preparation process after participating in a college preparation program and emphasizes the importance of students’ cultural background and social contacts in their college readiness process. This study proposes new initiatives to add to Latinx students’ college learning process and increase the students’ interest in continuing …

Exploring The Gendered Nature Of Leadership Development For Female Student-Athletes At The United States Naval Academy, Jennifer Gobin

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Intramuscular Injection Of Plant Derived Antimicrobials: A Potenial Use Against M.Bovis In Cattle, Elizabeth Johnson

Master's Theses

Plant derived antimicrobials (PDAs) such as trans-cinnamaldehyde, eugenol and carvacrol, possess strong antibacterial properties yet are generally regarded as safe. In the current crisis of antibiotic resistance, the use of PDAs as alternatives to prevent and control bacterial infections in livestock has gained momentum. The inhibitory effects of PDAs on common bacteria such as C.difficile, Listeria, Salmonella have been widely studied. PDAs have also been found effective in wall-less bacteria such as Mycoplasma, for which common antibiotics are not effective and vaccines are not always effective. In animal husbandry, PDAs can be potentially added in feed to metaphalactively prevent …

Best Practices For Renovating Golf Course Fairways To More Sustainable Bentgrasses In The Northeastern United States, Zoe Esponda

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Affective Narratology And Revolutionary Discourse In Spain (1931-36) And Cuba (1955-61), Eduardo Soren Triff

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation investigates whether affective narratology, as defined by Patrick Colm Hogan, can be useful in identifying underlying ideologies in Hispanic argumentative prose, how these ideologies conform to the concept of revolutionary discourse by Michel Foucault, and finally investigates whether those revolutionary discourses are predominantly modern or traditional, according to cultural complexity model adapted from Ulf Hannerz. The question the dissertation answers is how can Hispanic intellectuals representing opposing political views claim a revolutionary identity and appeal to violence? This question is relevant because these texts were read by those who later engaged in revolutionary violence.

Deep readings were conducted …

Cybersecurity Games: Mathematical Approaches For Cyber Attack And Defense Modeling, Mohammad Hadi Valizadeh

Doctoral Dissertations

Cyber-attacks targeting individuals and enterprises have become a predominant part of the computer/information age. Such attacks are becoming more sophisticated and prevalent on a day-to-day basis. The exponential growth of cyber plays and cyber players necessitate the inauguration of new methods and research for better understanding the "cyber kill chain," particularly with the rise of advanced and novel malware and the extraordinary growth in the population of Internet residents, especially connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Mathematical modeling could be used to represent real-world cyber-attack situations. Such models play a beneficial role when it comes to the secure design and …

Topological Data Analysis For Clustering And Classifying Time Series, Renjie Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

Topological Data Analysis (TDA), which refers to methods of utilizing topological

features in data (such as connected components, tunnels, voids, etc.) has gained considerable

momentum. More recently, TDA has been increasingly used for analyzing time

series. The recent researches of using TDA in time series are mainly focused on unsupervised

and supervised learning. In this thesis, a review of TDA will be provided,

following by using TDA in time series for doing unsupervised and supervised learning

for different applications.

Characterization And Membrane Stability Study For The Switchable Polarity Solvent N,N-Dimethylcyclohexylamine As A Draw Solute In Forward Osmosis, Kevin K. Reimund

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Sooting Propensities Of Face Gasolines In Counterflow Diffusion Flames, Peter Vannorsdall

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Novel Cryptographic Authentication Mechanisms For Supply Chains And Openstack, Reza Rahaeimehr

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, first, we studied the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tag authentication problem in supply chains. RFID tags have been widely used as a low-cost wireless method for detecting counterfeit product injection in supply chains. We open a new direction toward solving this problem by using the Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) of recent RFID tags. We propose a method based on this direction that significantly improves the availability of the system and costs less. In our method, we introduce the notion of Software Unclonability, which is a kind of one-time MAC for authenticating random inputs. Also, we introduce three lightweight constructions …

Three Essays On Fisheries Economics, David T. Suh

Doctoral Dissertations

Archival abstract submitted

Asymptotic Analysis Of Quasi-Limiting Behavior For Drifted Brownian Motion Conditioned To Stay Positive, Sangjoon Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

A Quasi-Stationary Distribution for a Markov process with an almost surely reached absorbing state is a conditionally time-invariant distribution on the state space, which the condition is that the process is not absorbed by the given time. Previous works of Martinez et al. identify the family of Quasi-Stationary Distribution for Brownian motion with negative drift, and characterize the domain of attraction for each of them.

This paper will mainly focus on two subjects.

1. We provide a new approach simplifying the existing results, which explains the direct relation between a QSD and an initial distribution in the domain of attraction …

Insurance Analytics With Tree-Based Models, Zhiyu Quan

Doctoral Dissertations

Tree-based models are supervised learning algorithms broadly described by repeated partitioning of the regions of the explanatory variables to form homogeneous groups. The partitioning is based on minimization of a loss function related to the response variable. The results form and create a tree-based structure, which helps make for better model interpretation, for predicting the response. Because of the many advantages of tree-based models, their use in disciplines like engineering, biostatistics, and ecology has been a popular alternative predictive tools for building classification and regression models. A single decision tree may not produce accurate predictions, thereby, we also examine the …

Impact Of Mixer Design On Lean Direct Injection Combustion, Xiao Ren

Doctoral Dissertations

To reduce the environmental impact of aviation, lean direct injection (LDI) combustion is being pursued to achieve very low emissions. LDI utilizes multi-point mixers to achieve low NOx emissions and satisfactory combustion stability. Since the performance of LDI directly depends on design parameters of each single LDI mixer, a series of fundamental investigations into lean-dome-relevant pilot combustor devices are conducted herein. A single LDI mixer typically uses swirlers with converging venturi and diverging flare to generate swirling flows, which facilitate mixing in the combustor dome. This dissertation aims to investigate the impact of LDI mixer design parameters, including swirler vane …

Advanced Forecasting And Optimization Techniques In Power System Planning And Operations, Xiaorong Sun

Doctoral Dissertations

Utility companies, Independent System Operators, and Transmission Operators require sophisticated techniques in short-term load forecasting, unit commitment (UC), and dynamic line rating in view of the complicated customer behavior, increasing integration of renewable energy, and characteristics of transmission lines in power systems. In this thesis, a set of novel methodologies are developed to address the challenges posed by each problem.

1. Short-term load forecasting at the distribution level is difficult in view of the complicated load features, the large number of distribution-level nodes, and possible switching operations. A hierarchical forecasting approach is established to capture load characteristics at different levels. …

Head Labeling Preference And Language Change, Marcin R. Dadan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores a cross-linguistic trend of a diachronic loss of obligatory syntactic movement, which includes the loss of phrasal movement, as in the new observation regarding the unidirectionality of wh-dependency changes—always from fronting to in-situ (e.g. Old to Modern Japanese, Archaic to Modern Mandarin, or Latin to Modern Romance, as well as the loss of head-movement, e.g. V-to-T in English or Swedish. I propose a unified explanation for these changes based on the preference for head-phrase {H,YP} configurations from the perspective of labeling (Chomsky 2013). I argue that the pressures imposed by Labeling Algorithm to maximize head-phrase configuration …

Sense Of Belonging And Racial Diversity At The U.S. Service Academies, Leah Pound

Doctoral Dissertations

On college campuses, access does not equal inclusion as students of color have to navigate through a predominately White space as they struggle to feel like they belong (Jack, 2019). This dissertation focuses on racial experiences and belonging within a total institution (Goffman, 1961): the U.S. service academies, colleges that are part university and part military. Across three separate papers, I explore the institutional factors that impact the disparity between Black and White students’ belonging. In Chapter 1, I apply Allport’s contact theory (1954) alongside the concept of relative deprivation (Stouffer, 1949) to systematically compare the experiences of Black and …

Application Of Machine Learning To Enhance The Diagnostic Utility Of Interictal High Frequency Oscillations In Drug-Resistant Epilepsy, Stefan Sumsky

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a need for novel biomarkers to aid in the clinical treatment of epilepsy and improve the understanding of seizure generation and the seizure onset zone (SOZ). High frequency oscillations (HFO) are a promising biomarker with the potential to fill this role, but early efforts to apply them have fallen short of clinical quality tools and validity and application of their association with seizure have not been fully explored. This study will advance the understanding and application of HFO to the clinical setting in three ways. First, the relevance of HFO to SOZ and their utility for SOZ localization …

Investigation Of Antimicrobial Secondary Metabolites From Bacterial Isolates Associated With The Hawaiian Bobtail Squid (Euprymna Scolopes), Samantha Gromek

Doctoral Dissertations

A beneficial host-microbe symbiosis that has been extensively studied is the association of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, with the bioluminescent bacterium Vibrio fischeri in the squid light organ. Our research used the Hawaiian bobtail squid as a model system to begin investigating the functional role of secondary metabolites associated with the accessory nidamental gland (ANG), a reproductive organ present in sexually mature female cephalopods, and jelly coat (JC) bacteria. Using this model organism, prior research supports that bacteria from the ANG are deposited into the egg JC. Subsequently, the JC bacteria produce compounds as a chemical defense …