Digital Commons Network^™

Social Table Design For Culinary Enjoyment, Jiekun Qian

Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to design a new culinary experience to gather people together and make the cooking and dining activities more socialized, interactive and joyful.

A-Round is a modular culinary table that can satisfy user’s specific needs in regard to different social aspects by changing the elements of the middle part of the table (burner top, storage tray, serving tray, table top, etc.). The round shape semantically reduces the distance between people and gathers them together. By changing behaviors of users and offering resources around the dining area, this product not only functionally improves the culinary process, …

Efficacy Of Natural Plant Extracts In Antimicrobial Packaging Systems, Kofi Jocelyn Brobbey, Jarkko J. Saarinen Adj. Prof., Hanna-Leena Alakomi Dr., Baoru Yang Prof., Martti Toivakka Prof.

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Antimicrobial plant extracts used in food packaging provide a healthy packaging alternatives. They contain aromatic and phenolic compounds that are responsible for their antibacterial properties. In this study, we report the antibacterial effects of extracts obtained from sea buckthorn (Hippophaë rhamnoides L.) leaves, and inner bark of pine trees (Pinus silvestris) that were applied as coatings on paper suitable for packaging application. Extracts from sea buckthorn leaves exhibited antibacterial effect both as a solvent extract and as a coating on paper against Pseudomonas aeruginosa as test bacteria. However, coatings of pine bark extract did not exhibit …

Pencil Puzzles For Introductory Computer Science: An Experience- And Gender-Neutral Context, Zachary Butler, Ivona Bezáková, Kimberly Fluet

Presentations and other scholarship

The teaching of introductory computer science can benefit from the use of real-world context to ground the abstract programming concepts. We present the domain of pencil puzzles as a context for a variety of introductory CS topics. Pencil puzzles are puzzles typically found in newspapers and magazines, intended to be solved by the reader through the means of deduction, using only a pencil. A well-known ex- ample of a pencil puzzle is Sudoku, which has been widely used as a typical backtracking assignment. However, there are dozens of other well-tried and liked pencil puzzles avail- able that naturally induce computational …

Interviews Define Face Validity Of Physical Activity Survey Items With Fourth Graders, Elizabeth Dubiel Wayman

Theses

School-based and after school interventions to encourage child participation in physical activity use self-report surveys, among other methods, to assess level of physical activity. The current study investigated the face validity of nine physical activity self-report items used to evaluate the Fuel for Fun program, a nutrition and physical activity intervention for fourth graders administered in Colorado. A convenience sample of fourth graders demographically similar to Fuel for Fun participants in Colorado were cognitively interviewed to examine understanding and comprehension of survey items. Qualitative content analysis of interview transcripts revealed that 87.5% to 100% of students reported understanding the items …

Collaboration With Deaf Communities To Conduct Accessible Health Surveillance, Steven L. Barnett, Kelly A. Mathews, Erika J. Sutter, Lori A. Dewindt, Jacqueline A. Pransky, Amanda M. O'Hearn, Tamala M. David, Robert Q. Pollard, Vincent J. Samar, Thomas A. Pearson

Articles

Introduction Populations of deaf sign language users experience health disparities unmeasured by current public health surveillance. Population-specific health data are necessary to collaboratively identify health priorities and evaluate interventions. Standardized, reproducible, and language-concordant data collection in sign language is impossible via written or telephone surveys. Methods Deaf and hearing researchers, community members, and other stakeholders developed a broad computer-based health survey based on the telephone-administered Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. They translated survey items from English to sign language, evaluated the translations, and filmed the survey items for inclusion in their custom software. They initiated the second Rochester Deaf Health …

Understanding Traffic Characteristics In A Server To Server Data Center Network, Siva Shankar Chandrasekaran

Theses

The number of Data Centers and the servers present in them has been on the rise over the last decade with the advent of cloud computing, social networking, Big data analytics etc. This has eventually led to the increase in the power consumption of the Data Center due to the power hungry interconnection fabric which consists of switches and routers. The scalability of the data center has also become a problem due to the interconnect cabling complexity which is also responsible for the increase in the energy used for cooling the data center as these bundles of wires reduce the …

Fabrication Of Low Adhesion Films Through Pulsed Light Sintering, Dhananjay Dubey

Theses

Pulsed photonic sintering/curing of materials has significant potential to change the way we process thin films. The pulsed light technology has tremendous benefits with processing time lying in the order of milliseconds. This process can be used to thermally process printed films and has huge energy saving potential when compared to conventional thermal processes. This research specifically aims at fabrication of low adhesion polymer film coatings, such as Teflon, using an energy efficient photonic sintering technique. Teflon, due to its non-stick properties, is widely used in printing processes, cooking accessories, antireflection windows and in several other applications. Sintering of Teflon …

The Mobile Story: Narrative Practices With Locative Technologies, Steve Westbrook

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

No abstract provided.

The Critical Role Of Point Defects In Improving The Specific Capacitance Of Δ-Mno2 Nanosheets, Peng Gao, Peter Metz, Trevyn Hey, Yuxuan Gong, Dawei Liu, Doreen D. Edwards, Jane Y. Howe, Rong Huang, Scott T. Misture

Articles

3D porous nanostructures built from 2D δ-MnO2 nanosheets are an environmentally friendly and industrially scalable class of supercapacitor electrode material. While both the electrochemistry and defects of this material have been studied, the role of defects in improving the energy storage density of these materials has not been addressed. In this work, δ-MnO2 nanosheet assemblies with 150 m2 g−1 specific surface area are prepared by exfoliation of crystalline KxMnO2 and subsequent reassembly. Equilibration at different pH introduces intentional Mn vacancies into the nanosheets, increasing pseudocapacitance to over 300 F g−1, reducing charge transfer resistance as low as 3 …

Interactive Dynasty: An Effective Way To Learn About The Tang Dynasty History, Xiangyin Li

Theses

Today, interaction design is applied to multiple areas of visual communication and instructional design. Interactive elements can be found in websites, apps, and kiosk terminal equipment. Through the integration of interactive content such as step-by-step tutorials, the user can acquire a variety of different types of information efficiently and effectively to learn about historical events.

China has one of the longest and continuous cultures today. Its own unique charisma attracts many history buffs to learn more about important historical events. Kiosk terminals in history museums have successfully provided a learning environment for users to learn about China through interaction design. …

From The Co-Editors..., Todd Pagano

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

A Universal Design For Robotics Education, Mustafa Şahin Bülbül

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

In this century technological and educational needs increase drastically. Out of local language, educators need to teach robotic language and use necessary technologies to design robots like Arduino set. This set let users to know less code/computer language and knowledge about electronics. Users may develop their own robots with this set. It also improves design and implementation skills. However, it is not a suitable design for blinds. Universal design approach suggests educators to design courses in a way to meet the needs of all participants. By this approach, learning environments are helpful and useful for participants with special needs. With …

Towards A Tension-Based Definition Of Digital Literature, Serge Bouchardon

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Digital literature is based on tensions between the story content and the medium through which it's authored and accessed. The word tension does not necessarily mean conflict. Instead, it's a creative tension between the story and how the reader "plays" or interacts with the story. This essay focuses on one example that is a borderline case in order to identify some of the tensions which underlie and fertilize digital literature:
--Tension on the media: between digital literature and digitized literature, but also between contextual installation or performance and transmissible or online available object;
--Tension on the semiotic forms: between the …

Assessing The Ability Of Simulated Laboratory Scenes To Predict The Image Quality Performance Of Hdr Captures (And Rendering) Of Exterior Scenes Using Mobile Phone Cameras, Amelia Spooner, Ashley Solter, Fernando Voltolini De Azambuja, Nitin Sampat, J. A. Stephen Viggiano, Brian Rodricks, Cheng Lu

Presentations and other scholarship

With the advent of computational photography, most cellphones include High Dynamic Range (HDR) modes or “apps” that capture and render high contrast scenes in-camera using techniques such as multiple exposures and subsequent “addition” of those exposures to render a properly exposed image. The results from different cameras vary. Testing the image quality of different cameras involves field-testing under dynamic lighting conditions that may involve moving objects. Such testing often becomes a cumbersome and time-consuming task. It would be more efficient to conduct such testing in a controlled, laboratory environment. This study investigates the feasibility of such testing. Natural exterior scenes, …

An Examination Of The Uses And Gratifications Of Utilitarian And Experiential Online Shoppers, Michelle Spang

Theses

As money being spent on e-commerce continues to rise, marketers and retailers are interested in what motivates people to shop online. In the past shoppers have been broken up into two categories, utilitarian or experiential (e.g., O'Brien, 2010; Overby & Lee, 2006; To, Liao, & Lin, 2007; Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001). The purpose of this study is to evaluate both categories of shoppers by utilizing a uses and gratifications theory framework. Online survey method is utilized to determine if there are differences between the utilitarian and experiential online shoppers in terms of uses sought. As a result, of the five …

Selfie Usage In Marketing Between Companies And Consumers, Qinjin Yang

Theses

This case study analysis focuses on the use of selfies by both companies and consumers in relation to certain products. By using uses and gratifications theory, this case study analysis investigates four major companies and their products, as well as their implementation of user-generated selfies. Selfie-posting and other related interactions between consumers and companies suggest effective marketing of both consumers’ self-images, (i.e., consumers’ intentions of obtaining social capital by posting selfies) and companies’ products. Finally, this case study analysis also suggests a healthy and productive marketing result between consumers and products with the use of selfies.

“Science Is Not My Thing”: Exploring Deaf Non-Science Majors’ Science Identities, Cara L. Gormally, Amber Marchut

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing are underrepresented in science majors, yet we know little about why. Students from other underrepresented groups in science—women and people of color—tend to highly value altruistic or communal career goals, while perceiving science as uncommunal. Research suggests that holding stereotypical conceptions about scientists and perceptions of science as uncommunal may strongly hinder recruitment into science majors. This study sought to explore the science identities of students who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing signers. The study focused on non-science majors in bilingual (American Sign Language and written English) biology laboratory courses. This study is the …

Producing Food Packaging Printing Ink Via Green Emulsion Aggregation Method, Maryam Ataeefard, Shohre Rouhani

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Digital printing will become more and more important in the packaging industry. Digital printing technology is growing because it allows the print suppliers to improve the level of service they offering to their customers, as well as, it opens new opportunities and helps them to make more money. Additives, dyestuffs, resin and other chemicals in packaging printing ink may influence safety of the food. Therefore, choosing suitable materials are very important in food packing ink. Over the last years, many printing ink manufacturers moved toward more sustainable inks. Drivers for this development, besides the resource scarcity and a higher legislative …

Distributed Detection Of Sensor Worms Using Sequential Analysis And Remote Software Attestations, Jun-Won Ho, Matthew Wright

Articles

Recent work has demonstrated that self-propagating worms are a real threat to sensor networks. Since worms can enable an adversary to quickly compromise an entire sensor network, they must be detected and stopped as quickly as possible. To meet this need, we propose a worm propagation detection scheme for sensor networks. The proposed scheme applies a sequential analysis to detect worm propagation by leveraging the intuition that a worm’s communication pattern is different from benign traffic. In particular, a worm in a sensor network requires a long sequence of packets propagating hop-by-hop to each new infected node in turn. We …

Development, Validation, And Clinical Application Of A Numerical Model For Pulse Wave Velocity Propagation In A Cardiovascular System With Application To Noninvasive Blood Pressure Measurements, Jeffrey S. Lillie

Theses

High blood pressure blood pressure is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease and affects almost one-third of the U.S. adult population. Historical cuff-less non-invasive techniques used to monitor blood pressure are not accurate and highlight the need for first principal models. The first model is a one-dimensional model for pulse wave velocity (PWV) propagation in compliant arteries that accounts for nonlinear fluids in a linear elastic thin walled vessel. The results indicate an inverse quadratic relationship (R^2=.99) between ejection time and PWV, with ejection time dominating the PWV shifts (12%). The second model predicts the general relationship between PWV …

Mending Broken Promises In Sustainable Design, Alex Lobos

Articles

Sustainable Product Design is effectively combining solutions that address environmental issues while elevating user experience and achieving success in the marketplace. A closer look at the effectiveness of sustainability strategies in the design process reveals that some of the best efforts in this area do not yield the benefits promised. Examples of these shortcomings include product operation with unnecessary features that push performance beyond environmentally friendly levels, products made out of recyclable materials that still end up in landfills and consumers that do not connect sustainable lifestyles to the products they use.

An effective model for consistent benefits in sustainable …

Lost & Found: Order In The Court -- The Party Game, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The second game in the series, Lost & Found: Order in the Court …

Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber, Kelly Murdoch-Kitt

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The first game in the series is a strategy game called Lost & …

Exploring The Effect Of Gray Balance And Tone Reproduction On Consistent Color Appearance, Elena Fedorovskaya, Robert Chung, David Hunter, Pierre Urbain

Presentations and other scholarship

CMYK pictorial color images, when output to ISO 15339-2 CRPC1~CRPC7 reference printing conditions, are said to have consistent or common color appearance despite their colorimetric differences in white point and gamut volume. However, the concept of consistent color appearance and its enablement through CRPCs have not been experimentally validated. This research, as a part of the CIE TC8-16 on Consistent Color Appearance, explores the effects of gray balance and tone reproduction as underlying criteria of this attribute. The experiment involves altering the chosen CRPC reference dataset with known colorimetric differences, generating ICC profiles and preparing pictorial color images in the …

Predicting Color Image Match, Robert Chung, Elena Fedorovskaya, David Hunter, Pierre Urbain

Presentations and other scholarship

When assessing color printing conformity, ANSI/CGATS TR016 specifies multiple tolerances, in terms of the 95th percentile ΔE00, and the color characterization target. This research investigates if the 95th percentile ΔE00 metric applies to color image match. The experiment involves the selecting the CRPC6 dataset as the reference, altering the CRPC6 reference with known colorimetric differences, generating ICC profiles and preparing pictorial color images in the specified printing conditions, conducting psychometric experiments. The results show that (1) color image match is proportional to the magnitude of the device-based 95th percentile ΔE00, and (2) color image match is scene dependent when the …

Eye Movements Of Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Viewers Of Automatic Captions, Kevin Rathbun, Larwan Berke, Christopher Caulfield, Michael Stinson, Matt Huenerfauth

Articles

To compare methods of displaying speech-recognition confidence of automatic captions, we analyzed eye-tracking and response data from deaf or hard of hearing participants viewing videos.

2017-2018 Undergraduate Bulletin, Rochester Institute Of Technology

RIT Digital Archives

No abstract provided.

2017-2018 Graduate Course Descriptions, Rochester Institute Of Technology

RIT Digital Archives

No abstract provided.

Visual-Linguistic Semantic Alignment: Fusing Human Gaze And Spoken Narratives For Image Region Annotation, Preethi Vaidyanathan

Theses

Advanced image-based application systems such as image retrieval and visual question answering depend heavily on semantic image region annotation. However, improvements in image region annotation are limited because of our inability to understand how humans, the end users, process these images and image regions. In this work, we expand a framework for capturing image region annotations where interpreting an image is influenced by the end user's visual perception skills, conceptual knowledge, and task-oriented goals. Human image understanding is reflected by individuals' visual and linguistic behaviors, but the meaningful computational integration and interpretation of their multimodal representations (e.g. gaze, text) remain …

Coattails & Paradise, Knhik Haefner

Theses

This paper is about the construction and process of the MFA animation, Coattails & Paradise, a Stop-Motion animated musical about bodies and choices. This film was made over the final year of my MFA at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where I had the opportunity to make use of space, equipment and resources to make an animated film.

Coattails & Paradise is a film about bodies and souls and the choices we make that impact the experiences we have with our bodies and minds. The project was created as a musical where the sung plot points follow the main character, …