Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

University of Central Florida

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 10711 - 10740 of 42549

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Vibration Reduction Of Mistuned Bladed Disks Via Piezoelectric-Based Resonance Frequency Detuning, Garrett Lopp May 2019

Vibration Reduction Of Mistuned Bladed Disks Via Piezoelectric-Based Resonance Frequency Detuning, Garrett Lopp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent trends in turbomachinery blade technology have led to increased use of monolithically constructed bladed disks (blisks). Although offering a wealth of performance benefits, this construction removes the blade-attachment interface present in the conventional design, thus unintentionally removing a source of friction-based damping needed to counteract large vibrations during resonance passages. This issue is further exacerbated in the presence of blade mistuning that arises from small imperfections from otherwise identical blades and are unavoidable as they originate from manufacturing tolerances and operational wear over the lifespan of the engine. Mistuning is known to induce vibration localization with large vibration amplitudes …

Go to article

Motor And Sensory Characterization Of A Mouse Model Of Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2o Disease, Swaran Nandini May 2019

Motor And Sensory Characterization Of A Mouse Model Of Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2o Disease, Swaran Nandini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dynein is an essential motor protein required for the maintenance and survival of cells. Dynein forms a motor complex to carry intracellular cargoes like organelles, growth factors, peptides, and hormones along the microtubules inside the cells. In neurons, the dynein is the retrograde motor protein that moves cargoes from the neuronal tip to the neuronal soma along the length of an axon. Dynein has an established role in neuronal nuclear migration, transport of neuronal survival signals and growth factors, organelle positioning inside neurons etc. Hence, it is not very surprising that numerous mutations in dynein have been reported in association …

Go to article

Classifying And Predicting Walking Speed From Electroencephalography Data, Allen Rahrooh May 2019

Classifying And Predicting Walking Speed From Electroencephalography Data, Allen Rahrooh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electroencephalography (EEG) non-invasively records electrocortical activity and can be used to understand how the brain functions to control movements and walking. Studies have shown that electrocortical dynamics are coupled with the gait cycle and change when walking at different speeds. Thus, EEG signals likely contain information regarding walking speed that could potentially be used to predict walking speed using just EEG signals recorded during walking. The purpose of this study was to determine whether walking speed could be predicted from EEG recorded as subjects walked on a treadmill with a range of speeds (0.5 m/s, 0.75 m/s, 1.0 m/s, 1.25 …

Go to article

Student Community Detection And Recommendation Of Customized Paths To Reinforce Academic Success, Yuan Shao May 2019

Student Community Detection And Recommendation Of Customized Paths To Reinforce Academic Success, Yuan Shao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Educational Data Mining (EDM) is a research area that analyzes educational data and extracts interesting and unique information to address education issues. EDM implements computational methods to explore data for the purpose of studying questions related to educational achievements. A common task in an educational environment is the grouping of students and the identification of communities that have common features. Then, these communities of students may be studied by a course developer to build a personalized learning system, promote effective group learning, provide adaptive contents, etc. The objective of this thesis is to find an approach to detect student communities …

Go to article

Point Cloud Technology For Analysis Of Existing Structures, Jacob Cano May 2019

Point Cloud Technology For Analysis Of Existing Structures, Jacob Cano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For this thesis, a study was completed on two different structures on the UCF Orlando campus through the use of both structural plans and point cloud technology. The results sought to understand the viability of point cloud technology as an accurate tool for the static and dynamic modal analysis of existing structures. For static analysis, a portion of the framing of Spectrum Stadium was rendered, modeled, analyzed and compared to a previous case study. The results emphasized how different users can render dissimilar member sizes and lengths due to human judgment on point cloud visuals. The study also found that …

Go to article

Mediated Physicality: Inducing Illusory Physicality Of Virtual Humans Via Their Interactions With Physical Objects, Myungho Lee May 2019

Mediated Physicality: Inducing Illusory Physicality Of Virtual Humans Via Their Interactions With Physical Objects, Myungho Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term virtual human (VH) generally refers to a human-like entity comprised of computer graphics and/or physical body. In the associated research literature, a VH can be further classified as an avatar - a human-controlled VH, or an agent - a computer-controlled VH. Because of the resemblance with humans, people naturally distinguish them from non-human objects, and often treat them in ways similar to real humans. Sometimes people develop a sense of co-presence or social presence with the VH - a phenomenon that is often exploited for training simulations where the VH assumes the role of a human. Prior research …

Go to article

Decision-Making For Vehicle Path Planning, Jun Xu May 2019

Decision-Making For Vehicle Path Planning, Jun Xu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents novel algorithms for vehicle path planning in scenarios where the environment changes. In these dynamic scenarios the path of the vehicle needs to adapt to changes in the real world. In these scenarios, higher performance paths can be achieved if we are able to predict the future state of the world, by learning the way it evolves from historical data. We are relying on recent advances in the field of deep learning and reinforcement learning to learn appropriate world models and path planning behaviors. There are many different practical applications that map to this model. In this …

Go to article

Forward Osmosis For Algae Dewatering And Electrical Field-Driven Membrane Fouling Mitigation, Faris Munshi May 2019

Forward Osmosis For Algae Dewatering And Electrical Field-Driven Membrane Fouling Mitigation, Faris Munshi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Efficient and low-energy microalgae harvesting is essential for sustainable biofuel production. Forward osmosis (FO) can provide a potential alternative for algae separation with low energy consumption by using osmotic pressure. In this study, an aquaporin-based polyethersulfone (PES) membrane was evaluated for algae dewatering using FO with three different types of draw solutions (DSs: NaCl, KCl and NH4Cl), and under different cross flow velocities (CFVs). 81% of algae dewatering was achieved with a 29% flux drop. Among three different DSs, although NH4Cl was the best candidate for improved water flux and low reverse salt flux (RSF), it could accelerate cell division, …

Go to article

Hybrid Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment-Based Multi-Objective Optimization: A Case For Sustainable Fleet Mix, Burak Sen May 2019

Hybrid Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment-Based Multi-Objective Optimization: A Case For Sustainable Fleet Mix, Burak Sen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sustainable transportation idea includes not only switching from conventional energy sources to alternative fuel resources, but also diverging from private vehicle use and shifting to alternative transportation modes. As a part of alternative transportation mode, utilizing alternative fuels in public transportation operation supports sustainable transportation at it full-glance. Given their implications in terms of air quality and sustainable movement of people, transit buses, which provide the primary public transportation service, are considered an ideal domain for the deployment of alternative fuels. An input-output (IO) model is developed based on Eora database – a detailed IO database that consists of national …

Go to article

Grandma Got Passed Over By A Manager: The Intersection Of Age And Gender In Hiring, Alyssa Perez May 2019

Grandma Got Passed Over By A Manager: The Intersection Of Age And Gender In Hiring, Alyssa Perez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has demonstrated how age stereotypes influence judgment and decision making at work, but older workers are more than just older. All individuals are members of multiple demographic categories, yet we know surprisingly little about how multiple category membership affects judgments and decision making at work. Competing models have been suggested, such as the category activation and inhibition model (Kulik et al., 2007) and the intersectional salience of ageism at work model (Marcus & Fritzsche, 2015). However, empirical tests of these models are scarce. In the present study, the age and gender of job applicants were manipulated in a mock …

Go to article

Hearing The Voices Of The Deserters: Activist Critical Making In Electronic Literature, Laura Okkema May 2019

Hearing The Voices Of The Deserters: Activist Critical Making In Electronic Literature, Laura Okkema

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Critical making is an approach to scholarship which combines discursive methods with creative practices. The concept has recently gained traction in the digital humanities, where scholars are looking for ways of integrating making into their research in ways that are inclusive and empowering to marginalized populations. This dissertation explores how digital humanists can engage critical making as a form of activism in electronic literature, specifically in the interactive fiction platform Twine. The author analyzes the making process of her own activist Twine game The Deserters and embeds the project within digital humanities discourses on activism and social justice, hypertext, electronic …

Go to article

Measuring Player Perceptions Of Freedom And Control In Modded And Unmodded Versions Of Bethesda's Skyrim: A Qualitative Play Study, Mark Kretzschmar May 2019

Measuring Player Perceptions Of Freedom And Control In Modded And Unmodded Versions Of Bethesda's Skyrim: A Qualitative Play Study, Mark Kretzschmar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This interdisciplinary dissertation explores perceptions of control in modded and unmodded versions of Bethesda's sandbox video game Skyrim. Sandbox games are known for greater choice options that suggest greater perceptions of control for gamers. Sandbox games also generally encourage the use of user-generated creations called modifications (mods) that users can download to personalize their games. While we need philosophy to understand and define control as a concept, we also need psychology to understand how users perceive control in media studies. At present, qualitative academic research that measures gamer perceptions of control is non-existent as is research on how users articulate …

Go to article

Fibergramme Vol.42 No. 3, Weavers Of Orlando May 2019

Fibergramme Vol.42 No. 3, Weavers Of Orlando

Text Materials of Central Florida

FIBERGRAMME is published in September, November, January, March and May.

Go to article

Changing The Channel: A Study Of Agenda, Immersion And Social Commentary In Art, Nicholas Kalemba May 2019

Changing The Channel: A Study Of Agenda, Immersion And Social Commentary In Art, Nicholas Kalemba

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the concepts and ideas that pervade my body of work in painting. These concepts include immersion and scale, interactions in space, harmony and disunity, flat and dimensional space and perhaps most importantly, ambiguity. I intentionally use these formal devices to create immersive environments that appear as a familiar but skewed version of reality. By forcing together disparate languages of visual representation into the theoretical space of a painting, I strive to expose some of the humor and decay of our social institutions. In using the format of collage, my paintings have the opportunity to incorporate a wide …

Go to article

Expanding And Shedding The Self: Processing Selfdom Through Painting, Theresa Lucey May 2019

Expanding And Shedding The Self: Processing Selfdom Through Painting, Theresa Lucey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The absurd perpetual struggle, although entirely without hope of resolution, is the key to life's meaning, or perhaps, meaninglessness. The artist must work to live and live to work and find their place in an absurd world. Find joy in the questioning act of art making, make no attempt to escape the meaninglessness through pacifism, and face the chaos with awareness. I employ self-portraiture as a means to dig deeply into my experience and response to living. Self-portraiture morphs along with my experiences and keeps a record of my thought patterns. My body of work is the harvest of my …

Go to article

The Suburban Nightmare: A Study Of Atmosphere, Mood And Emotion, Ericka Sobrack May 2019

The Suburban Nightmare: A Study Of Atmosphere, Mood And Emotion, Ericka Sobrack

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis body of work, I focus on the implied human presence through the lack of actual human figures. I believe there is more to say in a landscape with the absence of the figure, allowing the dialogue to be read and interpreted by a larger audience. I am particularly satisfied with White Knuckles, shown in figure 3, because I collide reason with imagination, thus contradicting the context and interpretation of the subject matter. In White Knuckles, I deal with formal elements such as composition, atmosphere, lightness and darkness as well as nuances of color. I have also considered …

Go to article

Exploration Of Life And Decay In Technological Civilization, Mauro Wieser May 2019

Exploration Of Life And Decay In Technological Civilization, Mauro Wieser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reflecting upon humanity's obligatory use of technology and its place in our collective evolution has become my endeavor. These reflections happen in a studio and through a process that influences the fine art objects produced. In turn the objects both celebrate and warn us of the dynamic and immanent enhanced human. I balance the use of modern machining processes with dark humor to comment and raise questions about the coexistence of man and machine in an increasingly absurd environment.

Go to article

Designosaurs: Technological Evolution And De-Extinction Through An Advancing Medium, Sean Vanzyl May 2019

Designosaurs: Technological Evolution And De-Extinction Through An Advancing Medium, Sean Vanzyl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an examination of my imperative need to understand dinosaurs and their role in science and art, acting as prehistoric symbols for science and imagination. Like our understanding of dinosaurs, my body of work is evolving simultaneously with the technology of our time. Through the synthesis of artistic language with science and technology, I create dynamic experiences allowing a viewer to witness an extinct living being in its entirety, an otherwise lost experience. By utilizing digital modeling, animation techniques, and interactive video games, my work speaks to the power and diversity of digital media's role in visualizing artifacts …

Go to article

Local Community Influences On Interpretation At Historical Sites And Museums, Jason Fitzgerald May 2019

Local Community Influences On Interpretation At Historical Sites And Museums, Jason Fitzgerald

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"Local Community Influences on Interpretation at Historical Sites and Museums" is an analysis in how interpretations of historical content are chosen for visitors and to what degree local communities contribute to this decision process. What determines which stories and historical narratives are presented at historical sites and museums? Is the process of determining how to interpret historical events as simple as relating the event to the time and place that corresponds with that particular site? Is it possible that public historical sites and museums reflect the social values and points of interests of the local communities rather than accepted and …

Go to article

From The Temple To The Synagogue: Exploring Changes In Judaism After The Fall Of The Second Temple, Adam Cohen May 2019

From The Temple To The Synagogue: Exploring Changes In Judaism After The Fall Of The Second Temple, Adam Cohen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"From the Temple to the Synagogue" is an analysis on the influence of external cultures, predominantly the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism on the early rabbis following their failed revolt against Rome and the destruction of the Second Temple in the first century CE. How did the Jewish people react to the upheaval of their center of worship? What can we attribute to the major changes in their religious literature and centers of worship following the demise of their rebellion? Is it possible that what has traditionally been seen as an isolated and uniform group of people did in fact borrow …

Go to article

Pine, Aphids, And Parasitoid Wasps: Patterns Of Cospeciation And Host Switches In A Tri-Trophic System, Amber Bass May 2019

Pine, Aphids, And Parasitoid Wasps: Patterns Of Cospeciation And Host Switches In A Tri-Trophic System, Amber Bass

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ecological interactions may drive speciation events, and the processes that drive these speciation events can leave behind patterns in the phylogenies of interacting taxa. These patterns have been studied extensively in herbivores and host plants, as well as parasites and their hosts, but rarely in tri-trophic systems. Here, we examine three closely related groups of interacting taxa, including parasitoid wasps (Pauesia), aphid herbivores (Cinara), and pine trees (Pinus) to determine if the patterns between each interacting taxa indicate that cospeciation or host switches are more dominant. We create phylogenies of Cinara and Pauesia in the southeastern United States using ddRADseq …

Go to article

Suspensions And Referrals To Law Enforcement Of African American Students Pre And Post Restorative Justice, Adrienne Brown May 2019

Suspensions And Referrals To Law Enforcement Of African American Students Pre And Post Restorative Justice, Adrienne Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare the number of suspensions and referrals to law enforcement from traditional consequences administered to students in a large urban school district in southeastern United States for the school year 2013 to 2014 to the number of suspensions and referrals to law enforcement from consequences rendered after the implementation of restorative justice practices in the 2015 to 2016 school year, as reported to the Civil Rights Office of Data Collection (CRDC, 2016). There was statistical evidence that schools had policies and/or practices in place that had a discriminatory bias towards racial groups when …

Go to article

The Scoop, Vol. 6 Issue 2, May 2019, Health Sciences Library May 2019

The Scoop, Vol. 6 Issue 2, May 2019, Health Sciences Library

Volume 6

Latest news and events from the Health Sciences Library in our monthly newsletter for May 2019.

Go to article

Factors Influencing Unmet Medical Need Among U.S. Adults: Disparities In Access To Health Services, Ahmad Khanijahani May 2019

Factors Influencing Unmet Medical Need Among U.S. Adults: Disparities In Access To Health Services, Ahmad Khanijahani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Inequities in access to health services has negative consequences on individual well-being, and imposes financial and emotional burden on patients, families, health care systems, and the public. Inequities engendered from differences in socioeconomic status, health insurance coverage, race, and other characteristics can engender disparities. This study aimed to identify the potential predictors of unmet medical need among the civilian noninstitutionalized U.S. adults. Inability to receive needed medical care or receiving medical care after a delay, due to the associated costs, constructed unmet medical need. This study used a four-year (2014-2017) National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data (sample size: 296,301 adults) …

Go to article

The Elite Meroitic Experience On Sai Island, Sudan: Using Stable Isotope Analysis To Identify Patterns Related To Sex And Age For The Interpretation Of Social Identity, Alexandria Brock May 2019

The Elite Meroitic Experience On Sai Island, Sudan: Using Stable Isotope Analysis To Identify Patterns Related To Sex And Age For The Interpretation Of Social Identity, Alexandria Brock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The research conducted for this thesis utilized stable isotope analysis to reconstruct the diet of 35 individuals from an elite Meroitic (350 BC – 300 AD) cemetery (site 8.B.5A) located on Sai Island, Sudan, with a focus on adult age categories and biological sex, to understand intraclass variation in diet. Stable carbon and nitrogen values from human bone collagen were used to understand elite social organization, social practice, and gender roles in the Meroitic period through the lens of social identity and post-processual theories. The samples were grouped based on biological sex, median age, and assigned age categories (young, middle, …

Go to article

Framework For Modeling Attacker Capabilities With Deception, Sharif Hassan May 2019

Framework For Modeling Attacker Capabilities With Deception, Sharif Hassan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this research we built a custom experimental range using opensource emulated and custom pure honeypots designed to detect or capture attacker activity. The focus is to test the effectiveness of a deception in its ability to evade detection coupled with attacker skill levels. The range consists of three zones accessible via virtual private networking. The first zone houses varying configurations of opensource emulated honeypots, custom built pure honeypots, and real SSH servers. The second zone acts as a point of presence for attackers. The third zone is for administration and monitoring. Using the range, both a control and participant-based …

Go to article

Miami-Dade Task Force: A Content Analysis Of How Coastal Communities View Sea Level Rise As A Threat, Francisco Alvaro May 2019

Miami-Dade Task Force: A Content Analysis Of How Coastal Communities View Sea Level Rise As A Threat, Francisco Alvaro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sea level rise (SLR) has become a serious threat for coastal communities in recent years. Many communities, including South Florida, are already having the security of their daily lives impacted as climate change causes SLR and other environmental impacts to worsen. This study reviews the Miami-Dade Sea Level Rise Task Force Report to determine how this coastal county government views SLR as a threat. Using mixed content analysis to analyze the report qualitatively and quantitatively, the Task Force's recommendations are categorized based on their focus on security, infrastructure, economics, and the environment. One finds the concerns of the people to …

Go to article

Do Per-Capita Impact Or Abundance Dominate The Impact Of An Invader? Interactions Among Neighboring Species In Context-Dependent Competition, Haoyu Li May 2019

Do Per-Capita Impact Or Abundance Dominate The Impact Of An Invader? Interactions Among Neighboring Species In Context-Dependent Competition, Haoyu Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating relative species competitive strength is a central question in community ecology, with strong implications for invasion ecology. Models assessing invader success consider three components: distribution, abundance and per-capita impact. However, relative strength and interactions among these factors remain unclear when applying to specific invasion scenarios. We hypothesized that performance of native and non-native species will vary as a function of direct and indirect effects at different abundances and scales. We conducted a replacement experiment between two dominant grasses in subtropical grasslands (the native Axonopus fissifolius and the non-native Paspalum notatum) in central Florida, USA. Thirty fenced plots (1 m …

Go to article

A Deep Learning Approach To Diagnosing Schizophrenia, Justin Barry May 2019

A Deep Learning Approach To Diagnosing Schizophrenia, Justin Barry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this article, the investigators present a new method using a deep learning approach to diagnose schizophrenia. In the experiment presented, the investigators have used a secondary dataset provided by National Institutes of Health. The aforementioned experimentation involves analyzing this dataset for existence of schizophrenia using traditional machine learning approaches such as logistic regression, support vector machine, and random forest. This is followed by application of deep learning techniques using three hidden layers in the model. The results obtained indicate that deep learning provides state-of-the-art accuracy in diagnosing schizophrenia. Based on these observations, there is a possibility that deep learning …

Go to article

Realtime Editing In Virtual Reality For Room Scale Scans, Charles Greenwood May 2019

Realtime Editing In Virtual Reality For Room Scale Scans, Charles Greenwood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a system for the design and implementation of tools that support the editing of room-scale scans within a virtual reality environment, in real time. The moniker REVRRSS ("reverse") thus stands for Real-time Editing (in) Virtual Reality (of) Room Scale Scans. The tools were evaluated for usefulness based upon whether they meet the criterion of real time usability. Users evaluated the editing experience with traditional keyboard-video-mouse compared to a head mounted display and hand-held controllers for Virtual Reality. Results show that users prefer the VR approach. The quality of the finished product when using VR is comparable to …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last