Digital Commons Network^™

Computational Optimization Methods For Modeling The Effect Of Muscle Forces On Bone Strength Adaptation, Catherine Siena Florio

Dissertations

An improved understanding of the mechanical influences that alter the strength of a bone can aid in the refinement of the wide array of currently available techniques to counteract the losses of bone strength that occur due to age or disuse both on Earth and in Space. To address this need, computational modeling methods to quantitatively analyze and compare the effects of mechanical factors on the strength of a targeted bone within a multibone, multimuscle system are developed and implemented in this work. Through a more detailed representation of the system in which the bone acts and the creation of …

Particle Filtering For Frequency Estimation From Acoustic Time-Series In Dispersive Media, Nattapol Aunsri

Dissertations

Acoustic signals propagating in the ocean carry information about geometry and environmental parameters within the propagation medium. Accurately retrieving this information leads us to effectively estimate parameters that are of utmost importance in environmental studies, climate monitoring, and defense. This dissertation focuses on the development of sequential Bayesian filtering methods to obtain accurate estimates of instantaneous frequencies using Short Term Fourier Transforms within the acoustic field measured at an array of hydrophones, which can be used in a subsequent step for the estimation of propagation related parameters. We develop a particle filter to estimate these frequencies along with modal amplitudes, …

Using Structural And Semantic Methodologies To Enhance Biomedical Terminologies, Zhe He

Dissertations

Biomedical terminologies and ontologies underlie various Health Information Systems (HISs), Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems, Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) and health administrative systems. Moreover, the proliferation of interdisciplinary research efforts in the biomedical field is fueling the need to overcome terminological barriers when integrating knowledge from different fields into a unified research project. Therefore well-developed and well-maintained terminologies are in high demand. Most of the biomedical terminologies are large and complex, which makes it impossible for human experts to manually detect and correct all errors and inconsistencies. Automated and semi-automated Quality Assurance methodologies that focus on areas that are more …

Vehicle Re-Routing Strategies For Congestion Avoidance, Juan Pan

Dissertations

Traffic congestion causes driver frustration and costs billions of dollars annually in lost time and fuel consumption. This dissertation introduces a cost-effective and easily deployable vehicular re-routing system that reduces the effects of traffic congestion. The system collects real-time traffic data from vehicles and road-side sensors, and computes proactive, individually tailored re-routing guidance, which is pushed to vehicles when signs of congestion are observed on their routes. Subsequently, this dissertation proposes and evaluates two classes of re-routing strategies designed to be incorporated into this system, namely, Single Shortest Path strategies and Multiple Shortest Paths Strategies.

These strategies are firstly implemented …

Svmaud: Using Textual Information To Predict The Audience Level Of Written Works Using Support Vector Machines, Todd Will

Dissertations

Information retrieval systems should seek to match resources with the reading ability of the individual user; similarly, an author must choose vocabulary and sentence structures appropriate for his or her audience. Traditional readability formulas, including the popular Flesch-Kincaid Reading Age and the Dale-Chall Reading Ease Score, rely on numerical representations of text characteristics, including syllable counts and sentence lengths, to suggest audience level of resources. However, the author’s chosen vocabulary, sentence structure, and even the page formatting can alter the predicted audience level by several levels, especially in the case of digital library resources. For these reasons, the performance of …

Using Prior Knowledge And Learning From Experience In Estimation Of Distribution Algorithms, Mark Walter Hauschild

Dissertations

Estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) are stochastic optimization techniques that explore the space of potential solutions by building and sampling explicit probabilistic models of promising candidate solutions. One of the primary advantages of EDAs over many other stochastic optimization techniques is that after each run they leave behind a sequence of probabilistic models describing useful decompositions of the problem. This sequence of models can be seen as a roadmap of how the EDA solves the problem. While this roadmap holds a great deal of information about the problem, until recently this information has largely been ignored. My thesis is that …

Benchmarking The Use Of Learner-Centered Teaching Practices In Missouri Community Colleges, Vivian Kathleen Elder

Dissertations

Learner-Centered (LC) teaching focuses on shifting the role of an instructor from a provider of information to a facilitator of learning. Several Missouri community colleges have declared themselves LC institutions through use of the term in their mission statements and/or strategic goals. Although a metric for demonstrating this commitment, in the form of a rubric created by Dr. Blumberg (2009) existed, it was not in common use at the time this study was conducted. Additionally, a void existed on how the traits of LC instructors differed, if at all, from the traits of more traditional instructors. This quantitative, causal-comparative study …

Design Guidelines To Frp Strengthened Reinforced Concrete Structures : An Emphasis On Developing Plate-End Debonding Failure Criterion, Rajesh Babu Vuddandam

Dissertations

As an alternative to the overwhelming costs of rebuilding structures, rehabilitation of existing structures has become the focus of many researchers in the past few decades. To strengthen a reinforced concrete beam for flexure, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are usually bonded externally to the tension side of the structural element. Although, the usage of FRP has progressed and has been implemented in a number of projects worldwide, the behavior of FRP rehabilitated structures has yet to be appropriately considered for design purposes. For design, current design guidelines address conventional failure modes like concrete crushing, steel yielding and FRP rupture. …

Exploiting Spatio-Temporal Patterns For Event Response Using Reinforcement Learning In A Synthetically-Augmented Environment, Salvador E. Barbosa

Dissertations

Events with detrimental effects caused by adversarial human actors, such as crimes and terrorist acts, require the convergence of three factors: a suitable target, a motivated offender, and the absence of a capable guardian. Positioning guardian agents in the spatio-temporal proximity of anticipated events in order to prevent or respond to them can be a difficult task. The most common approaches to this problem include models of the adversarial actors to which guardian agents respond. Such model-based approaches can be problematic when there is insufficient information to construct a reliable model, when the number of factors governing the actor's behavior …

The Hierarchical Piecewise Linear Approximation Of Time Series Data, Vineetha Bettaiah

Dissertations

The primary contribution of this dissertation is the development of a new time series representation technique called the Hierarchical Piecewise Linear Ap- proximation (HPLA), which facilitates the development of an efficient and effective approach for time series matching. In the HPLA representation, a time series is partitioned into segments between identifiable perceptually important points called primary breakpoints, and each segment is represented independently at several levels of accuracy by placing additional secondary breakpoints between adjacent primary breakpoints. For a given compression ratio, the HPLA representation achieves higher reconstruction accuracy and retains local evolution trends better than the existing time series …

Computational Optimization Models For Investigating Digital Crime And Intrusion Detection Alarms, Ezhil Selvam Kalaimannan

Dissertations

The Internet is a source of information, communication and entertainment, which makes it impossible for us to imagine a world without being connected. However, there has been a tremendous growth of crimes targeting any form of digital medium. The main objective of this dissertation is to develop and empirically evaluate computational optimization models for investigating digital crime and computer/network intrusion. The first research problem considered in this dissertation relates to the Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) in digital forensics. First, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is proposed to allocate optimal investigation times for evidence, thereby maximizing the overall effectiveness …

Dynamics Of Shrub Fires Investigated Via Physics Based Modeling, Ambarish Dahale

Dissertations

A physics based model, capable of predicting fire spread through a multiphase porous media, is formulated and described in detail. The resulting governing equations of fluid dynamics, combustion, heat transfer and thermal degradation of solid fuel, are solved using discrete numerical methods. The burning of an isolated chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) shrub approximately 1 m in height, similar to previously reported experimental study, was investigated using this physics based model. Global quantities including burning time, total mass consumed, time history of mass loss rate and time to reach maximum mass loss rate are found to be in good agreement with experimental …

Traveling Wave Solutions Of A Chemotaxis Model : Existence And Stability, Reem N. Albashaireh

Dissertations

In this dissertation, we investigate the existence and stability of traveling wave solutions of a chemotaxis model system, which consists of two reaction-diffusion equations, of which containing the chemotaxis term. We prove the existence of a family of traveling wave solutions, one for each wave speed c > c_* for some c_* > 0. Due to continuity of these wave solutions on c, they are unstable in the Banach space X := C ( R ̅) × C(R ̅), where C(R ̅) is the Banach space, equipped with the uniform norm, of all continuous functions U on R with both U(±∞) being …

Treasures Of Their Truth: Selected Conversations On The Context For Leadership In Southern Malawi, Martin Renee High

Dissertations

Western knowledge of African philosophy, culture, leadership, and pre- and post- colonial history reflects both myths and truths that originate from Western ways of doing research. This ethnographic study (Creswell, 2009; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; O'Leary, 2004) seeks to develop an understanding of the context for leadership in Malawi, a Sub-Saharan country. Using the indigenous research paradigm, which is a set of research beliefs or framework (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011) in which the researcher and the researched are connected, knowledge is relational, truth is relational with the universe, and research methodologies are based on indigenous knowledge, …

Improving The Service Design Process: Process Integration, Conflict Reduction And Customer Involvement, Sameer G. Tabbakh

Dissertations

Service design is the science of creating service experiences based on the customer's perspective, to make it useful, enjoyable and cost-effective for the customer. Although the field of service design is relatively new, it has been rapidly expanding in research and practice. Most researchers focus on the usefulness of the service, cost efficiency, meeting customers' needs, or service strategy. However, all service elements can benefit from improving the service design process. Current service design processes are suffering a lack of integration of activities, conflicts in decision-making processes, and exclusion of practitioners' methods. In prior research, information models were created to …

Culturally Responsive Leadership: A Case Study To Explore Stakeholders’ Perceptions Of Culturally Responsive Leadership In A K-12 Public Charter School In North Carolina, Kimberly Michelle Jones Goods

Dissertations

The purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore stakeholders’ perceptions of the culturally responsive leadership practices of charter school leaders. The goals were: (a) to explore how the school leadership team perceived culturally responsive leadership in a K-12 charter school in North Carolina, (b) to explore how the teachers perceived culturally responsive teaching and learning in a K-12 charter school in North Carolina, and (c) to explore how parents perceived a culturally responsive home-school connection in a K-12 charter school in North Carolina. Because this study involved an examination of stakeholders’ perceptions of culturally responsive leadership in a …

Direct And Evolutionary Approaches For Optimal Receiver Function Inversion, Mulugeta Tuji Dugda

Dissertations

Receiver functions are time series obtained by deconvolving vertical component seismograms from radial component seismograms. Receiver functions represent the impulse response of the earth structure beneath a seismic station. Generally, receiver functions consist of a number of seismic phases related to discontinuities in the crust and upper mantle. The relative arrival times of these phases are correlated with the locations of discontinuities as well as the media of seismic wave propagation. The Moho (Mohorovicic discontinuity) is a major interface or discontinuity that separates the crust and the mantle. In this research, automatic techniques to determine the depth of the Moho …

Designing Medical Treatment Protocols To Improve Healthcare Supply Chain Management, Lakausha Tanette Simpson

Dissertations

The primary goal of this research is to determine the strategic system integration opportunities for a segmented healthcare system with cost minimization and efficacy maximization objectives. This research is inspired in part by the Defense Logistics Agency, which is trying to assess the impact of integrating treatment selection processes across service clinicians. Specifically, physician bias, patient volumes, leveraging economies of scale or costing structures, and complex treatment efficacy calculations are considered by mathematically modeling three forms of integration. Multiple objective optimization problems are used to define efficient frontiers based on cost and treatment efficacy. A novel comparative analysis method is …

An Assessment Of Available Hydrokinetic Energy Of The Gulf Stream Near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, Asif Kamal Kabir

Dissertations

Ocean currents have the potential to supply electricity from a renewable source to coastal regions. The Gulf Stream, part of the North Atlantic Gyre, flows parallel to the Southeastern coast of the United States and could potentially supply a significant electricity to this region. The assessment of the potential energy that could be generated is the first step towards developing this resource. Data from the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) and high-frequency radar measurements have been used to assess an area extending from 34.85° N to 35.15° N, and from 74.85° W to 74.5° W near the North Carolina shore. …

The Influence Of The Emotional Intelligence Management Curriculum To Improve College Students’ Intrapersonal And Interpersonal Skills To Impact Leader Behavior And Team Performance Effectiveness, Cindy Register Love

Dissertations

There is a growing emphasis in institutions of higher learning to produce sustainable and competitive graduates who possess relevant personal competencies for career success. Emotional intelligence skills can provide the competitive edge for graduates to be successful int heir industry of choice. Integrating emotional intelligence into higher education can potentially shift the learning environment and increase specific personal competencies. This study aims to investigate the influence of an emotional intelligence intervention to improve college students’ intrapersonal and interpersonal skills to impact leader behavior skills and team effectiveness. The research looked specifically at students’ skills from three dimensions (intrapersonal,interpersonal, and leadership) …

Cmos Rotary Traveling Wave Oscillators (Rtwos), Marvin Aidoo

Dissertations

Rotary Traveling Wave Oscillator (RTWO) represents a transmission line based technology for multi-gigahertz multiple phase clock generation. RTWO is known for providing low jitter and low phase noise signals but the issue of high power consumption is a major drawback in its application. Direction of wave propagation is random and is determined by the least resistance path in the absence of an external direction control circuit. The objective of this research is to address some of the problems of RTWO design, including high power consumption, uncertainty of propagation direction and optimization of design variables. Included is the modeling of RTWO …

Numerical Investigation Of Orographic Effects On Supercell Thunderstorms, Galen M. Smith

Dissertations

Orographic effects on tornadic supercell development, propagation, and structure are investigated using the Cloud Model 1 with idealized bell-shaped mountains of various heights and geometries and a homogeneous fluid flow with a single sounding. In total, the variations of height and geometry yield 16 terrain configurations. It is found that blocking effects are dominative compared to the terrain-induced environmental heterogeneity downwind of the mountain. The isolated bell-shaped mountains tended to shift the track of the storm towards the left of storm motion; however, when the terrain was elongated the effect tended to be rightward. The terrain blocking effect also enhanced …

Investigation Of Chicago Air Pollution And Meteorological Influence On Pollution Development: Physical Measurements And Multivariate Statistical Analyses, Katrina Lyn Binaku

Dissertations

The goal of this project was to evaluate air pollutants and meteorology in Chicago, Illinois during summers 2010, 2011, and 2012. Sixty-six collection days of air pollutant and meteorological data were completed at the Loyola University Chicago sampling station atop Mertz Hall. Trace gases, nitrogen oxides and ozone, as well as the water-soluble fraction of aerosol material were the air pollutants of focus in this study. Data analysis showed that chloride, nitrate, sulfate, and oxalate were the most frequently quantified water-soluble ions in aerosol samples, followed by acetate, formate, potassium, phosphate, calcium, and magnesium ions. Ionic ratios showed that stationary …

Dominant Characteristics And Predictive Factors That Motivate A Theology Career Choice In A Private Denominational University In São Paulo, Brazil, Gerson Pires Araujo

Dissertations

Problem. More than six times the number of applicants than can be accepted attempt to enter the theology program on the campus of the Adventist Brazilian University of São Paulo (UNASP). The number of applicants is increasing every year and the majority cannot follow their chosen career.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify the dominant characteristics and the discriminant factors that motivated the career choice of freshman theology students in a private denominational university in Brazil. The study also analyzed the demographic characteristics of those students and their perceived sense of mission for a ministerial …

The Impact Of Accreditation On The Teacher Education Curricula At Two Historically Black Colleges From 1920-1940, Denise J. Shaver

Dissertations

Problem. Many historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are experiencing major challenges in meeting accreditation requirements. Without good accreditation status they are in jeopardy of losing student enrollment and facing closure. Concern about accreditation has become a growing topic of interest within the African American higher education community. This study explored the topic by looking at some of the historical origins of the accreditation movement in HBCUs. It uses various experiences of two higher education organizations to detail some of the original challenges and the impact on HBCUs from regional accreditation. It focuses on HBCUs through the time period 1920-1940. …

A Summer Reading Enrichment Experience: One District's Effort To Prevent Summer Reading Loss, Angela R. Sopko

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to gain insights into effective literacy practices and key factors that promote reading achievement for elementary age students during summer break. More specifically, the study examined the effectiveness of a summer reading enrichment experience offered to children from low-income families in an effort to prevent summer reading loss. The students involved in this study were considered to have average reading skills.

The particular focus of this study led to the formation of the following question to guide this research: To what extent is a student's reading achievement impacted by extended literacy instruction or enrichment? …

Relating Preschool Class Size To Classroom Life And Student Achievement, Jessica Francis

Dissertations

There is an ongoing debate regarding the importance of smaller classes in elementary school, and a lack of solid research to support class size policies in preschool. State spending on preschool has nearly doubled in the last five years and currently more than 80 percent of American 4-year olds go to some kind of preschool. Increasing enrollments in preschool coupled with the high costs of reducing the size of classes creates the need to decide how many children should be placed in a preschool classroom.

The majority of states require that programs implement class sizes of 20 and teacher-child ratios …

Climatology Of The African Easterly Jet And Subtropical Highs Over North Africa And Arabian Peninsula And A Numerical Case Study Of An Intense African Easterly Wave, James D. Spinks

Dissertations

North African climate is analyzed between 1979 and 2010 with an emphasis on August using the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) global dataset to investigate the effects of the subtropical anticyclones over North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula on the Africa easterly jet (AEJ). It was found that the AEJ encloses a core with a local wind maximum (LWM) in both West and East Africa, in which the west LWM core has a higher zonal wind speed. The strength of both cores is distinctly different by way of thermal wind balance. The variability of these synoptic weather …

Documenting The Experiences And Perceptions Of Youth Participants In The Shelton Leadership Challenge Program, Kimberly E. Ingold

Dissertations

This ethnographic case study (Flyvbjerg, 2011) drew on intensive participant observation, interviewing, and analysis of archival materials, to document the experiences and perspectives of high school and college age participants in the Shelton Challenge, a summer camp designed to inspire and scaffold values-based, transformative leadership. This study focused in particular on youth reports of the impact of the Shelton Challenge experience on their use of reflection, critical thinking, and values in decision-making. Purposeful sampling (Creswell, 2009) across 13 high school and 4 college students ages 14-19, allowed depiction of differently-positioned informant perspectives. Participant observation (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2009); fieldnotes (Emerson, …

Perception Analytics Of An In-Depth Observational Analysis Of 6th Grade African American Male Students' Personal Agency, Devetta Holman Nash

Dissertations

Existing scholarship on self-concept and its relevance to personal agency in the classroom does not incorporate the lived experiences of African American middle school boys. Today, in the United States, only 10% of 8th grade African American boys can read proficiently (Holzman, 2011). This research study investigates the perceptions of seventeen middle school African American males' classroom experiences to determine factors that contribute to their classroom engagement and personal agency. The study also illustrates that there is a significant need for greater self-identity and self-concept within the learning environment, which allows African American male students to self–actualize their sense of …