Digital Commons Network^™

Using Eye-Tracking And Molecular Modeling To Explore Students’ Strategies For Solving Organic Stereochemical Problems, Travis Howard Knowles

Dissertations

Stereochemistry concepts are often some of the most difficult topics for students to grasp in the organic chemistry curriculum. Several factors may influence students’ abilities to solve stereochemistry problems, including their spatial abilities, strategy choice, and ability to use various types of spatial representations. A mixed-method study was conducted to investigate the role that these factors play when novice organic chemistry students solve stereochemistry problems. Eye-tracking methods were used in an attempt to capture cognitive processes of students while solving these problems. Additionally, three-dimensional molecular models and spatial ability measures were used to further analyze and characterize their strategies for …

(Dis)Integrated Identities: Experiences Of Tenure- Track Engineering Faculty Who Identify As Sexual Minorities, Robyn Elisa Sandekian

Dissertations

This study was conducted to explore how full-time, tenure-track engineering faculty members who self-identify as sexual minorities have experienced working in Doctoral Universities. Literature reviewed for this study included the history of higher education and engineering education in the United States; a review of the differences between engineering and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields; and an overview of the history of discrimination against sexual minorities. Using a mixed-methods explanatory sequential methodology, the study included an anonymous web-based survey followed by semi-structured interviews of the participants who agreed to be contacted. During the interviews, participants shared photographs of their …

Statistical And Clinical Equivalence Of Measurements, Puntipa Wanitjirattikal

Dissertations

This study proposes a test for statistical equivalence of two measurements. Typically, a new measurement process Υ is compared to an existing or standard measurement process Χ. We are assuming that Χ and Υ are measurements on the same scale. The paired t-test may be used to check for significant difference between (Χ, Υ) pairs. However, the paired t-test is intended to detect shift-type relationships of the form Υ=Χ+δ1 and may have low power for scale-type relations of the form Υ=γΧ.

We propose a test that has reasonable power to …

Bio-Socially Inspired Strategies In Support Of Dynamic Spectrum Access: An Evolutionary Game Theory Perspective, Mohammad Ali Marzoug Abu Shattal

Dissertations

Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) has been introduced to fulfill the expanded need for spectrum by different wireless networks and applications. Within the realm of spectrum access, the problem of "spectrum crunch" is present since some of the spectrum bands are overcrowded and others are underutilized. DSA aims to alleviate the problem of spectrum crunch. In DSA, Primary Users (PUs) allow Secondary Users (SUs) to access the spectrum as long as they do not interfere with PU transmissions beyond a pre-agreed acceptable level. In this work, a bio-socially inspired approach is proposed for SU interactions in support of better throughput for …

An Lntegrated Approach (Remote Sensing, Hydrogeology, Geotechnical, And Geoinformatics) To Assess And Monitor Fossil Aquifers And Associated Land Deformation Over The Arabian Peninsula, Abdullah Ghurmullah Saeed Othman

Dissertations

Deformational features such as subsidence, sinkholes, fissures, settling and cracks in buildings and structures, and earthquakes are being reported from many of the world’s arid lands, in areas where fossil aquifers are being excessively exploited. Using the Lower Mega Aquifer System (LMAS) in Arabia as a test site, I applied an integrated approach (remote sensing, geodesy, GIS, geology, hydrogeology, and geotechnical) to identify nature, intensity, spatial distribution, and factors controlling the observed deformation in the central (Al-Qassim and Ha'il regions; area: 16×10⁴ km²) and the northern (Wadi As-Sirhan Basin; area: ~10.9×10⁴ km²) Arabia. A four -fold approach was adopted to …

Color-Connected Graphs And Information-Transfer Paths, Stephen Devereaux

Dissertations

The Department of Homeland Security in the United States was created in 2003 in response to weaknesses discovered in the transfer of classied information after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. While information related to national security needs to be protected, there must be procedures in place that permit access between appropriate parties. This two-fold issue can be addressed by assigning information-transfer paths between agencies which may have other agencies as intermediaries while requiring a large enough number of passwords and rewalls that is prohibitive to intruders, yet small enough to manage. Situations such as this can be represented by …

Effects Of Early Childhood Education On Reading Preparedness In Third Grade Of Elementary School, Kimberly A. Williams

Dissertations

Reading has been found to not only build student motivation but to increase community involvement in education (Hudson & Williams, 2015). Children who grow into lifelong readers were less likely to be incarcerated, became more successful members of society, and created greater futures for themselves and their families (Obama, 2013). With exposure to early childhood education opportunities, children found a greater propensity to attain foundational reading skills; therefore, positive habits for education lead to thriving outcomes in the future (DeHaan & Leuven, 2016). This study analyzed variations in preschool programs in order to detect curricular, facility, and instructor distinctions (DeHaan …

The Lived Experiences Of Educators Using Co-Teaching To Meet The Needs Of Students With Disabilities In A Virtual Environment, Laura Elizabeth Ridings

Dissertations

Virtual education in the United States continues to be a popular option for K-12 students. The enrollment in full-time virtual schools not only represents typical learners but a growing number of students with disabilities, including low-incidence disabilities. In some states, this population exceeds the state-wide average percentage of students with disabilities enrolled in public education and is compelling virtual schools to focus their attention on the legal expectations of serving individual needs. A pilot study, Virtual K-12 Teachers’ Perspectives on the Provision of Inclusive Online Environments (Ridings, 2016), investigated the types of inclusive strategies used by teachers in the virtual …

Ensuring Student Success In Full-Day Kindergarten: Purposeful Professional Development And Professional Learning Communities, Amy Houlihan

Dissertations

The change leadership model, developed by Wagner et al. (2008), was utilized to assess the context, culture, conditions and competencies of a large suburban school district during the early stages of districtwide implementation of full-day kindergarten. With overwhelming support from families, teachers and administrators, the change plan revolves around ongoing and purposeful professional development for staff building upon systematic work of Professional Learning Communities in order to provide a high quality full-day kindergarten program across twenty-three kindergarten program sites. When districts and schools focus on purposeful professional development and enhanced practice of Professional Learning Communities programs can work to provide …

Transforming The American Education System: A Program Evaluation Of A School District’S 1:1 Chromebook Pilot, Michael Marassa

Dissertations

The focus of this program evaluation is to determine the impact of a Google Chromebook 1:1 program on the learning process and educational experience for students and teachers. The participants attend two high schools of a high-performing public-school district in an affluent Chicago suburb. The following research questions guide the program evaluation:

• What is the measurable relationship between academic performance and engagement and the 1:1 Chromebook program?
• What changes in instructional practice occur with the implementation of 1:1 Chromebooks?

A literature review presents current research in areas that explore 21st Century Skills, Tony Wagner’s Global Achievement Gap, constructivist instructional pedagogy, …

Diagnostics For Choosing Between Stratified Logrank And Stratified Wilcoxon, Jhoanne Marsh C. Gatpatan

Dissertations

Martinez and Naranjo (2010) proposed a pretest for choosing between Logrank or Wilcoxon test in a two - sample case. However, in the presence of covariates, comparing two populations without adjusting for covariates would yield misleading results. In this study, we propose several pretests that will help the analyst decide to use stratified Logrank or stratified Wilcoxon tests in comparing two survival curves after covariates have been taken into account. Power performance of each adaptive test was done through simulations under PH and non-PH cases.

Self-Generated Absorption Filter Based Optical Densitometry Calculations For Expanded Gamut And Spot Color Printing On Paperboard For Packaging Applications And Proposed Oba Index, Awadhoot Vijaykant Shendye

Dissertations

In the printing industry, process color printing is a very common way of reproduction of color photographic images. As continuous tone reproduction is not possible, images are converted to halftone format. Process control of a halftone image quality is carried out by measuring optical density of solid patches. ISO 5 defines measurement of optical density, formula, filters and requirements. As per ISO document optical density can be calculated only for the 4 colors cyan, magenta, yellow and black, known as process colors. To enhance quality of color reproduction of images, the number of reproducible colors are increased by gamut expansion. …

High Performance Computing Techniques For Analyzing Risky Decision Making, Vinay B. Gavirangaswamy

Dissertations

The process or activity of making choices when subject to gain or loss can be understood as risky decision making (RDM). Risky Decisions consists of outcomes of decisions that may probabilistically result in unfavorable results. Every organism that lives faces this challenge and recent research suggests that there is a computational process involved in making these decisions. This has led to new approaches in the study of RDM. My dissertation is towards contributing to expand on the existing knowledge of RDM processes.

The core contribution of my work is an analysis and development of high performance computing techniques that improves …

Optimal Combiners For Multiple Classifier Systems, Mohammed Falih Hassan

Dissertations

A Multiple Classifier System (MCS) is designed to combine classification results of an ensemble of different classifiers and consequently to produce the highest possible classification output. MCS has recently drawn growing attention and has become a necessity, especially when a problem involves a large class of noisy data or when using a single pattern classifier that has serious drawbacks in its results. A wide range of pattern recognition applications have benefited from the implementation of MCS, these include areas such as handwriting recognition, incremental learning, data fusion, feature selection, and a large variety of medical applications.

To achieve optimal ensemble …

A Deep Learníng-Based Data Minimization Algorithm For Big Genomics Data In Support Of Lot And Secure Smart Health Services, Mohammed Aledhari

Dissertations

In the age of Big Genomics Data, institutes such as the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI),1000-Genomes project, and the international cancer sequencing consortium are faced with the challenge of sharing large volumes of data between internationallydispersed sample collectors, data analyzers, and researchers, a process that up until now has been plagued by unreliable transfers and slow connection speeds. These occur due to the inherent throughput bottlenecks of traditional transfer technologies. One suggested solution is using the cloud as an infrastructure to solve the store and analysis challenges. However, the transfer and share of the genomics datasets between biological laboratories …

Grit As A Predictor Of Academic Success For First-Time Undergraduate Students, Sean M. Broghammer

Dissertations

A majority of institutions of higher education in the U.S. rely primarily on traditional academic factors of high-school grade point average (HSGPA) and standardized test scores to admit students to undergraduate studies. Recent research has supported the use of noncognitive variables in conjunction with traditional factors in predicting college student success. This study sought to investigate further if the noncognitive variable of grit could predict first-year college grade point average (FYGPA), first semester persistence, and first year retention beyond existing pre-collegiate indicators. Previous studies involving grit on college students were completed at highly selective institutions or highly competitive environments such …

A First-Order Autoregressive Hurdle Poisson Model, Gadir Abdulaziz Alomair

Dissertations

Count regression models are used when the response variable takes count or non-negative values. Poisson and negative binomial distributions are commonly used to model count data. A frequent matter with the count data is to have an excess number of zeros that can result in overdispersed data when using Poisson or negative binomial distributions. Appropriate approaches to use when modeling excess-zero data is to use either a hurdle or a zero-inated Poisson (ZIP) distribution. Recently, the hurdle models are commonly used in fields such as medicine, epidemiology, genetics, and marketing. Excess-zero data occur frequently as a series of data that …

The Role Of Middle School Building Leadership Teams In Professional Development, Celine Wicks

Dissertations

The role middle school building leadership teams have in professional development (PD), through a distributed leadership model, was explored in this multiple-case study. There is minimal research regarding the impact of middle school building leadership teams (BLTs) related to their responsibilities of professional development. The intent of this study was to add to the body of research regarding the role that middle school BLTs, beyond the principal alone, have on designing and delivering professional development. Through a qualitative research design, data were collected through one-on-one interviews, focus group interviews, observations, and document collection. The findings illuminated four major themes of …

Distributed Model Predictive Control Of Power Converters In Microsrids Under Different Modes Of Operation, Riyadh Toman Thahab Toman

Dissertations

Microgrids consist of many distributed energy sources (DERs) and the overall system is viewed as a number of subsystems. In this work, a finite control set model predictive control is proposed to control power converters in both grid and island modes of operation of the microgrid. Each subsystem is assigned a local controller that relies on measurements of common coupling point (PCC) and/or terminal quantities to provide accurate regulation of current or voltage components. This meets the local objective of each subsystem and contributes to the global objective of the microgrid.

In the first part of the work, a microgrid …

Ldentifying And Characterizing Cognitive Factors Significant To Practicing And Learning Meteorology, Peggy M. Mcneal

Dissertations

To see the world as a meteorologist, one must understand and interpret atmospheric processes through representations depicted on two-dimensional weather charts and maps that encode large amounts of spatial and numerical data. This is a cognitively demanding and spatially challenging task, especially for students with burgeoning levels of meteorology knowledge, who lack the expertise of practiced meteorologists that read such charts and maps with ease. With little prior work informing meteorology and meteorology education through a cognitive science lens, this study surveys the literature and follows models of discipline-based education and cognitive science research to identify the discrete intelligence factors …

Development Of Flexible Sensing Systems And Energy Harvesters Using Printing Techniques, Sepehr Emamian

Dissertations

Printed electronics (PE) has been gaining a significant level of interest and is being used for developing a wide range of electronic systems for various applications, specifically in the sensor fields. This dissertation focuses on the development of flexible sensors and energy harvesters for application in sensing systems by employing additive manufacturing processes.

Initially, an efficient surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate was fabricated by gravure printing a thin film of silver nanoparticle ink on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sheet. The feasibility of the printed substrate to be used as a SERS substrate for the detection of explosive materials, …

Structures Of Derived Graphs, Khawlah Hamad Alhulwah

Dissertations

One of the most familiar derived graphs are line graphs. The line graph L(G) of a graph G is the graph whose vertices are the edges of G where two vertices of L(G) are adjacent if and only if the corresponding edges of G are adjacent. One of the best- known results on the structure of line graphs deals with forbidden subgraphs by Beineke. A characterization of graphs whose line graph is Hamiltonian is due to Harary and Nash-Williams. Iterated line graphs of almost all connected graphs were shown to be Hamiltonian by Chartrand. The girth of a graph G …

A Change Plan For Underachieving Gifted Children, Jason Major

Dissertations

There exists a population of gifted and talented students for whom the educational system does not service. These children are often either from poverty or minority backgrounds, or sometimes so profoundly smart that schools simply do not know what to do with them or where they fit in. This change plan explores the opportunity for a school just for these students, where they can study free of hindrances of standards and acceleration. After research and interviews with members of the field of gifted, there may not currently be such a model anywhere in our country. Schools do exist for gifted …

An Evaluation Of One District's Think Through Math Program And Curriculum Implementation, Dywayne Hinds

Dissertations

Think Through Math is a research based math program. One school district implemented the program to improve student performance on the state standardized assessment. After two years of implementation, 44% of middle school students in the district did not make adequate progress in math as measured by the state assessment. The purpose of my study was to determine the effectiveness of the Think Through Math program used within middle school Intensive Math classes throughout the district. Guided by research on the critical aspects of implementation, my study examined teachers’ perceptions of (a) resources used within the program, (b) the impact …

Teachers' Perceptions On Professional Learning: A Mixed Method Program Evaluation In A Middle School Setting, Emily Crement

Dissertations

The purpose of this research was evaluate the program of teacher professional learning at Hamlin Middle School to guide formative improvement, therefore maximizing the potential of increasing teacher effectiveness and results. By facilitating evaluative thinking among teachers on the topic of teacher professional learning, the goal was to change how teachers conceptualize teacher professional learning. The discussion of professional learning was based on the Modes of Learning Framework (HarvardX, 2014), which organizes learning along two continua: hierarchical-distributed and individual-collective. Methodology included a survey on teachers’ perceptions on the modes of learning, and focus group discussions in which participants interpreted survey …

A Mixed-Methods Evaluation Of Project Lead The Way Engineering Curriculum Goals Within Missouri High Schools, Brian Eugene Smith

Dissertations

Within the confines of this study, the researcher investigated Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Engineering curriculum goals within Missouri high schools. The study measured Missouri PLTW teachers’ perceptions of various elements of the curriculum as well as state and national PLTW End of Course student assessment data to determine if a relationship existed between teachers’ perceptions of curriculum implementation and student performance, as measured through Missouri End of Course exams in various secondary engineering classes. In addition, the researcher conducted voluntary interviews with teachers, state administrators, and national representatives of PLTW to inquire about experiences with the PLTW Engineering curriculum. …

Perceived Ideal Traits Of A Mentor As Viewed By African American Students In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics, Mary L. Smith

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine undergraduate students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines perception of traits an ideal mentor should possess, and to determine if these traits had positive results on their identification with science. With a large number of workers in STEM disciplines retiring, there is a projected need for more underrepresented minorities to fill these positions. In order to increase diversity in the workforce, efforts must be made to retain underrepresented minorities in STEM education beginning at the undergraduate level and continuing throughout the graduate level. This intervention should begin as early as …

Air-Processed Polymer Photovoltaics: Advanced Morphological Characterization And Synthesis Of New Materials For Increased Light Absorption, Levi Moore

Dissertations

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have undergone intense development in recent years due to their potential to produce inexpensive, flexible, lightweight, and portable solar cells utilizing organic photoactive materials. Polymer-based OPVs have recently surpassed the 10 % in laboratory-scale devices, but require strict processing conditions in inert environments. Materials and processing methods that are workable in air are therefore desired. In addition to the light-absorbing and charge transport properties of the active layer materials, the morphology, crystallinity and orientation of the components of the phase-separated blend are paramount in determining OPV device performance This dissertation explores the processing of the model polymer …

Radial Basis Function Differential Quadrature Method For The Numerical Solution Of Partial Differential Equations, Daniel Watson

Dissertations

In the numerical solution of partial differential equations (PDEs), there is a need for solving large scale problems. The Radial Basis Function Differential Quadrature (RBFDQ) method and local RBF-DQ method are applied for the solutions of boundary value problems in annular domains governed by the Poisson equation, inhomogeneous biharmonic equation, and the inhomogeneous Cauchy-Navier equations of elasticity. By choosing the collocation points properly, linear systems can be obtained so that the coefficient matrices have block circulant structures. The resulting systems can be efficiently solved using matrix decomposition algorithms (MDAs) and fast Fourier transforms (FFTs). For the local RBFDQ method, the …

Ecological And Oceanographic Influences On Leatherback Turtle Behavior And Scyphozoan Jellyfish Distributions In The Gulf Of Mexico, Katrina Aleksa

Dissertations

Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) are a wide-ranging, oceanic species that feed exclusively on gelatinous zooplankton. Leatherback have been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) for several decades and consistently had a high level of interactions with longline fisheries. However, no quantitative studies have been performed to address the spatiotemporal distribution of these turtles in the GoM. This research determines 1) leatherback movements and high-use areas in the GoM, 2) their association with oceanographic features, 3) the distribution and density of two abundant medusae in the northern GoM and any association with biophysical parameters, and 4) the body …