Digital Commons Network^™

Is Mooc Madness Here To Stay? An Institutional Legitimacy Study Of Employers, Alyssa R. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to assess the degree of human resource personnel's acceptance of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers. It is a critical part of understanding if MOOCs offer a viable and sustainable form of education because employer buy-in is essential to MOOCs' success, according to many who have studied this online learning phenomenon.

The sample for this study primarily was Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) board and committee members located in metropolitan areas throughout the U.S, with 112 qualified participants. Participants were recruited through email and other online methods to take the survey. The survey had three sections, …

Designing Fiction-Based Close Reading Experiences For The High School English Language Arts Classroom, Aubrey Jean Mcnary

Theses and Dissertations

The Common Core State Standards are forcing educational professional to develop high-level literacy skills and habits in a student population that is indisputable diverse and generally ill prepared for the demands of the secondary classroom. The practice of close reading is a means of literacy instruction that continually pushes students back into the text to answer text-dependent questions of varying, yet higher, levels of thinking. A variety of lesson plans and text-dependent questions were generated for three pivotal novels to demonstrate close reading as a means of achieving CCSS-level reading and thinking in the general secondary ELA classroom.

Developing Novel 3d Antennas Using Advanced Additive Manufacturing Technology, Milad Mirzaee

Theses and Dissertations

In today’s world of wireless communication systems, antenna engineering is rapidly advancing as the wireless services continue to expand in support of emerging commercial applications. Antennas play a key role in the performance of advanced transceiver systems where they serve to convert electric power to electromagnetic waves and vice versa. Researchers have held significant interest in developing this crucial component for wireless communication systems by employing a variety of design techniques. In the past few years, demands for electrically small antennas continues to increase, particularly among portable and mobile wireless devices, medical electronics and aerospace systems.

This trend toward smaller …

Secondary Social Studies Teachers’ Perceptions Of Special Education, Kelli Ann Odden

Theses and Dissertations

Through educational reform and federal mandates, general and special education teachers’ responsibilities are designed to intersect. Focusing on secondary social studies teachers, the purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the teachers’ perceptions of special education and how this influences the implementation of special education services in the classroom. From data collected through interviews and analyzed through Moustakas’ phenomenological design, two textural themes emerged (expertise and communication) in addition to three structural themes (placement, Individual Education Plan (IEP)-Reader’s Digest Version, and time). Findings indicate that social studies teachers appreciated the role of special education, but their perception was focused …

The N-Terminus Of Type Iii Secretion Needle Protein Yscf From Yersinia Pestis Functions To Modulate Innate Immune Responses, Patrick Osei-Owusu

Theses and Dissertations

The type III secretion system is employed by many pathogens, including the genera Yersinia, Shigella, Pseudomonas, and Salmonella, to deliver effector proteins into eukaryotic cells. The injectisome needle is formed by the polymerization of a single protein, e.g., YscF (Yersinia pestis), PscF (Pseudomonas aeruginosa), PrgI (Salmonella enterica SPI-1), SsaG (Salmonella enterica SPI-2), or MxiH (Shigella flexneri). In this study, we demonstrated that the N termini of some needle proteins, particularly the N terminus of YscF from Yersinia pestis, influences host immune responses. The N termini of several needle proteins were truncated and tested for the ability to induce inflammatory responses …

Characterization Of Dopamine Transporter Palmitoylation, Danielle Elizabeth Rastedt

Theses and Dissertations

The dopamine transporter (DAT) is an integral membrane protein that mediates the reuptake of synaptic dopamine and thus regulates the spatio-temporal dynamics of dopaminergic neurotransmission. DAT is also the target of powerful addictive psychostimulants, including cocaine and methamphetamine that resulted in dysregulation of dopaminergic signaling. Complex control of DAT is exerted by various regulatory processes, including posttranslational modifications. We previously found that DAT is palmitoylated via the addition of a 16-carbon palmitic acid moiety to Cys 580. Pharmacological and mutagenic studies determined that depalmitoylation conditions led to reductions in Vmax and transporter levels, suggesting palmitoylation controls one or more functions …

Investigating Flipped Learning: Post-Secondary Student Self-Regulated Learning, Perceptions, And Achievement, Sarah Rae Sletten

Theses and Dissertations

The flipped classroom is a current educational model that is gaining popularity at the post-secondary level. In a flipped classroom, content (i.e., lectures), which is normally delivered in-class, is assigned as homework in the form of video lectures, and assignments that were traditionally assigned as homework, are done as learning activities in class. It was hypothesized that the effectiveness of the flipped model hinges on a student’s desire and ability to adopt a self-directed learning style. The purpose of this study was two-fold; it aimed examining the relationship between two variables—students’ perceptions of the flipped model and their SRL behaviors—and …

Critical Evaluations Of Modis And Misr Satellite Aerosol Products For Aerosol Modeling Applications, Yingxi Shi

Theses and Dissertations

The study of uncertainties in satellite aerosol products is essential to aerosol

data assimilation and modeling efforts. In this study, with the assistance of ground- based observations, uncertainties in Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) collection 5 Deep Blue (DB), Multi-Angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) version 22 aerosol products, and the newly released collection 6 Dark Target over-ocean and DB products were evaluated. For each product, systematic biases were analyzed against observing conditions. Empirical correction procedures and data filtering steps were generated to develop noise and bias reduced DA-quality aerosol products for modeling related applications.

Special attention was also directed at the …

Testing The Effect Of Microagressions, Cultural Identity, And Gender On Learning For Northern Plains American Indian College Students, Wanmdiwi Jessi Rose

Theses and Dissertations

Historically the absence of American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) students in large scale data sets has made it extremely difficult to adequately describe the growing educational crisis facing AI/AN students (Faircloth, Tippeconnic, John W., I.,II, & University of California, Los Angeles, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto,Derechos Civiles, 2010). The purpose of this study was to address the effect microaggressions, cultural identity, and gender has on learning in a sample of Northern Plains AI college students. AI students attending a predominantly white postsecondary institution were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups (EMVV, EMSS) or one of two control groups (CVS, …

Dopamine Transporter Phosphorylation, Palmitoylation And Membrane Localization And Mobility In Health And Disease, Madhur Shetty

Theses and Dissertations

The dopaminergic system is a regulatory system of the brain controlling various motor, cognitive and behavioral activities. Neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) plays an important role in modulating brain circuits controlling functions of this system with dopamine transporter (DAT) maintaining its homeostasis. Abnormalities in this homeostasis and/or nucleotide polymorphisms in the DAT structure leads to its association with a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) being one of them.

Disrupting the normal function of DAT, many psychostimulants such as amphetamine (AMPH) upon being transported via DAT into the pre-synaptic neuron alters DAT properties triggering N-terminal DAT …

How Shared Experiences Impact Teachers Who Remain In American Indian Elementary Schools More Than Five Years, Rae Marie Wilkie-Villebrun

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined shared experiences of teachers who remain at American Indian schools teaching for five years or more in an attempt to help administrators understand what factors impact a teacher’s decision to stay. Teachers, regardless of their race or gender, who have worked at an American Indian school for five years or longer, were interviewed. The teachers were recruited to participate in this study through their superintendent/principals and personal contacts. The theoretical framework used to guide this study was a social support model studied by LaRocco, House, and French in 1980. They examined the effect of perceived social …

Stem Education For Girls Of Color, Kam Hung Yee

Theses and Dissertations

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields struggle to increase recruitment and retention of girls of color. The dominant framework in STEM education is the pipeline which assumes girls in general lack motivation and interest to persist in STEM fields. Recent public discourse shifts to address institutionalized discrimination and systemic barriers in STEM culture that filter out underrepresented populations.

Informal education or complementary learning STEM programs offer alternative opportunities for students to explore outside of rigid school academic and social systems. Few articles look specifically at STEM complementary learning programs, and even fewer focus on the effects on girls of …

Factors Affecting Unsatisfactory Performance During Air-To-Air Refueling In The C-17 Pilot Checkout Course, Richard Smith

Theses and Dissertations

In 2014, the USAF reduced its personnel by approximately 20,000. One of the areas hit hardest by the cuts were the faculty at the USAF C-17 formal training unit, where students are trained to fly the C-17 transport plane. Due to the reduction in forces, faculty staffing dropped by 30% though the number of students remained the same. Air-to-air refueling during the Pilot Checkout Course is the most commonly failed syllabus event. When a student fails to progress on a syllabus event, it requires additional instructor, simulator, and aircraft resources. In an effort to reduce the amount of failures and …

Nonword Repetition And Sentence Repetition In Preschool Children: A Comparison Of Speech And Language Screening Measures, Rachel Therrien

Theses and Dissertations

Nonword repetition tasks and sentence repetition tasks have been shown to accurately differentiate children with speech and/or language disorders from their typically developing peers (Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998; Archibald & Gathercole, 2006). Additionally, they provide information on semantic, syntactical, and phonological processing as well as memory and acoustic perceptual skills (Vance, Stackhouse, & Wells, 2005). Despite their utility as a screening measure, their use in clinical practice has been minimal. Instead, practicing speech-language pathologists often choose to use publisher-provided screening measures or their own developed measures, rather than using research-based screening methods that have recognized differential diagnosis ability (Nash, Leavett, …

Visualization And Mining Of Phasor Data From Optimally Placed Synchrophasors In A Smart-Grid, Ranganath Vallakati

Theses and Dissertations

Synchrophasors, or also known as Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), are the state- of-the-art measurement sensor that gather key sensor parameters such as voltage, frequency (f), current (i), and phase angle (ϕ) to monitor the state of an electric grid. The significant feature of a synchrophasor is in its ability to provide real-time streaming data from smart grid. The sampling rate of PMUs ranges from 30 samples to a maximum of 120 samples per second. With such large date-rate, the operations of the power-grid is known with high granularity. However, utilities face certain challenges with synchrophasor measurements. One of the common …

An Investigation Of Six Poorly Described Close Visual Double Stars Using Speckle Interferometry, Daniel B. Wallace

Theses and Dissertations

Continued observation of double stars is necessary for confirmation of binarity and to provide updates to astrometric data used to compute accurate binary orbital parameters, thereby more accurately informing stellar mass estimations – the critical parameter from which stellar models are derived. In October of 2013, six double stars from the Washington Double Star (WDS) catalog exhibiting close separations, as well as significant deviations from previously published orbits, were observed and imaged using the speckle interferometric technique on the 2.1-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona. The observations of the six double stars occurred as part of …

Changing Bike Mode Share Between Time Periods For Suffolk County, Ma, David Wiosna

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the impact of new bikeways on the rate of bicycle commuting among census tracts in the city of Boston, MA. Data from 2000 and averages from 2009-2013 are compared. Bikeways are negligible in the year 2000, but many were built after implementation of new policy in 2007. Data for 2009-2013 is interpolated into a common zonal scheme using 2000 census tract boundaries. Regression analysis is performed on socio-demographic and new bikeway variables. Results indicate that new bikeways are likely not cause of greater bike mode share in city of Boston.

Powwow As Spaces Of Public: Circulated Meanings Of A Native Practice For Non-Natives, Joshua Eugene Young

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the status of the relationship between Natives and non-Natives utilizing powwow as the representative anecdote of the intercultural space of interaction between these two groups. Where most scholars ask how Native Americans use powwow to reclaim Native identity, I shift the focus to non-Natives, whose relationship to powwow has gone largely unexamined. I argue that powwow serves as a public space for staging diversity for non-Natives, a fact that has wide-ranging implications for Natives, too. Utilizing rhetorical theories of ritual communication and publicity as a way to interrogate this relationship, I argue that the publics attending to …

Identifying Data Exchange Congestion Through Real-Time Monitoring Of Beowulf Cluster Infiniband Networks, Michael James Aguilar

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to gather data from many types of new information sources has grown quickly using new technologies. The ability to store and retrieve large quantities of data from these new sources has created a need for computing platforms that are able to process the data for information. High Performance Computing Cluster systems have been developed to fulfill a role required for fast processing of large amounts of data for many difficult types of computing applications.

Beowulf Clusters use many separate compute nodes to create a tightly coupled parallel HPCC system. The ability for a Beowulf Cluster HPCC system to …

The Farmer-Labor Party In Minnesota Politics: 1918-1948, Philip Lloyd Darg

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an examination of the Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota politics between 1918 and 1948. This movement represented an exceptional chapter in Minnesota history, since the Farmer-Labor Party was the only sustained successful third party movement in the state. This study focuses on the origins of the movement and the reasons for its emergence, its main figures, the goals of the party, its continued electoral success from 1922 through 1936, its decline beginning in 1938, its merger with the Democratic Party of Minnesota in 1944, and finally the subsequent battle for control of this newly-merged DFL (Democratic Farmer-Labor) Party …

International Service Learning: Occupational Therapists' Perceptions Of Their Experiences In Guatemala, Jason C. Lawson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the perspectives of occupational therapy practitioners who engaged in international service learning (ISL) as occupational therapy students. This study included transcribed interviews and observations from nine practicing occupational therapists who all graduated from the same occupational therapy program and participated in a two-week long ISL project in Guatemala.

Case study approaches were utilized to identify the specific phenomenon being studied, and phenomenological methods were utilized to analyze the interviews and observational data into codes, categories, themes and an assertion. Following were the three themes supported by the data collected:

1. …

Missionary Education And The Problem Of Language: The International Missionary Council In Colonial Senegal, 1917-1935, Deborah Leah Lowder

Theses and Dissertations

Between the World Wars, as France refined its colonial structure and control over

Senegal, allowing international missionary networks to develop their own concepts of the

mission civilisatrice. Utilizing the concepts of tutelage and moral education, missionaries

in the International Missionary Council (IMC) defined their role in the French empire as

imperative to the development of African peoples. As self-proclaimed thwarters of the

degradation of the French secular state in Senegal, the IMC used concepts of tutelage and

moral education within the debates surrounding education defined the place of

missionaries within French colonialism in interwar Senegal. Through letters,

publications, and negotiations …

Clustering And Control Of Streaming Synchrophasor Datasets, Anupam Mukherjee

Theses and Dissertations

With the large scale deployment of phasor measurement units (PMU) in the United States, a resonating topic has been the question of how to extract useful “information” or “knowledge” from voluminous data generated by supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), PMUs and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI).

With a sampling rate of 30 to as high as 120 samples per second, the PMU provide a fine-grained monitoring of the power grid with time synchronized measurements of voltage, current, frequency and phase angle. Running the sensors continuously can produce nearly 2,592,000 samples of data every day. This large data need to be …

Community College Part-Time Faculty's Perceptions During Their Role Transition From Expert Clinician To Clinical Instructor, Rhoda A. Owens

Theses and Dissertations

Community college part-time nursing faculty enter academia as expert clinicians, but most have little or no training in the pedagogy of effective student learning. The purpose of this study was to use qualitative phenomenological methods to explore community college part-time nursing faculty’s perceptions of their experiences during their role transition from nurses in clinical practice to part-time clinical instructors in academia. In addition, this study explored if and how community college part-time nursing faculty developed a professional identity as clinical instructors through their experiences. The research questions were: 1. Through their experiences, how do community college part-time nursing faculty describe …

Electromagnetic Band Gap Structure Integrated Wearable Monopole Antenna For Spacesuit, Tahmid Rashid

Theses and Dissertations

Research and development of body-worn communication systems and electronics have become very prominent in recent years. Some applications include intelligent garments

equipped with wireless communication devices for sports, astronauts’ spacesuits [1], and fire fighters’ uniforms [2]. These systems are unthinkable without different kinds of body worn textile or flexible antennas. In this thesis, we will discuss the design and fabrication of a compact wearable textile antenna within the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM)

band operating frequency, proposed for incorporation into a flight jacket of the astronaut inside the habitat. The antenna is integrated with artificial material known as Electromagnetic Band …

Energy Efficient Small Cell Planning For High Capacity Wireless Networks, Md Maruf Ahamed

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a new strategy to densify Small Cells (i.e., add more low powered base stations within macro networks) and enhance the coverage and capacity of Heterogeneous Networks. This is accomplished by designing Micro Cell for outdoor applications, Pico and Femtocell for indoor applications. It is shown that, there exists a free space propagation medium in all propagation environments due to Fresnel zones, and the path loss slope within this zone is similar to free space propagation medium. This forms the basis of our development of the present work. The salient feature of the proposed work has two main …

Synchrophasor Technology And Applications: Benefits Over Conventional Measurements, Andrew Michael Berg

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the benefits of synchrophasor technology in bulk power system measurements. To accomplish this task, multiple methods of investigation and analysis have been conducted. First, a better understanding of the synchrophasor power measurement systems was achieved through a literature review. The review provided some perspective on the differences between these systems and the conventional systems of power measurements.

Then, some utility grade data was acquired and analyzed. In this process, there were some aspects of confidentiality, and that required an added layer of discretion. However, the process made it possible to analyze a …

Parasites Within Parasites: Transmission And Evolution Of Neorickettsia In Digeneans, Stephen Edward Greiman

Theses and Dissertations

Digeneans are endoparasitic flatworms with complex life cycles that involve two or more different animals as definitive and intermediate hosts. Some digenean species harbor bacterial endosymbionts belonging to the genus Neorickettsia (Order: Rickettsiales, Family: Anaplasmataceae). Neorickettsia occur in all life cycle stages of digeneans and are maintained by vertical transmission. Far from benign however, Neorickettsia may also be transmitted horizontally by digenean parasites to their vertebrate definitive hosts. Once inside, Neorickettsia can infect macrophages and other cell types. For some vertebrate species (e.g. dogs, horses and humans), neorickettsial infections cause severe disease. With a few exceptions, studies of Neorickettsia have …

Cyber Stalking: Impact Of Gender, Cyber Stalker-Victim Relationship And Proximity, Billea Ahlgrim

Theses and Dissertations

Cyber stalking is a relatively new phenomenon that is currently limited in empirical research. Consequently, despite the seriousness of the crime, prevalence rates are unreliable and estimates suffer from vast variation. Cyber stalking may be underreported due to limited community understanding of what behaviors constitute cyber stalking. Many factors unique to cyber stalking may impact the extent to which the crime is reported, and the extent to which the perpetrator or victim is held responsible. The current study aimed to examine the impact of perpetrator gender, relationship between the perpetrator and victim, and the perpetrator's proximity to the victim on …

Improving Student Relatedness Through An Online Discussion Intervention: The Application Of Self-Determination Theory In Synchronous Hybrid Programs, Nikolaus Theodor Butz

Theses and Dissertations

Students' feelings of relatedness (i.e., feeling connected to others) are crucial for success in both asynchronous and synchronous learning environments; however, courses taught in these formats often limit relatedness development, either by removing spontaneous interaction (e.g., asynchronous delivery) or by introducing seemingly incompatible online and on-campus factions (e.g., synchronous delivery). As such, it was hypothesized that the strengths of one delivery mode could offset the weaknesses of the other. The purpose of this study was to implement and evaluate an online discussion board intervention designed to scaffold relatedness development. Deci and Ryan's (1985) self-determination theory (SDT) was adopted as the …