Digital Commons Network^™

A Study To Determine The Level Of Job Satisfaction Among Virginia Technology Education Association Members Teaching Middle School Technology Courses, M. Reid Rawls

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The goals of this study were to answer the following questions: 1. What factors affect job satisfaction levels among middle school technology teachers? 2. What steps should be taken to enhance job satisfaction for middle school technology teachers?

Aneuploidy Frequencies In Semen Fractions From Ten Oligoasthenoteratozoospermic Patients Donating Sperm For Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, Jerome Pfeffer, Myung-Geol Pang, Stanton F. Hoegerman, Christopher J. Osgood, M. W. Stacey, Jacob Mayer, Sergio Oehninger, William G. Kearns

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Objective: To determine aneuploidy frequencies in pellet and swim-up semen fractions from 10 infertile men with severe oligoasthenoteratozoospermia (OAT) who were donating sperm for intracytoplasmic sperm injection and to determine whether the swim-up isolation method would successfully separate aneuploid from haploid sperm.

Design: Prospective study.

Setting: Infertility clinic and molecular genetics laboratory.

Patient(s): Ten patients with severe OAT.

Intervention(s): Cytogenetic analyses by fluorescence in situ hybridization to determine aneuploidy frequencies for chromosomes 1, 13, 18, 21, X, and Y in sperm from swim-up and pellet fractions.

Main Outcome Measure(s): Gametic aneuploidy was scored in sperm fractions separated by the swim-up …

Efficient Dynamic Unstructured Methods And Applications For Transonic Flows And Hypersonic Stage Separation, Xiaobing Luo

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Relative-moving boundary problems have a wide variety of applications. They appear in staging during a launch process, store separation from a military aircraft, rotor-stator interaction in turbomachinery, and dynamic aeroelasticity.

The dynamic unstructured technology (DUT) is potentially a strong approach to simulate unsteady flows around relative-moving bodies, by solving time-dependent governing equations. The dual-time stepping scheme is implemented to improve its efficiency while not compromising the accuracy of solutions. The validation of the implicit scheme is performed on a pitching NACA0012 airfoil and a rectangular wing with low reduced frequencies in transonic flows. All the matured accelerating techniques, including the …

A Study To Determine How Total Quality Management Was Being Implemented In The Virginia Beach City Public Schools, Timothy L. Axley

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

This study will determine: 1. To what extent Virginia Beach City Public Schools are following a system of Total Quality Management?; 2. What areas of education have improved due to the use of Total Quality Management?

The Effect Of Informal Training On Performance Support System Utilization, Floyd Graham

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The problem of this study was to determine if a Performance Support System is as effective as a Performance Support System in conjunction with informal training in increasing the use of the number of features found in Microsoft Outlook '97, an e-mail and knowledge management application.

A Study Of Learning Style Theory In Teletechnet Graduate Courses At Old Dominion University, Deborah E. Hensley

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The objectives of this study were to explore the following questions: 1. Whether the four learning styles outlined in the Learning Styles Inventory for Adults (LSIA) can be accommodated in the non-traditional classroom with distance instructional delivery; 2. If all learning styles cannot be accommodated with distance instruction, which styles are more conducive to distance education? 3. If individual learning styles were accommodated, did accommodation of the individuals' learning styles facilitate a better learning experience for Teletechnet graduate students?

A Study To Determine Faculty Interest In Using Advanced Instructional Technology To Support Course Offerings At Wytheville Community College, Nancy C. Sexton

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

To research this problem, the following goals were established: 1) determine which methods of instructional technology are of interest to faculty; 2) determine the equipment needs of Wytheville Community College faculty; 3) determine the training needs for faculty to integrate technology into course offerings; 4) determine support needs of faculty as they seek new approaches to learning technology.

A Qfd Decision Model For Selecting Service, Teaching, And Research Opportunities, Paul Kauffmann, Abel Fernandez, Charles Keating

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

New faculty are confronted with a barrage of information reiterating the importance of performance in the "big three" areas: teaching, service, and research / publications. From the provost to the department head, an untenured faculty member faces strong and sometimes conflicting pressures to become involved in activities ranging from committee assignments to participation in department or university research programs. Often these opportunities come with little guidance, advice, or obvious linkage to long term success in the three pillar areas and ultimately tenure. New faculty are confronted with a complex decision problem for which there is unstructured information available to develop …

Mössbauer Effect Determination Of Relative Recoilless Fractions For Iron Oxides, Sei J. Oh, Desmond C. Cook

Physics Faculty Publications

The relative recoilless fraction (F-value) of each of six iron oxides, defined as the ratio of the recoil-free fractions of two different materials, was experimentally determined relative to hematite at 300 K and 77 K by Mössbauer spectroscopy. Using the relative recoil-free fractions compared to that of hematite, the relative recoilless fractions between all pairs of the seven iron oxides were determined. The F-values can allow conversion of Mössbauer subspectral areas to the relative atomic, molecular, or weight fractions of each iron oxide present in a mixed oxide phase sample.

Time-Resolved Reflection High-Energy Electron Diffraction Study Of The Ge(111)-C(2×8)-(1×1) Phase Transition, Xinglin Zeng, Bo Lin, Ibrahim El-Kholy, Hani E. Elsayed-Ali

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The dynamics of the Ge(111)-c(2×8)-(1×1) phase transition is investigated by 100-ps time-resolved reflection high-energy electron diffraction. A laser pulse heats the surface while a synchronized electron pulse is used to obtain the surface diffraction pattern. Slow heating shows that the adatoms in Ge(111)-c(2×8) start to disorder at ∼510 K and are converted to a disordered adatom arrangement at 573 K. For heating with 100-ps laser pulses, the Ge(111)-c(2×8) reconstructed adatom arrangement starts to disorder at 584±16K, well above the onset temperature of ∼510 K for the disordering of Ge(111)-c(2×8) observed for slow …

Réalisation De Couches Minces De Cualse² Par Recuit De Feuilllets Superposés Cu/Al/Se/Al…, Étude De Conditions De Dépôt, C.O. El Moctar, S. Marsillac, J. C. Bernede, A. Conan, K. Benchouk, A. Khelil

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Thin layers of Cu/Al/Se/Al/Cu/Al/Se/…/Al/Se sequentially deposited have been annealed half an hour at 855 K. CuAlSe₂ thin films crystallized in the chalcopyrite structure are obtained. The films being contaminated by oxygen, the experimental deposition conditions of the aluminum layer have been improved in order to decrease the atomic concentration of oxygen below 5 at%. Such results can be obtained in vacuum of 10^-4 Pa, when the aluminum deposition rate is 1 nm/s and when the layer is immediately covered after deposition. Films obtained in such a way are nearly stoichiometric with lattice parameters in accordance with the expected …

Computation Of Flame Base Height Of A Turbulent Diffusion Flame Resulting From A Methane Jet, A. S. Kheireddine, S. K. Chaturvedi, T. O. Mohieldin

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This work summarizes numerical results for a diffusion flame formed from a cylindrical tube fuel injector, issuing a gaseous methane jet vertically in a quiescent atmosphere. The primary objective is to predict the flame base height and other flame characteristics as a function of the fuel jet velocity. A finite volume scheme is used to discretize the time-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for the reacting flow resulting from the turbulent fuel jet motion. The turbulent stresses, and heat and mass fluxes are computed from a Reynolds stress turbulence model. A chemical kinetics model involving two-step chemistry is employed for the oxidation of …

Computer Simulations Of Electromigration Based On A Molecular Dynamics Approach, John Stephen Peake

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Most research on electromigration has centered around macroscopic simulations of electromigration where a value for the diffusion coefficient was assumed to be spatially uniform throughout the material. The research in this thesis goes a step further and, through microscopic molecular dynamics computer simulations, calculates and updates the atomic drift velocity and atomic position as a function of time to analyze how various defects within the conductor affect these quantities. The simulations are carried out with defects in the form of dislocation half-planes placed in different locations within the simulation space. The atomic drift velocity and position changes derived from these …

Skin-Stiffener Separation In Buckled Composite Plates And Shallow Shells, Mark Edward Robeson

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The development of an approximate analysis for predicting stresses in the skin-stiffener interface region of composite plates and shallow shells is presented. The analysis determines interlaminar normal stress and transverse shear stresses in the direction of the stiffener axial coordinate and the direction of the inplane coordinate perpendicular to the stiffener axis. The analysis accounts for skin-stiffener interfaces with nonzero thickness and for curvature in the skin and stiffener. The interlaminar normal stress and transverse shear stresses at the interface are applied to the lower face of the skin and the upper face of the stiffener flange as unknown functions, …

Saturation Control For Reduction Of Rotor Blade Lag Vibration, Sayam Saguanrum

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Within the context of this research, the performance of saturation control for reduction in the vibratory lag motion of helicopter rotor blades is investigated. The single-degree-of-freedom plant, which consists of a spring and damper attached to the rotor blade, is perturbed by an aerodynamic force, and produces the unwanted vibration. To restrict this vibration, the second-order controller is provided to couple with the blade system. It works adaptively, when the system is excited and the controller frequency is set at half of the blade lag frequency in accordance with the relationship of both natural frequencies. The nonlinear terms from the …

Driving Simulation Performance And Eeg Evaluation Associated With Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Matthew Richard Risser

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Sleepiness and driving are a dangerous combination that causes thousands of crashes each year resulting in injury and death. This problem not only jeopardizes the safety of the driver but passengers and other drivers as well. This study investigated driving performance and neurophysiological correlates of sleepiness during driving simulation in obstructive sleep apnea patients. The study included 15 obstructive sleep apnea patients and 15 normal subjects as a control group. After a practice drive through city conditions, participants completed a 60 minute driving simulation task designed to replicate a highway driving scenario. Driving performance and EEG data were continuously sampled …

Investigating The Effects Of Subtle Ratee Characteristics In Team Performance Appraisal: The Influence Of Personality And Cohesiveness, Jonathan Quinn Schroeder

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study extends the research into systematic bias in performance appraisal to include subtle (i.e., not overtly demographic) ratee characteristics. Specifically examined were the biasing effects of personality and group cohesiveness on performance ratings. It was hypothesized that raters' personality inferences regarding ratees' levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness would correlate with bias in performance ratings. Interpersonal group cohesiveness was also hypothesized to affect rating accuracy. Research participants (n = 90) rated the performance of two videotaped leaderless group discussions. Personality inferences correlated strongly with leniency in performance ratings. In addition, significant differences in accuracy were found between the more and …

The Revolution In Higher Education, James V. Koch

Economics Faculty Publications

Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian born economist and social historian who spent a major part of his academic career at Harvard, was a cogent observer of how societies develop. His Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy is still considered a classic. Schumpeter spoke of "perennial gales of creative destruction" (often technological) that shock societies and force change. The advent of electricity and the coming of the automobile illustrate technologies that created new power arrangements and destroyed or modified existing institutions. Higher education is now in the midst of a Schumpeterian "gale of creative destruction"--a revolution, many say. After almost 150 years of reliance …

Circulation, Vol. 6, No. 1, Center For Coastal Physical Oceanography, Old Dominion University

CCPO Circulation

Fall 1998 issue of CCPO Circulation featuring article "Renewed Effort by Mexican Oceanographers to Understand the Dynamics of Coastal Lagoons"

William Mahone And The Confederate Command Style During The Siege Of Petersburg, 1864-1865, David Kenneth Reed

History Theses & Dissertations

William Mahone exemplified the audacity and adaptability acquired by southern commanders during the last year of the American Civil War. Mahone's contribution to Confederate military operations during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, from 1864-1865 played an important role in the Confederacy's survival. During the siege, he was one of Lee's most trusted and capable lieutenants. The findings of this study show that Mahone's emergence as a superior divisional commander came about mainly because of his knowledge of the terrain surrounding Petersburg.

This thesis discusses the way Mahone extended the life of the Confederacy. Four of Mahone's engagements during the siege …

Russian Supply Efforts In America During The First World War, Dale C. Rielage

History Theses & Dissertations

The Russian government entered the First World War unprepared for the strains that modern warfare would impose on its industrial resources. As a result, Russia turned to foreign suppliers, most significantly the United States, and made extensive purchases largely financed by British loans. These foreign supply efforts involved both the Tsarist government and representatives of the newly emerging civil elements in Russian society.

Central to the experience of Russian purchasing in the United States was the Russian Supply Commission in America. Established in October 1915 as a coordinating body, the Supply Commission was noteworthy in that it included representatives of …

Variability Analysis Of Discrete Cosine Transform Coefficient (Dctc) Features For Speech Processing, Bingjun Dai

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In this research, the variability of Discrete Cosine Transform Coefficient (DCTC) features was investigated. Additionally, a new pitch-synchronous processing method was explored to increase the stability of features and to reduce window effects when compared to the regular method. The noise sources that lead to feature variability were analyzed, and different smoothing methods were tested. It was found that longer frames, frequency warping, time smoothing of the log spectrum, and DCS level time smoothing, all help reduce DCTC variability and increase classification performance. The pitch­ synchronous method was implemented with Matlab. Important processing methods, including pitch period estimation, time­ domain …

Two Dimensional, Time Dependent Modeling And Simulation Of Semi-Insulating Gaas High-Power Photoconductive Switches, Prakasit Kayasit

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and photoconductive behavior of semi-insulating GaAs (SI GaAs) high-power switches have been investigated by using a two-dimensional, time dependent, drift diffusion transport model. The dc current-voltage behavior as predicted by the results of this model was compared with available experimental data to evaluate the accuracy and validity of the model. The results show very good agreement, Next, research was carried out to investigate the behavior of the switches under high-field operation.

Simulations at high voltages emphasize on the two following processes: (a) The mechanism of impact ionization and the effect of this mechanism on device stability …

Design Optimization Of Magnetic Bearings And Magnetic Suspension Systems, V. Dale Bloodgood Jr.

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Magnetic suspension systems were first demonstrated as practical by Holmes and Beams in the 1930's. Since then, numerous academic researchers have worked with various types of these systems. Commercial applications have largely been limited to magnetic bearings for rotating machinery. Other applications that have held considerable promise include wind tunnel model suspensions, space payload pointing and vibration isolation systems, satellite momentum storage and control devices and electromagnetic launch systems. However, none of these have progressed significantly beyond the prototype stage. Maglev trains have not reached serious commercial service but are being aggressively developed in Germany and Japan.

Design methods for …

Modeling And Simulation Of High-Field, High-Temperature Sic Devices, Sanjay Pathak

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

With superior properties such as a large band gap, high thermal conductivity, and large electron drift velocity, SiC is expected to give a new dimension to high power, high temperature electronic devices used in power applications, microwave circuits, and for the space and automobile industries. SiC possesses an inherent advantage over its other large bandgap competitors in terms of inherited processing and device technology from Si. However, there is inadequate understanding of SiC device and its parameters. Simple extrapolations from Si are known to be inadequate. The aim of this dissertation, therefore. is to produce better understanding of SiC devices …

Analytic Forms Of Bidirectional Reflectance Functions For Application To Earth Radiation Budget Studies, N. Manalo-Smith, G. L. Smith, S. N. Tiwari, W. F. Staylor

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Analytic expressions for the bidirectional reflectance functions are formulated and fit to the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) operational models, which were developed using Nimbus 7 ERB data. The analytic bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs) are based on theoretical considerations and are functions of viewing geometry and scene type. The models consist of a Rayleigh scattering term and a term for scattering due to clouds and surface. The darkness of the ocean permits the empirical determination of the Rayleigh component of scattering from the atmosphere. The models have the advantage that they are smooth in terms of view and solar …

Architectural Optimization Of Digital Libraries, Aileen O. Biser

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

This work investigates performance and scaling issues relevant to large scale distributed digital libraries. Presently, performance and scaling studies focus on specific implementations of production or prototype digital libraries. Although useful information is gained to aid these designers and other researchers with insights to performance and scaling issues, the broader issues relevant to very large scale distributed libraries are not addressed. Specifically, no current studies look at the extreme or worst case possibilities in digital library implementations. A survey of digital library research issues is presented. Scaling and performance issues are mentioned frequently in the digital library literature but are …

Oral Health Knowledge, Attitudes, And Behaviors Of Qatari People, Najat Abdrabbo J. Saleh Al-Salahi

Dental Hygiene Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the oral health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of Qatari people. The convenience sample consisted of 859 Qatari people between the ages of 18-72 from Hamad Medical Corporation Dental Department,

Public Dental Health Care Centres, University of Qatar, Police and Army Departments, governmental schools, a private dental clinic, and citizens. Participants were asked to complete a self-designed questionnaire titled Oral Health Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors of

Qatari People. Prior to the study, 20 Arab college students responded to the questionnaire in a test-retest procedure to establish instrument reliability. The content validity of …

The Solution Of Hypersingular Integral Equations With Applications In Acoustics And Fracture Mechanics, Richard S. St. John

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

The numerical solution of two classes of hypersingular integral equations is addressed. Both classes are integral equations of the first kind, and are hypersingular due to a kernel containing a Hadamard singularity. The convergence of a Galerkin method and a collocation method is discussed and computationally efficient algorithms are developed for each class of hypersingular integral equation.

Interest in these classes of hypersingular integral equations is due to their occurrence in many physical applications. In particular, investigations into the scattering of acoustic waves by moving objects and the study of dynamic Griffith crack problems has necessitated a computationally efficient technique …

Multiple Streams Synchronization In Collaborative Multimedia Systems, Emilia Stoica

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

With the recent increase of the communication bandwidth and processor power, new types of applications have emerged. Among them, there are multimedia application, in which users are able to control, combine, and manipulate different types of media, such as text, sound, video, computer graphics, and animation. A key requirement in any multimedia application is to synchronize the delivery of various media streams to the user. To achieve this, the sender has to provide the temporal relations between the streams as they are captured. Since the receiver uses this information in streams presentation, its accuracy is very important.

Our main contribution …