Digital Commons Network^™

The Effects Of Fast Secondary Electrons On Low Voltage Electron Beam Lithography, Mehdi Bolorizadeh

Doctoral Dissertations

In 1981 Prof. Sir Alec Broers suggested that the spatial limit of direct writing electron beam lithography (DWEBL) would be limited to ~10 nm by the laterally scattered fast secondary electrons (FSE) even in atomically thin resist. Experiments and simulations have been carried out to quantify the contribution of FSE to the energy deposition that results in exposure of the resist over high beam energies. One possible solution to this restriction would be to use low energy electrons.

To examine Broers' hypothesis in low voltage electron beam lithography (EBL), studies in the low energy range on the effects of FSE …

"Is Someone Reading Us?" Fourth Grade Students Respond To Postmodern Picture Books, Elizabeth Anderson Swaggerty

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this naturalistic case study was to gain understanding about the comprehension strategies successful readers employ as they construct meaning while navigating through postmodem picture books. Participants were eight fourth grade students from a large suburban elementary school in Tennessee. Data included transcripts and field notes from ten individual think aloud sessions and five group book club discussions.

Themes identified from the think aloud sessions related to the ways in which students navigated through postmodem picture books include: emotional responses, general story problem solving and postmodem story problem solving. Themes identified from the group book club discussions related …

An Historical Analysis Of The Presentation Of Controversial Issues In Journals Published By The National Council For The Social Studies (Ncss): 1973 - 2003, Kimberlee Anne Sharp

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the stance the NCSS has articulated regarding the teaching of controversial issues across a thirty – year time frame, 1973 to 2003, and to determine the extent NCSS journals presented controversial issues of importance over that period. A corollary purpose was to identify the major controversial news events for each decade in order to determine the breadth of coverage of controversial issues articles in the NCSS journals. The journals examined for this dissertation were Social Education, Social Studies and the Young Learner, and Middle Level Learning.

One thousand eight …

Secondary School Principals' Perceptions Of The Value And Impact Of High-Stakes Tests On Content And Mode Of Instruction, Clifford Davis Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

Critics of government policies that expand the use of high-stakes tests in public schools claim that these tests have a negative impact on student learning. At the building level, these policies have resulted in a great deal of pressure for educators to raise student performance on these tests.

The purpose of this study was to explore secondary school principals' perceptions of the value and impact of state-mandated tests on content and mode of instruction. The entire population of 541 middle and high school principals from public schools in Tennessee was selected to participate in this study.

Secondary school principals reported …

The Experience Of Being Loved: Physical Affection From Parents As Remembered From Childhood, Ellen Senter Denny

Doctoral Dissertations

This project provided a description of the experience of physical affection as remembered from childhood. In-depth, non-directive interviews were conducted with 21 adult participants who were asked to describe their experiences of receiving physical affection from their parents during childhood. The raw data consisted of transcriptions of the interviews, and a method informed by phenomenology and hermeneutics for the purpose of describing the thematic structure of the experience was employed.

The ground of Being Loved provided the context upon which three themes became figural. It included the awareness of feelings that participants experienced, such as love, security, being cared for, …

Weaving The Threads Of Relational Connectedness Between Women: Exploring How Women Make Meaning In Their Lives Through Relationships With Other Women, Lee Ann Alley Jolley

Doctoral Dissertations

The dearth of research on women's female friendships might suggest that a woman's relationships with her girlfriends are less important than her relationships with her partner, children, or parents. Few researchers have focused on the closeness of female friendships despite the fact that those studies that have been conducted have found those friendships to be significant, and over the course of a woman's life, of great importance to her growth and development.

This study took a phenomenological approach in order to understand the lived experiences of women regarding their female friendships, focusing on how women make meaning in their lives …

An Investigation Of Automaticity In Learning Disabled (Ld) And Non-Clinical Adults, Kerry Towler

Doctoral Dissertations

Dyslexia research has implicated phonetic dysfunction in the phoneme-grapheme associations which underlie reading skills. Expert readers of normal developmental etiology have required less mental effort, faster processing speed, and reduced focal attention when applying reading subskills. Readers with dysphonia and poorly automatized reading subskills have required more time, mental effort, and attention. Dyslexia automaticity deficit has been attributed to left hemisphere neuro-cortical disruptions of the underlying neurological substrata that support developmental acquisition of reading subskills. Effects of inefficiently automatized phoneme-grapheme skills accumulate over time resulting in poor reading skills that are detrimental to academic achievement.

Using neuropsychological methodology, adults with …

Hydrodynamic Wave Contributions To Combustion Instability In Rockets, Esam M. T. Abu-Irshaid

Doctoral Dissertations

Experimental measurements suggest that a new source of instability in rocket motors is due to hydrodynamic disturbances. These disturbances, if ignored, could impact our assessment of rocket motor performance. In this work, the corresponding problem of hydrodynamic instability is considered. A mathematical model for these disturbances is carried out by perturbing the continuity and momentum equations. A one dimensional model which represents the wave disturbances in time and space is implemented to quantify the amplification rate, in time or space, and the wave amplitude. The only available measurements of these disturbances arise in cold flow experiments that simulate the gas …

Not So Immaculately Conceived: Imagining The Protestant Madonna 1850-1910, Deborah Ann Scaperoth

Doctoral Dissertations

Pius IX in the 1854 Bull Ineffabilis Deus defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception as the belief that Mary; mother of Jesus, was from the moment of her conception free from the "stain of original sin." This idea was a part of ecclesiastical tradition, but prior to this time, the church had not officially defined Mary's sinless nature in writing. The publication of this definition, along with published accounts of Marian sightings, contributed to an already heightened awareness of her in a literate, culturally aware public. As a result, Protestant writers who sought to invoke her image interpreted a …

The Effect Of Mobile Phase Composition And Temperature On The Adsorption Behavior Of Tryptophan, Tarab Jamil Ahmad

Doctoral Dissertations

Single-component adsorption isotherm data were acquired by frontal analysis for tryptophan on a C₁₈-Kromasil packed column, using acetonitrile-water solutions of various compositions (2.5, 5, and 7.5% ACN + 1% ACOH). These isotherms have a complex behavior, exhibiting at least one clear inflection point at an intermediate concentration and, possibly, another such point, close to the origin. The isotherm for 2.5 % ACN has the strongest curvature. At high concentrations, all these isotherms tend toward a limit, showing that the adsorbent has a finite saturation capacity. At low concentrations, these isotherms seem to exhibit langmuirian behavior. The isotherm model …

Linear And Nonlinear Chiroptical Effects, Watheq Ahmad Al-Basheer

Doctoral Dissertations

Chiroptical effects of linear and nonlinear nature are investigated by employing a variety of spectroscopic methods, such as linear and nonlinear circular dichroism, optical rotation, vibrational Raman scattering, infrared absorption and Vibrational Circular Dichroism. (2+1) Resonance Enhanced Multiphoton Ionization Circular Dichroism (REMPICD) is a direct demonstration of the nonlinear chiroptical effects of a sample of R-(+)-3-methylcyclopentanone. Solvent effects on circular dichroism is studied for 35 common solvents, which is significantly attributed to the solute- solvent electrostatic and Van der waals interactions for CD and ORD of R3MCP. Hartree-Fock and Density Function Theoretical calculations of R3MCP CD and …

Combined Study Of Reactor And Terrestrial Antineutrinos With Kamland, Mikhail Batygov

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a combined study of antineutrinos of terrestrial and reactor origin detected by Kamioka Liquid scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector (KamLAND). Of special physical interest are neutrino oscillation parameters and the terrestrial antineutrino flux, the former being of a profound importance for new physics beyond the Standard Model, and the latter having significant implications for geophysics. The analysis described here uses a comprehensive likelihood model to naturally combine terrestrial and reactor antineutrino studies within a single framework. The use of this likelihood model and better event reconstruction tools allowed to obtain narrower limits for the oscillation parameters and the terrestrial …

Interference Effects Among J = 3/2+ Resonances In 19Ne System & Searching For Resonances In The Unbound 6Be Nucleus, Kyung Yuk Chae

Doctoral Dissertations

The ¹⁸F(p,α)¹⁵O reaction plays a crucial role in understanding γ-ray emission from novae. Because of the importance of understanding the ¹⁸F + p reactions, a number of studies of the A=19 isobars have been made using stable and exotic beams. The interference effects among J ^π = 3/2⁺ resonances in the ¹⁸F + p system, however, have never been measured, but they can change the S-factor by a factor of 20 at nova energies. R-matrix calculations indicate that the cross sections above the Ec.m. = 665 keV resonance are sensitive …

Facing Down Death And Moving Beyond: Strategies Utilized By Female Survivors Of Childhood Maltreatment, Tonya Barri Broyles

Doctoral Dissertations

This study is a secondary analysis of a federally funded study of survivors of childhood maltreatment, who now consider themselves to be successful and effective in their current environments as adults. The purpose of this secondary analysis was to identify strategies that female survivors of childhood maltreatment have used as children and as adults to move beyond the effects of the abuse. An in-depth analysis of 27 women who have completed three interviews over the course of a year has revealed a generative theme of “Facing Down Death” and two interconnected themes of “Purposeful Cognitions/ Emotions,” and “Purposeful Actions.” Each …

The Tangled Web Of Community Ecology: Making Sense Of Complex Data, Monica Lynn Beals

Doctoral Dissertations

Ecological communities are governed by complicated processes that give rise to observable patterns. Making sense of these patterns, much less inferring the underlying processes, has proved challenging for several reasons. Manipulative experiments in natural communities may not be feasible due to large numbers of variables, lack of adequate replication, or the risk of undesirable consequences (e.g., introducing an invasive species). The multivariate nature of ecological datasets presents analytical problems as well; many statistical techniques familiar to ecologists have difficulty handling large numbers of potentially collinear variables. I present results from three studies of spider communities in which I employ a …

Single-Molecule Detection With Active Transport, David Allan Ball

Doctoral Dissertations

A glass capillary is used near the focal region of a custom-built confocal microscope to investigate the use of active transport for single-molecule detection in solution, with both one and two-photon laser excitation. The capillary tip has a diameter of several microns and is carefully aligned nearby to the sub-micron laser beam waist, collinear to the optical axis, so that a negative pressure-difference causes molecules to be drawn into the capillary, along the laser beam axis. The flow of solution, which is characterized by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), can increase the single-molecule detection rate for slowly diffusing proteins by over …

Community College Students’ Perceptions Of Their Rural High School Mathematics Experience, Caroline Munn Best

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study explores mathematics education from the perspective of community college students who are recent graduates of a rural high school. The research questions relate to the students’ perception of their understanding of rural, their rural high school experience, the factors that contributed to their preparedness or lack of preparedness for college-level mathematics, and the effect that their rural education had on their preparation for college. Students enrolled in a mathematics course at a suburban community college in East Tennessee were asked to complete a survey after midterm of fall semester 2005. Information about the location of their high …

Regularization Of The Particle-Particle Interaction In The Nuclear Density Functional Theory, Piotr Jerzy Borycki

Doctoral Dissertations

In this work we show how to regularize the ultraviolet divergences appearing in the local pairing term of the energy density functional. Our approach, entirely rooted in the framework of the Density Functional Theory, is based on the regularization of local densities and currents and can be applied to various classes of energy density functionals. We demonstrated, that for the particular choice of the pairing term of energy density functional, our procedure gives the same regularization scheme to the one obtained earlier by the means of the pairing gap regularization.

We also investigated the non-unitarity of the Bogoliubov tranformation due …

Screening Mammography Compliance In Rural And Urban Women In Tennessee, Kathleen Conroy Brown

Doctoral Dissertations

Between 1990 and 2002, breast cancer mortality rates decreased by over 2% each year. Regular screening mammography is largely credited with the decline as it permits detection of breast cancer at its most treatable stage. In the United States approximately 75% of women over forty years of age report mammography screening within the past two years. However, rates vary by age, income, education, and residence.

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of screening mammography compliance in women living in rural and urban areas of Tennessee; as well as the associated risk factors with special emphasis on …

Psychological Adaptation Of Mainland Chinese Female International Students: A Phenomenological Inquiry, I-Wen Chan

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to obtain a description of Mainland Chinese female international students’ experiences of adjustment in the U.S. Thirteen participants were asked the one question that guided the study: “Please tell me in as much detail as you can, regarding being a female and originally from China, your process of adapting to your studies and living in the United States.” Participants described their experiences in individual audio-taped in-depth interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, creating thirteen separate transcripts. These transcripts, serving as the primary data source, were analyzed using a phenomenological method. Analysis revealed six …

Studies Of The Mechanism Of Electron Beam Induced Deposition (Ebid), Young Ryong Choi

Doctoral Dissertations

The controlled deposition of metals resulting from the passage of an ion beam through an atmosphere of a suitable precursor gas is a well-established procedure for micro scale materials manipulation. While the ion beam technique is rapid and reliable it has the disadvantage that the beam itself can ablate and contaminate the target with Gallium or other materials, and the fact that ion optics are less widely accessible than electron optical columns. We have therefore been investigating the theory and practice of depositing metal using an electron beam and variety of precursor gases. The aim of this work is to …

Avian Community Ecology: Patterns Of Co-Occurrence, Nestedness, And Morphology, Michael David Collins

Doctoral Dissertations

A central tenet of the competition paradigm is that community structure is governed by deterministic rules. The competition paradigm pervades nearly all subdisciplines and extends to the broadest, deepest questions in ecology. To determine whether patterns of co-occurrence, nestedness, and morphology in avian communities are consistent with a competition hypothesis, I use null models to compare observed patterns to patterns expected in the absence of competition.

I use presence-absence matrices of birds in three archipelagoes to test whether species exhibit exclusive distributions. Congeneric birds co-occur significantly less frequently than predicted in two archipelagoes, consistent with a competition hypothesis. However, when …

A High Gain Multi-Stage Operational Amplifier Using Compound Transconductance Element, Chandra Sekhar Acharyulu Durisety

Doctoral Dissertations

The rapid increase in integrated circuit complexity attributed to the advancements in fabrication techniques combined with the increasing demand for consumer applications has created an immense demand for high performance analog systems. These analog systems include high-resolution (≥ 14-bit) and/or high-speed (≥ 1 GHz) ADCs, high- linearity filters and power management circuits. The fundamental limitations in these systems are tied to the constraints imposed by the basic design elements that tend to include amplifiers and reference generators (voltage/current). With continued technology scaling, innovative circuits and design techniques are necessary in achieving high performance analog/mixed-signal systems.

The goal of this research …

Political Advocacy On The Web: Issue Networks In Online Debate Over The Usa Patriot Act, Margot Leigh Emery

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how people and organizations used the World Wide Web to discuss and debate a public policy in 2005, at a point of time when the Internet was viewed as a maturing medium for communication. Combining descriptive and quantitative frame analyses with an issue network analysis, the study evaluated the frames apparent in discourse concerning two key sections of the USA Patriot Act, while the issue network analysis probed hypertext linkages among Web pages where discussion was occurring. Sections 214 and 215 of the USA Patriot Act provided a contentious national issue with multiple stakeholders presumed to be …

Parent Perspectives Of Family Involvement In Children’S Education: Doing Whatever They Think It Takes To Help Children Grow And Succeed, Regina Marie Curran

Doctoral Dissertations

Research shows that when families are involved in their children’s education, children’s academic achievement increases. However, parents’ views of their roles in their children’s education do not always mesh with what school administrators define as family involvement. The purpose of this study was to explore parents’ perspectives on involvement in their children’s education. The research question that guided this study was, “What do parents perceive family involvement in children’s education to be?” The tradition of inquiry used in this study was the grounded theory method that focuses on the emergence of a theory rather than the testing of one. Fifteen …

The Thermophysical Roll Of Nanoparticles In Nanofluidic Heat And Mass Transport, Chan Hee Chon

Doctoral Dissertations

Nanofluids are colloids that consist of a base fluid and nanometer sized metallic particles, which serve to improve the heat and mass transport characteristics of nanofluids over those of the base fluid. Many researchers, attracted to the highly enhanced thermal conductivity, have studied nanofluids, and yet have never been able to reveal the basic mechanisms of their characteristic improvements. This present work thus seeks to gain an understanding of the role of nanoparticles in nanofluidic heat and mass transport characteristics through three experimental measurements: 1) thermal conductivity measurement, 2) thermophoretic motion measurement, and 3) evaporation measurement.

Using thermal conductivity, thermophoresis, …

Efficient Image Processing In Resource-Constrained Visual Sensor Networks, Hongtao Du

Doctoral Dissertations

Visual sensor networks (VSNs) that employ content-rich 2-D images or image sequences as the basic media have been evolving rapidly in recent years. Besides the critical resource constraints that are already inherent in any micro-sensor networks, the development of VSNs also faces challenges from device design, image transmission, and onboard image processing, among which efficient onboard processing is the most difficult to tackle. The focus of this dis- sertation is to develop efficient image processing solutions from three aspects: to improve the time-consuming image processing algorithms using pipelined and parallel computing; to dis- tribute the computation more effectively through novel …

Development Of A Test Methodology For Determining The Efficacy Of One Atmosphere Uniform Glow Discharge Plasma Against Airborne Contaminants, Ronald Edward Domitrovic

Doctoral Dissertations

A method of analysis is developed for an atmospheric plasma reactor in a ducted air stream with the intent of enabling parametric analysis for the multi-variable problem. Industrial uses for atmospheric plasma are numerous and in this case, a particular type of plasma known as “One Atmosphere Uniform Glow Discharge Plasma” (OAUGDP™) was studied for its chemistry generation abilities and its microorganism efficacy properties. The system of an OAUGDP reactor positioned in an air duct of fully-developed turbulent flow is constructed of nineteen pertinent variables and dimensional analysis is applied according to the Buckingham Pi method, yielding fourteen dimensionless variable …

Portfolio-Based Writing Assessment: An Investigation Of Postsecondary Practices, Sharynn Owens Etheridge

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary focus of this study was to identify the commonalities of portfolio-based writing practices as occurs in existing literature; to determine how portfolio assessment is used in postsecondary English programs; to assess whether portfolio-based writing produced improvement in student knowledge and skills; and to determine the impact portfolio-based writing assessment has had on departmental practices. To achieve this end, the researcher designed and administered a questionnaire and conducted follow up telephone interviews with Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) at colleges and universities with established portfolio-based writing assessment programs. Follow up mailings of questionnaires, electronic mailings, and telephone calls were undertaken …

Thermodynamic And Neutron Structural Studies Of Hydrocarbon Adsorption On Mgo Nanocubes, Richard E. Cook

Doctoral Dissertations

Presented is a series of thermodynamic and neutron scattering experiments used to probe the nature of the hydrocarbon - MgO (100) interaction. High-resolution volumetric isotherms are used to probe the wetting, layer transitions, heats of adsorption, two-dimensional compressibilities, and identify possible phase transitions of thin films of benzene, ethane, and n - pentane on MgO powders. Neutron diffraction experiments were used to probe the structure and identify any phase transitions within monolayer films of ethane, butane and n -pentane.

Benzene adsorption, while showing no visible layering steps, shows a shift in the shape of the isotherm for p/p_o > 0.7. …