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The Effects Of Place On Health Risk: A Qualitative Study Of Micro-Injecting Environments, Stephen George Parkin Jan 2009

The Effects Of Place On Health Risk: A Qualitative Study Of Micro-Injecting Environments, Stephen George Parkin

Other Faculty of Health Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between place and health-risk in the context of injecting drug use; with specific focus upon such practice that is located within public and semi-public locations. The research followed phenomenological and ethnographic traditions; complemented by interview data and the exploratory application of visual methods (photography and video). This qualitative research was therefore designed to articulate the essence of public injecting in an urban setting within the UK and provide more nuanced understandings of the relationship between injecting drug use, health-risk and the socio-physical environments in which drugs are injected. This study focused upon the public injecting …

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The Influence Of Different Distributions Of Minority Representation On The Developmental Performance Ratings Of White Male Managers, Amber-Rani N. Harris Jan 2009

The Influence Of Different Distributions Of Minority Representation On The Developmental Performance Ratings Of White Male Managers, Amber-Rani N. Harris

Psychology Theses - Archive

The purpose of this study was to examine whether varying distributions of direct report minority representation influenced the developmental performance ratings of White male managers. The archival data used for analysis were collected via a 360-feedback survey completed by managers and direct reports from various organizations. Results of this study revealed that varying percentages of direct report minority representation did not significantly impact the developmental performance ratings of White male managers. One explanation for the findings is that regardless of the direct reports' race, they held homogeneous expectations of their White male managers. Results of post hoc analyses examining gender …

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Training Parents To Systematically Assess And Use Their Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder's Highly Preferred Items To Both Cue And Reinforce Desired Behavior Responses In Community Settings, Shana Leigh Wiggins Jan 2009

Training Parents To Systematically Assess And Use Their Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder's Highly Preferred Items To Both Cue And Reinforce Desired Behavior Responses In Community Settings, Shana Leigh Wiggins

Psychology Theses - Archive

The current study assessed the effectiveness of a training package used to teach parents to conduct a preference assessment and use the most highly preferred items to guide the behavior choices of their child with autism spectrum disorder&rsquos (ASD) who display undesirable behaviors when in community settings. The participants were one parent and a child with ASD from three different families. The child had been observed to display undesirable behaviors in at least two community settings prior to the intervention. An A–B–A–B reversal design was used in which the duration of continual desired behaviors was the dependent (outcome) variable. The …

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Empathic Accuracy And Computer-Mediated Communication: Testing The Effects Of The Target Partner's Attractiveness, Self-Disclosure And Trust, Kathryn Hyde Rollings Jan 2009

Empathic Accuracy And Computer-Mediated Communication: Testing The Effects Of The Target Partner's Attractiveness, Self-Disclosure And Trust, Kathryn Hyde Rollings

Psychology Theses - Archive

This study examined empathic accuracy in a Computer-Mediated Communication setting. The attractiveness of the perceived interaction partner was manipulated and used as an independent variable. Participants were 48 dyads (N = 96) from the subject pool at the University of Texas at Arlington. It was expected that individuals who were interacting with a more attractive partner would have higher levels of empathic accuracy, and that when there was a more attractive male partner in the dyad, the dyad as a whole would use fewer third-person pronouns and more first- and second-person pronouns. It was also expected that increased self disclosure …

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Theia: Radio Frequency Identification Performance Analysis Tool, Jason Francis Pereira Jan 2009

Theia: Radio Frequency Identification Performance Analysis Tool, Jason Francis Pereira

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

In recent years there has been an increase in the adoption of Radio FrequencyIdentication or RFID systems for most applications that deal with investment (products/people) tracking. The ideal requirements of investment tracking systems are :-lost-cost, zero maintenance and eciency.Although the applications are similar in nature, the scenarios and operating environmentsare not. This is a problem that plagues an inexpert consumer of RFIDsystems. RFID systems are application specic and hence have to be properly customizedto the application environment. One solution to this problem is to have theinstallation set up by an expert, but this is impractical due to recurring costs for …

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Implementation Of Autonomous Navigation And Obstacle Avoidance On An Unmanned Ground Vehicle, Pranav Naresh Desai Jan 2009

Implementation Of Autonomous Navigation And Obstacle Avoidance On An Unmanned Ground Vehicle, Pranav Naresh Desai

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis presents the implementation of a novel distributed embedded systems approach to real-time obstacle avoidance and guidance for an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV). The mobility, real-time, and limited size requirements of UGVs, result in computationally limited and resource constrained hardware platform. The use of distributed computational resources, such as multiple embedded micro-controllers, enables the distribution of the computing resources for obstacle avoidance and guidance system functionalities. The resulting system's complexity is significantly greater than that of a single high performance processor performing all of the above functions. The hardware platform is integrated with sensors and micro-controllers to function as …

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Multiple Linear Regression Model Of Visceral Leishmaniasis In Bihar, India, Darren Sheets Jan 2009

Multiple Linear Regression Model Of Visceral Leishmaniasis In Bihar, India, Darren Sheets

Mathematics Theses - Archive

Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is one of the world's worst parasitic killers, second only to Malaria, claiming nearly 500,000 lives each year. The disease attacks the spleen, liver, and bone marrow, and if left untreated is nearly always fatal. Whilst the disease is found all around the world, it is primarily prevalent in developing countries, in particular India. The most affected state in India is Bihar, where the disease is endemic. While other research has been conducted with emphasis on the effect of climate variables on the disease incidence rate, this analysis focuses on socio-economic variables such as literacy rate, housing …

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Animal Welfare: Societal Perspectives And The Path To Permanent Change, Janet Linn Horton Jan 2009

Animal Welfare: Societal Perspectives And The Path To Permanent Change, Janet Linn Horton

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

During the past 200 years animal welfare has been changing in a direction that is providing animals with a protection they have not always had. As society began to research the study of animal dynamics, there was a discovery on the importance in providing animals' moral consideration. Animal's societies have been created in order to provide protection the animals need and in order to seek sanctions for those who violate the laws and cause unnecessary pain and suffering to them. Animals have become a major part of business today, not only for the law abiding society members but for the …

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"Independence, Liberty, And Justice": The Birth, Life, And Death Of Haden Edwards' Fredonian Rebellion, John Wesley Strunc Jan 2009

"Independence, Liberty, And Justice": The Birth, Life, And Death Of Haden Edwards' Fredonian Rebellion, John Wesley Strunc

History Theses - Archive

To populate Texas, the government of Mexico encouraged foreign empresarios like Stephen F. Austin to bring families and settle. One of those men, Haden Edwards, hoped to turn a profit with his grant in the area around Nacogdoches. Local authorities opposed his efforts, he became involved in political and social squabbles, and the Mexican government felt compelled to revoke his grant. Seeing no alternative, Edwards engineered the Fredonian Rebellion, hoping to maintain his lands.Characters including Edwards, Martin Parmer, and Samuel Norris turned a local dispute involving politics, money, and control, into what could have become a large scale revolution. Only …

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Shaping British Identity: Transatlantic Anglo-Spanish Rivalry In The Early Modern Period, Andrea K. Brinton Haga Jan 2009

Shaping British Identity: Transatlantic Anglo-Spanish Rivalry In The Early Modern Period, Andrea K. Brinton Haga

History Dissertations - Archive

Traditional nationalism studies focus primarily on nineteenth-century developments of state-formation and the imposition of nationalistic compulsions from the top down. This study challenges that theoretical framework by arguing that nationalism is evident in much earlier centuries, that nationalistic sentiment is expressed from the bottom up, and that the state is often compelled to assert itself against political rivals in response to the needs and desires of its citizenry. Nationalism is essentially mere rhetoric--the language of the state and its people--in order to encourage or compel compliance in response to the necessity of the state to achieve specific political goals. The …

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English Opinions On The French Revolution, Wilburn Thomas Wagoner Jan 2009

English Opinions On The French Revolution, Wilburn Thomas Wagoner

History Theses - Archive

Just as the French Revolution changed the French political landscape, it also affected other European countries such as England. Both pro-revolutionaries and anti-revolutionaries argued in the public forums the merits of the events in France. Gradually the arguments became less about the French Revolution and more about the future of England. The intent of this paper is to show how English conservative and radical authors and politicians debated the merits of the French Revolution, and how this proved to be the catalyst for more moderate reformers who would work to create a progressive England. Three areas that concerned England are …

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Design And Study Of Phase Locked Loop For Space Applications In Sub-Micron Cmos Technology, Partha Pratim Ghosh Jan 2009

Design And Study Of Phase Locked Loop For Space Applications In Sub-Micron Cmos Technology, Partha Pratim Ghosh

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This work proposes a successful design of a radiation hard phase locked loop (PLL) using Silicon-on-Sapphire CMOS (SOS) technology for space applications. A fully self-bias radiation hard PLL providing frequency of 2.5 GHz has been designed for the first time on SOS technology. SOS technology is used to provide radiation hardness from Single Event Effects (SEE), an improvement over the use of commercially available bulk CMOS process. Innovative designs of VCO implemented in the PLL, architectural modifications in the use of buffers, bias stages, asynchronous dividers and optimization of fully self-bias design provide hardness from Total Ionization Dose (TID). Self-bias …

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Designing Multi-Objective Reverse Logistics Networks Using Genetic Algorithms, Sanya Yimsiri Jan 2009

Designing Multi-Objective Reverse Logistics Networks Using Genetic Algorithms, Sanya Yimsiri

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Reverse logistics (RL) involves management of activities that include collection, sort/storage, transportation, recovery, disposal and re-distribution. The product return process is more complicated than forward logistics due to presence of multiple reverse distribution channels, individualized returns with small quantities, extended order cycles associated with product exchanges and a variety of recovery and disposition options. Reverse logistics has been gaining interest from many sectors due to rising costs, environmental concern and tougher regulations. As a result, good reverse logistics network design can help business save costs and meet their bottom lines in this competitive global environment. Most of the previous research …

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Enabling Context-Aware Applications In Smart Environments‏, Roman Arora Jan 2009

Enabling Context-Aware Applications In Smart Environments‏, Roman Arora

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Recognizing human activities is an important feature for the development of contextaware applications that are so fundamental to enabling assistive environments. Only once these applications are able to determine the activities that their inhabitants are performing can they assist the individuals and their special needs. In order to do this, it is necessary to build models that can accurately capture and recognize the observed patterns. Equally important is the need to manage and distribute the information that has been inferred, and to provide Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees so that context-aware applications can react effectively to emergent situations. In this …

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Query Auditing Against Partial Disclosure, Mayur Motgi Jan 2009

Query Auditing Against Partial Disclosure, Mayur Motgi

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Many government agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations need to collect, analyze, and report data about individuals in order to support their short-term and long-term planning activities. Statistical Databases therefore contain confidential information such as income, credit ratings, type of disease, or test scores of individuals. Such data are typically stored online and analyzed using sophisticated database management systems (DBMS) and software packages. On one hand, such database systems are expected to satisfy user requests of aggregate statistics related to non-confidential and confidential attributes. On the other hand, the system should be secure enough to guard against a user's ability to …

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Physiological Telemetric Sensing Systems For Medical Applications, Lun-Chen Hsu Jan 2009

Physiological Telemetric Sensing Systems For Medical Applications, Lun-Chen Hsu

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

A batteryless, wireless, sensing system, suitable for biomedical applications, was studied in this dissertation. The sensing system contains a reader and a transponder and the working principle is based on passive RFID systems. The transponder harvests the RF energy from the reader to power up the frequency generator circuit which is modulated by sensor signals. Sensor signals are encoded into frequency shifts to provide the immunity to motion artifacts and the robust performances of sensing system are demonstrated. The sensing platform can also be used for multiple sensor integration for different medical applications. In this dissertation, the physiological measurements are …

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Effects Of Voltage Unbalance And System Armonics On The Performance Of Doubly Fed Induction Wind Generators, Morgan Mozhgan Kiani Jan 2009

Effects Of Voltage Unbalance And System Armonics On The Performance Of Doubly Fed Induction Wind Generators, Morgan Mozhgan Kiani

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Inherent difficulties in management of electric power in the presence of an increasing demand for more energy, non-conventional loads such as digital appliances, and non-sustainable imported fossil fuels has initiated a multi-folded effort by many countries to restructure the way electric energy is generated, dispatched, and consumed. Smart power grid is the manifestation of many technologies that would eventually transforms the existing power grid into a more flexible, fault resilient, and intelligent system. Integration of distributed renewable energy sources plays a central role in successful implementation of this transformation. Among the renewable options, wind energy harvesting offers superior engineering and …

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Dynamic Scene Interpretation And Understanding From Two Views, Ninad Shashikant Thakoor Jan 2009

Dynamic Scene Interpretation And Understanding From Two Views, Ninad Shashikant Thakoor

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Interpretation of a static or dynamic scene starts by segmenting the scene followed by recognition. Our work concentrates on the general problem of segmenting and recognizing animate and inanimate objects in a scene captured from two different views. The two views here refer to either a pair of frames captured by a stereo camera or two frames (with spatial overlap) captured with a moving camera.The work described in the dissertation starts with an iterative split-and-merge framework for segmentation of an unknown number of objects captured with stereo camera. The disparity of a scene is modeled by approximating various surfaces in …

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A Novel Method For Major Harmonic Sources Identification In High Voltage Transmission Systems, Shun Liang Jan 2009

A Novel Method For Major Harmonic Sources Identification In High Voltage Transmission Systems, Shun Liang

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Due to the proliferation of high-voltage power electronics devices and nonlinear loads connected to power systems, the penetration of produced harmonics into power transmission networks to pollute power quality of power systems has been a new concern. Recently, an electric utility company in Texas has observed that harmonic levels may exceed the recommended levels of IEEE Std. 519-1992 at some points in the 138 kV, 161 kV, and 345 kV transmission systems. In order to meet the requirement of the IEEE recommended practice and maintain the power quality of electricity delivered to consumers, identification of major harmonic sources to mitigate …

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Electrodeposited Cuprous Oxide Solar Cells, Kunhee Han Jan 2009

Electrodeposited Cuprous Oxide Solar Cells, Kunhee Han

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The electrochemically deposited cuprous oxide (Cu2O) as a photovoltaic absorber material is introduced in this work. The electrical, structural, and optical characteristics of electrodeposited Cu2O are well investigated. The pH of the deposition solution controls the flat band voltage of Cu2O. The variation of the flat band voltage by solution pH is related to oxygen incorporation in the film, which is controlled by the amount of oxygen precursor, OH-, in the solution. Hence, the high pH in the solution is preferable for producing a p-type Cu2O with copper vacancy, while the low pH in the solution is preferable for producing …

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Mems Based Wireless Sensing And Therapeutic Systems For Biomedical Applications, Praveen Pandojirao-Sunkojirao Jan 2009

Mems Based Wireless Sensing And Therapeutic Systems For Biomedical Applications, Praveen Pandojirao-Sunkojirao

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Miniaturized devices in vivo for accurate diagnosis and prognosis in therapy to detect various physiological parameters inside human body have been a goal for efficient healthcare. In this perspective, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) devices providing small size features and new transduction functions benefit such biomedical applications. The features in MEMS devices also allow integration of CMOS circuitry and wireless communication for electronic control as well as actuation functionalities for driving mechanical parts for scanning, moving and probing. In this work, feasibility studies for two novel sensing systems: an in vivo optical fiber based spectral optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system and …

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A Hybrid Method For Identifying And Estimating Key Dynamic Parameters For Exciters, Pss And Governors Based On Event-Recorded Measurements On-Line Measurements, Yunzhi Cheng Jan 2009

A Hybrid Method For Identifying And Estimating Key Dynamic Parameters For Exciters, Pss And Governors Based On Event-Recorded Measurements On-Line Measurements, Yunzhi Cheng

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Following the power market deregulation, power systems have become more complex and are found to be consistently operating closer to their stability limits. Power system dynamic modeling and studies which provide significant insight into the dynamic characteristics of the system are bound to play increasingly critical roles. The dynamic simulation results are highly dependent on certain key parameters that govern the dynamics of the power system such as governors and/or exciters in the case of generation facilities. However, the dynamic parameters in the system database maintained by the Independent System Operator (ISO) are not accurate due to numerous reasons ranging …

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A Family Of Robust Second Order Training Algorithms, Sanjeev Sreenivasa Rao Malalur Jan 2009

A Family Of Robust Second Order Training Algorithms, Sanjeev Sreenivasa Rao Malalur

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Starting with the concept of equivalent networks, a framework for analyzing the effect of linear dependence on training of a multi-layer perceptron is established. Detailed mathematical analyses are carried out to show that training using backpropagation and Newton's method is different under the presence of linear dependence.Two effective batch training algorithms are developed for the multilayer perceptron. First, the optimal input gain algorithm is presented, which computes an optimal gain coefficient for each input, used to update the input weights. The motivation for this algorithm comes from using equivalent networks to analyze the effect of input transformation. It is shown …

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Peon: Privacy-Enhanced Opportunistic Networks With Applications In Assistive Environments, Gauri Vakde Jan 2009

Peon: Privacy-Enhanced Opportunistic Networks With Applications In Assistive Environments, Gauri Vakde

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Opportunistic Networking holds a great deal of potential for making communications easier and more flexible in pervasive assistive environments. However, security and privacy must be addressed to make these communications acceptable with respect to protecting patient privacy. We propose Privacy-Enhanced Opportunistic Networking (PEON), a system for using opportunistic networking in privacy-preserving way. PEON uses concepts from anonymous communications, re-routing messages through groups of peer nodes to hide the relation between the sources and destinations. We describe a set of protocols that explore a practical range of trade-offs between privacy and communication costs by modifying how closely the protocol adheres to …

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Open Main Detection In Underground Distribution Network Using Statistical Approaches, Abedalgany Abedallah Athamneh Jan 2009

Open Main Detection In Underground Distribution Network Using Statistical Approaches, Abedalgany Abedallah Athamneh

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The continuous increase for people dependency on electrical energy to run most of their industrial, commercial and residential activities makes it necessary to regularly improve the distribution systems. This Improvement does not involve served area and system capacity increase only, but also includes service quality and system reliability enhancement. Outage is the most serious challenge that might affect the reliability of the distribution system, especially in the congested areas like New York City, where the outage is a threat for continuity of service for a large number of customers or for the important world institutions there. Outage incident in distribution …

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Objective Image And Video Quality Assessment With Applications, Qiang Li Jan 2009

Objective Image And Video Quality Assessment With Applications, Qiang Li

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Objective Image and Video Quality Assessment (IQA/VQA) aims to automatically measure the quality degradation perceived by the human eyes. It is of fundamental importance to address a wide variety of problems in image and video processing. Based on the availability of the information about the reference image, IQA/VQA models can be classified into Full-reference (FR), Reduced-reference (RR) and No-reference (NR) IQA/VQA methods. This dissertation focuses on FRIQA/VQA, RRIQA/VQA, as well as their applications in perceptual image coding and video interpolation.First, we propose novel metrics for FRIQA/VQA based on Structural SIMilarity (SSIM) and the information theoretical weighting. The spatial information weights …

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Performance Evaluation In Reverse Logistics With Data Envelopment Analysis, Ake Tonanont Jan 2009

Performance Evaluation In Reverse Logistics With Data Envelopment Analysis, Ake Tonanont

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Good reverse logistics design can save cost, increase revenues, and gain competitive edges over the rivals. Design of the optimized reverse supply chain model is a very important task to help enterprises save cost and gain benefits from their supply chains. In this study, reverse logistics is considered as a part of the Closed Loop Supply Chain (CLSC). CLSC combines forward and reverse flow together in the supply chain. Each component in a forward and reverse supply chain results in the efficiency of CLSC. Therefore, considering forward and reverse supply chain together as a CLSC will result in more benefits …

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Software Capacity Planning: A Methodology For A Portfolio Of High Technology Product Development Projects, Rajiv Malhotra Jan 2009

Software Capacity Planning: A Methodology For A Portfolio Of High Technology Product Development Projects, Rajiv Malhotra

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

High technology product development projects make extensive use of engineering software during the product development process. The suite of engineering software tools deployed during product development represents a significant portion of the product development costs. The ability to forecast the engineering software license capacity required to support product development plans is crucial for budgeting, return on investment (ROI) calculations, contract negotiations with the software suppliers, and the provision of an IT infrastructure necessary to support the execution of the software tools. This research shows that the usage of engineering application software in high technology is cyclical due to the characteristics …

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Web Application Integration Using Mashups, Ronda Hilton Jan 2009

Web Application Integration Using Mashups, Ronda Hilton

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

The HTML DOM is the W3C standard data model for HTML documents. A web page may be viewed as a tree structure with data nodes at each level, according to the HTML DOM, to enable web applications to access it dynamically. If a web page mashes up more than one web application, the data from one web application may flow as input into another. The user may manually transfer such data piecemeal by using the mouse to cut and paste the displayed text. Instead of this tedious and error-prone repetitious method of data transfer, the mashup may contain a software …

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Multi-Port Power Electronic Interface For Renewable Energy Sources, Wei Jiang Jan 2009

Multi-Port Power Electronic Interface For Renewable Energy Sources, Wei Jiang

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Energy intensive products and services are penetrating people's daily life as well as different sectors of industry during recent decades. Further effort to improve efficiency, reduce green house gas and hazardous particle emission lead to the emergence of the "more electric" concept in several industries including transportation. This trend, however, burdens the aging power system and existing local power networks. To offer a remedy to the problem and a smooth transition to a more reliable, more diverse, and more efficient power grid of the future, the concept of Multi-port Power Electronic Interface (MPEI) for localized power processing is introduced in …

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