Digital Commons Network^™

A Study To Determine The Participation Of African Americans And Spanish Americans In Graduate Studies: A Local Perspective, Angela J. Hampton

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The purpose of this study was to look at the following questions: 1. Has the growth declined or increased over the last five years for African American and Spanish American students in graduate studies in the Hampton Roads area? 2. What is the difference between enrollment of Spanish Americans and African Americans in the Hampton Roads area? 3. Is the participation in graduate programs higher at historically black universities or white universities in the Hampton Roads area?

A Study To Determine The Need To Include Technology Education As A Required Part Of General Education And Its Effectiveness In Preparing Students For Trade And Industrial Courses, Shon M. Walter

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The following questions were considered for this study: 1. Does technology education offer applicable skills need by all students? 2 Are the technology courses in high school primarily preparing students who are continuing to technical education? 3. Do technology classes help non-college bound students prepare for the work place?

Impact Of Computer-Aided Instruction On Keyboarding Competency, Janet B. Rubin

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The following hypothesis was offered for this study: 1. Keyboarding I students learn to be more proficient at keyboarding for speed and accuracy when using computers and a keyboarding instruction computer software package as compared to instruction provided by typewriters and textbooks when measured by Norfolk Public Schools competency-based timed writings.

A Study Of The Correlation Between Grade Point Averages And Scholastic Aptitude Test Scores At Tallwood High School 1995-1996, Joseph E. Jordan Jr.

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

This study was used to gain information about the success of high school students with regard to grade point averages and SAT scores. The hypothesis established for this research was: High school students with higher grade point averages will also earn higher SAT scores.

A Study Of Underachievement: How To Turn The Average Student Into The Above Average, Dillon Jones

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

Objectives of this study include the following: 1. What is an underachiever and why do they underachieve? 2. What are the strengths and weaknesses to the AVID program in converting poor students to good students? 3. Has the underachiever become an achiever through a positive change in attitude?

The Investment Of Mental Effort On Learning Through Different Media, Lisa E. Coleman

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

This study sought to determine the level of achievement and mental effort fifth grade school children invested in learning content which was presented through print and video-based media. Through comparing video animation with print visualization material, this study should give instructional designers an additional source from which to consider in appropriating program expenditures to the development of instruction.

A Study To Determine The Attitudes And Practices Teachers Possess Relating To Computers, The Internet And The World Wide Web And Their Application To Education, James A. Williams

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The research objectives used to guide this problem were: 1. Determine teacher's attitudes toward the utilization of computers in support of their work; 2. Determine teacher's perspectives regarding their training to encourage and promote the use of computers by students; 3. Determine to what degree teachers utilize the Internet, World Wide Web and the Virginia Pen in their work; 4. Determine teacher's attitudes toward the use of computers and online services by students to complete assignments.

A Follow-Up Study Of Industrial Technology Graduates Of Old Dominion University 1987-1995, Michael A. Mccammon

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

Through the follow-up study, data was compiled toward answering the following questions: 1. What was the current employment status of the Industrial Technology graduates? 2. What types of employment have been held by the Industrial Technology graduates? 3. What was the typical salary for the Industrial Technology graduates? 4. What were the recommendations of the graduates for Industrial Technology program improvements?

Modeling The Vertical Distribution Of Oyster Larvae In Response To Environmental Conditions, Margaret M. Dekshenieks, Eileen E. Hofmann, John M. Klinck, Eric N. Powell

CCPO Publications

A size-structured, time and vertically-dependent model was used to investigate the effects of water column structure on the distribution of larvae of the oyster Crassostrea virginica. Formulations used to model larval growth and behavior are based upon laboratory studies. Simulated vertical larval distributions obtained for conditions representative of a well-mixed, partially stratified and strongly stratified water column illustrate the effect that salinity and temperature gradients have on moderating larval swimming and hence on larvae vertical location. For well-mixed conditions, smaller larvae are dispersed throughout most of the water column. For strongly stratified conditions, the smaller-sized larvae cluster within the …

Circulation Near Submarine Canyons: A Modeling Study, John M. Klinck

CCPO Publications

Circulation near a submarine canyon is analyzed with a numerical model. Previous theoretical work indicated that stratification controlled the interaction of coastal flow with canyons, specifically, the ratio of canyon width to the internal radius of deformation. A wide canyon was thought to merely steer the flow, while a narrow canyon would create substantial cross-shelf exchange. Four cases are analyzed considering two directions of alongshore flow and two choices of initial stratification. The weakly stratified case has an internal radius about equal to the canyon width, while the strongly stratified case has one about 3 times the canyon width. The …

A Study To Determine The Relationships Between A Local School Division's Middle School System's Technology, Science, And Mathematics Course Curricula And The Accommodation Of State And National Goals, Standards Or Objectives, William C. Reed

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The goals of the study were to determine if: A state's learning standards, for this study the Virginia Standards of Learning, acknowledged, accommendations for technology, science, and mathematics curricula at the middle school level as set forth in a published, national level coordination/integration standard; A local school division's curricula, for this study the Virginia Beach City public School's middle school technology, science and mathematics curricula, complied with the established state standards; and The Virginia Beach City Public School's middle school technology, science and mathematics curricula were related, associated, coordinated or integrated in any fashion.

Therapist Orientation And Circularity-Linearity Of Causality, Responsibility, Intentionality, And Blame For Clinical Problems, Helen Alexander Jones

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Differences in circularity of attributions of causality, responsibility, intentionality and blame for clinical problems by therapists of psychodynamic, behavioral and systems orientations, a psychiatrist group, and an attorney control group were investigated using the Circularity-Linearity Attribution Scale (CLAS). Respondents' judgments about the sufficiency of a single cause for the problem, circular conceptualization of the problem, and linear conceptualization of the presented problems were also solicited. Responses were compared for two problems, schizophrenia and domestic violence. It was hypothesized that the systems-oriented therapists' attributions would be more circular than those of other therapist groups on all dependent variables. It was also …

A Decision Support Model For Large Systems Using Quality Function Deployment And Goal Programming: A Capital Budgeting Problem, Kenneth Lindsey Jr.

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Effective planning for the modernization of U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft requires a perception of the future tasks these aircraft will be called upon to perform, and the improvements and modifications that will be required to successfully accomplish those tasks. A great deal of research has been done in the areas of military strategy, quality function deployment, capital budgeting, and goal programming, as separate areas of study. This thesis details the research and analysis performed for a project called The Fighter Configuration Plan (FICOP), in which these areas were integrated in a decision support model to aid the Air Force …

Dynamic Scale Genetic Algorithm: An Enhanced Genetic Search For Discrete Optimization, Bela Dange Joshi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The minimization of operations and support resources of reusable launch vehicles is a complex task, involving discrete optimization and the simulation domain. Genetic algorithms, offering a robust search strategy suitable for integer variables and the simulation domain, can be applied to minimize these resources. This research developed an enhanced genetic algorithm for problems with a linear objective function, the most common class of discrete optimization problems. The dynamic scale genetic algorithm developed here incorporates concepts of implicit enumeration to enhance search. This is achieved by utilizing problem specific information to refine the solution space over successive generations. The utility of …

Measurement Of Nuclear Quadrupole Interactions Using Mössbauer Spectroscopy, Desmond C. Cook

Physics Faculty Publications

Mössbauer spectroscopy is a useful probe for investigating nuclear quadrupole interactions. It enables the magnitude, sign and asymmetry of the electric quadrupole coupling constant to be determined. It is especially important for its ability to measure these parameters for excited nuclear states. The Mössbauer effect is used to measure excited state quadrupole moments in materials whose electric field gradient (EFG) is known. More commonly however, it is used to determine the EFG from which atomic bonding and electronic structure are determined. The technique also allows temperature dependent orientation of sublattice magnetization to be measured using the direction of the electric …

Effect Of Light/Dark Transition On Carbon Translocation In Eelgrass Zostera Marina Seedlings, Richard C. Zimmerman, Randall S. Alberte

OES Faculty Publications

Carbon translocation in the marine macrophyte Zostera marina L. (eelgrass) was investigated to elucidate the impact of light/dark transitions on sucrose partitioning between roots and shoots. After exposure of leaves to C-14-bicarbonate, the level of C-14-labelled photoassimilates increased monotonically in both leaves and fully aerobic roots of plants maintained in the light. Accumulation of C-14 in roots and leaves ceased abruptly when plants were transferred to darkness that induced root anaerobiosis even though C-14 levels remained high in the dark-exposed leaves. Thus, translocation of C-14 photoassimilates from shoots to roots was inhibited when roots became anoxic. Anoxia induced by light …

A Coupled, Non-Linear, Steady State Model For Early Diagenetic Processes In Pelagic Sediments, Surya P. Dhakar, David J. Burdige

OES Faculty Publications

A steady state, coupled, non-linear model has been developed for early diagenetic processes in pelagic and hemi-pelagic marine sediments. Model results show that the occurrence of oxic and sub-oxic diagenetic processes is significantly affected by variations in parameters such as the sedimentation rate, bioturbation coefficient, sediment porosity, and organic matter flux to the sediments. Increases in the sedimentation rate or the bioturbation coefficient increase organic matter oxidation by sub-oxic processes, whereas an increase in sediment porosity decreases organic matter oxidation by sub-oxic processes. Sediment data from three contrasting MANOP sites are fit reasonably well with the model. The resulting best-fit …

Biogenic Matter Diagenesis On The Sea Floor: A Comparison Between Two Continental Margin Transects, William M. Berelson, Jim Mcmanus, Kenneth H. Coale, Kenneth S. Johnson, Tammy Kilgore, David J. Burdige, Cynthia Pilskaln

OES Faculty Publications

Benthic chamber measurements of the reactants and products involved with biogenic matter diagenesis (oxygen, ammonium, nitrate, silicate, phosphate, TCO₂, alkalinity) were used to define fluxes of these solutes into and out of the sediments off southern and central California. Onshore to offshore transects indicate many similarities in benthic fluxes between these regions. The pattern of benthic organic carbon oxidation as a function of water depth, combined with published sediment trap records, suggest that the supply of organic carbon from vertical rain can just meet the sedimentary carbon oxidation + burial demand for the central California region between the …

Development And Lipid Composition Of The Harpacticoid Copepod Nitocra Spinipes Reared On Different Diets, Gregory M. Weiss, George B. Mcmanus, H. Rodger Harvey

OES Faculty Publications

We reared the harpacticoid copepod Nitocra spinipes on diets of bacteria, a diatom, or a macroalga, evaluating survivorship and growth in short-term (≤ 1 generation) experiments. Lipid content of the copepods and their diets was measured and used as an index of nutrition. Although growth, survivorship and lipid content of N. spinipes were significantly greater when fed the diatom, which had the highest lipid content of the 3 diets, the copepod was able to develop from egg to adult when fed a lipid- poor bacterial diet. Furthermore, this species was able to go through developmental molts without the addition of …

The Modeling Of Structural-Acoustic Interaction Using Coupled Fe/Be Method And Control Of Interior Acoustic Pressure Using Piezoelectric Actuators, Yucheng Shi

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A coupled finite element (FE) and boundary element (BE) approach is presented to model full coupled structural/acoustic/piezoelectric systems. The dual reciprocity boundary element method is used so that the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the coupled system can be obtained, and to extend this approach to time dependent problems. The boundary element method is applied to interior acoustic domains, and the results are very accurate when compared with limited exact solutions. Structural--acoustic problems are then analyzed with the coupled finite element/boundary element method, where the finite element method models the structural domain and the boundary element method models the …

A Family Of Parallel Runge-Kutta Pairs, P. Bogacki

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Increasing availability of parallel computers has recently spurred a substantial amount of research concerned with designing explicit Runge-Kutta methods to be implemented on such computers. Here, we discuss a family of methods that require fewer processors than methods presently available do, still achieving a similar speed-up. In particular, (5,6) and (6,7) pairs are derived, that require a minimum number of function evaluations on two and three processors, respectively.

On A Conjecture Of S. Reich, Peter Z. Daffer, Hideaki Kaneko, Wu Li

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Simeon Reich (1974) proved that the fixed point theorem for single-valued mappings proved by Boyd and Wong can be generalized to multivalued mappings which map points into compact sets. He then asked (1983) whether his theorem can be extended to multivalued mappings whose range consists of bounded closed sets. In this note, we provide an affirmative answer for a certain subclass of Boyd-Wong contractive mappings.

The Stability Of Compressible Mixing Layers In Binary Gases, F. Kozusko, D. G. Lasseigne, C. E. Grosch, T. L. Jackson

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

We present the results of a study of the inviscid two-dimensional spatial stability of a parallel compressible mixing layer in a binary gas. The parameters of this study are the Mach number of the fast stream, the ratio of the velocity of the slow stream to that of the fast stream, the ratio of the temperatures, the composition of the gas in the slow stream and in the fast stream, and the frequency of the disturbance wave. The ratio of the molecular weight of the slow stream to that of the fast stream is found to be an important quantity …

Numerical Simulation Of Complex, Three-Dimensional, Turbulent-Free Jets, Robert V. Wilson

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Three-dimensional, incompressible turbulent jets with rectangular and elliptical cross-section are simulated with a finite-difference numerical method. The full Navier-Stokes equations are solved at low Reynoids numbers, whereas at high Reynolds numbers filtered forms of the equations are solved along with a sub-grid scale model to approximate the effects of the unresolved scales. A 2-N storage, third-order Runge-Kutta scheme is used for temporal discretization and a fourth-order compact scheme is used for spatial discretization. Although such methods are widely used in the simulation of compressible flows, the lack of an evolution equation for pressure or density presents particular difficulty in incompressible …

Modelling An Optical Fiber Bragg Grating, Claudio Oliveira Egalon

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A theoretical investigation of a single mode optical fiber with one and two superimposed Bragg grating is presented. The formulation relies in the determination of an approximate solution in the asymptotic region of one of the fiber parameters. A correction is then applied to the asymptotic solution using the Method of the Successive Approximations also known as the Piccard Method. The approximation was then compared to the numerical solution using the Runge-Kutta method. Assuming that each Bragg grating has modulation frequencies given by Ω₁ and Ω₂, it has been found that the second Bragg grating shifts the …

Time- And Cost-Optimal Parallel Algorithms For The Dominance And Visibility Graphs, D. Bhagavathi, H. Gurla, S. Olariu, J. L. Schwing, J. Zhang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The compaction step of integrated circuit design motivates associating several kinds of graphs with a collection of non-overlapping rectangles in the plane. These graphs are intended to capture various visibility relations amongst the rectangles in the collection. The contribution of this paper is to propose time- and cost-optimal algorithms to construct two such graphs, namely, the dominance graph (DG, for short) and the visibility graph (VG, for short). Specifically, we show that with a collection of n non-overlapping rectangles as input, both these structures can be constructed in θ (log n) time using n processors in the CREW model.

Surface Debye Temperature Measurement With Reflection High-Energy Electron Diffraction, H. E. Elsayed-Ali

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Measurement of the surface mean-square atomic vibrational amplitude, or equivalently the surface Debye temperature, with reflection high-energy electron diffraction is discussed. Low-index surfaces of lead are used as examples. Particular details are given about the temperature-dependent diffraction pattern of Pb(100) in the Debye-Waller region. The use of reflection high-energy electron diffraction for measurement of the substrate surface temperature in thin-film deposition chambers is suggested. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Application Of Reanalysis Techniques For Pattern Design Of Spot Welds, Young San Kim

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Extensive benchmarking on competitive cars has shown that the durability of vehicles, assembly-induced variations, and assembly cost are directly related to the quality and number of spot welds. On most luxury cars, approximately 4,500 to 5,000 spot welds are found. On less expensive cars, the range is from 3,500 to 4,500. These cars usually inherit more noise, rattles, squeaks, and other quality-related problems. These problems have motivated the search for a new capability to systematically place welds in the most critical areas, with a minimum number of welds for car bodies, while satisfying all performance requirements (e.g., stiffness, stress distribution, …

Parallel Newton-Krylov-Schwarz Solvers For The Full Potential Flow Equation, Jie Zhang

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Newton-Krylov-Schwarz methods are increasingly applied in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). We develop a parallel analysis code based on this method for the full potential flow model. The full potential model consists of a single nonlinear second-order partial differential equation of mixed type (elliptic/hyperbolic), which we solve as a steady boundary-value problem.

We use a nine-point finite-difference stencil to discretize the equation. A Newtonlike linearization and correction method is used to solve the resulting set of nonlinear algebraic equations. To solve the inner linear equations, we employ a Krylov space method. Preconditioners are used to improve the convergence rate. In order …

Operator Expansion For High-Energy Scattering, Ian Balitsky

Physics Faculty Publications

I demonstrate that the leading logarithms for high-energy scattering can be obtained as a result of evolution of the non-local operators—straight-line ordered gauge factors—with respect to the slope of the straight line.