Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring The Use Of The Eight-Step Process In The Area Of Third Grade Communication Arts, Anthony J. Arnold

Dissertations

The Eight-Step Process is a continuous improvement model that focuses on collaboration by disaggregating and analyzing data, developing a common instructional calendar, assessing mastery with common formative and summative assessments, building in time daily for interventions and enrichments for each student on the standards being taught, and monitoring of the process with learning logs and grade level meetings. Previous research demonstrates that this model is effective in raising student academic achievement on standardized tests in other states such as Texas and Florida. This study of four teachers in one elementary school examined their implementation of The Eight- Step Process as …

Teacher Perception Of The Alignment Of Enhancing Missouri’S Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies (Emints) With The National Staff Development Council (Nsdc) Standards, Diana L. Stanfill

Dissertations

This study used the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) standards for staff development as a framework for measuring specific aspects of the enhancing Missouri’s Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies (eMINTS) educational technology professional development program, as perceived by eMINTS teachers. The Technology Integration Cycle supported the research design. The three-part cycle assumed a relationship existed between standards-based professional development, technology-rich classrooms, and students’ acquisition of technology skills. This study’s hypothesis, research questions, and sub-questions were designed to examine the underlying premise of standards-based, high-quality professional development. These questions sought to examine eMINTS teacher perceptions as they related to the degree in …

Evaluation Of 6 + 1 Trait Writing And The Professional Development Training Used To Implement The Program, Bruce E. Werkmeister

Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing program on student achievement and to explore the teacher perceived effectiveness of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing program on student achievement. This study concentrated on student achievement, as determined by the Missouri Assessment Program test, and the teachers’ perception of the impact 6 + 1 Trait Writing had on the curriculum. The study also focused on the perceived effectiveness of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing professional development opportunities provided to teachers as determined by surveys and roundtable discussions. The 2007, …

Investigating The Self-Assessment Of Adult Literacy Learners With Dyslexia Across Several Cognitive Domains, Kelli Sandman-Hurley Edd

Dissertations

The dissertation evaluated the ability of adult literacy learners with dyslexia to assess their cognitive abilities in two separate domains: reading and memory. This study also evaluated the effect that one-on-one tutoring had on the learner's ability to accurately self-assess these cognitive abilities. Twenty adult literacy learners (n = 20) with dyslexia were tested in both domains. This study also included a control group of 10 good readers (n = 10) who were administered the same three standardized tests. This data was collected by administering three standardized assessments. This was a quantitative study that used analysis of variance (ANOVA), repeated …

Examining Professional Development At The Organizational Level Through The Lens Of Teachers And Administrators, Lori Kelsey Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this evaluative case study was to explore teachers' and administrators' perceptions of the organizational capacity during an initial implementation of a systemic change in professional development at a K-8 school. Educational reform acts such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 pressure public school systems to increase student achievement. School district personnel abide by making systemic changes in professional development. For organizations to make such systemic changes, first the culture must change. In an era of ongoing educational reform, it remains important to continually build upon the evidentiary body of literature so that the nation's …

Improving Services For Students With Disabilities At Community Colleges, Michael William Duggan

Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to discover ways in which community college faculty and administrators can better facilitate learning for students with disabilities. Semi-structured interviews, preinterview questionnaires, and a review of relevant documents were used to gain an understanding of how community college faculty perceive the challenges of teaching students with disabilities. Additional research goals included an exploration of strategies community college faculty have found effective in assisting students with disabilities to be successful, actions community college administrators have taken that effectively address issues related to success for students with disabilities, and approaches community college administrators use …

Investigating A Summer Reading Program For Title I Students, Stephanie M. Mountain

Dissertations

Constant changes in legislation regarding monitoring student achievement levels have led schools to redevelop usage of instructional time in several core subjects. Legislation such as Missouri Senate Bill 319 specifically mandates that the school must intervene if a student is not reading at the appropriate level by grade four. Alternative measures to improve reading achievement levels, such as extending the school year into the summer, are being implemented within schools. The purpose of this action research study was to determine the effectiveness of the ABC School District’s Summer Reading Program in raising Title I students’ reading comprehension, fluency and vocabulary …

Perturbed Spherical Objects In Acoustic And Fluid Flow Fields, Manmeet Kaur

Dissertations

In this study, the time averaged acoustic radiation force and drag on a small, nearly spherical object suspended freely in a stationary sound wave field in a compressible, low viscosity fluid is to be calculated. This problem has been solved for a spherical object, and it has many important engineering applications related to segregation and separation processes for particles in fluids such as water. Small but significant errors have occurred in the predicted behavior of the particles using the existing approximate solutions based on perfect spheres. The classical approach has been extended in this research to objects that deviate slightly …

Institutional Controls And Brownfield Redevelopment, Ronnachai Tiyarattanachai

Dissertations

Institutional controls (ICs) are used to reduce risks to human health and environment from exposure to contaminants at Brownfield sites. Regulators approve use of ICs in Brownfield redevelopment with the expectation that ICs will remain effective over the long-term under proper oversight mechanisms. However, a recent review of compliance statuses of Brownfield sites with ICs implemented in Massachusetts and New Jersey indicated a significant percentage of the sites are out of compliance status.

Implementation of ICs depends on compliance efforts by humans. Thus, consistency of implementation over the long-term is questionable because there are several potential problems due to human …

Generalized Discrete Fourier Transform With Non-Linear Phase : Theory And Design, Handan Agirman-Tosun

Dissertations

Constant modulus transforms like discrete Fourier transform (DFT), Walsh transform, and Gold codes have been successfully used over several decades in various engineering applications, including discrete multi-tone (DMT), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and code division multiple access (CDMA) communications systems. Among these popular transforms, DFT is a linear phase transform and widely used in multicarrier communications due to its performance and fast algorithms. In this thesis, a theoretical framework for Generalized DFT (GDFT) with nonlinear phase exploiting the phase space is developed. It is shown that GDFT offers sizable correlation improvements over DFT, Walsh, and Gold codes. Brute force …

Resource Assignment In Short Life Technology Intensive (Slti) New Product Development (Npd), Randy A. Reagan

Dissertations

Enterprises managing multiple concurrent New Product Development (NPD) projects face significant challenges assigning staff to projects in order to achieve launch schedules that maximize financial returns. The challenge is increased with the class of Short Life Technology Intensive (SLTI) products characterized by technical complexity, short development cycles and short revenue life cycles. Technical complexity drives the need to assign staffing resources of various technical disciplines and skill levels. SLTI products are rapidly developed and launched into stationary market windows where the revenue life cycle is short and decreasing with any time-to-market delay. The SLTI-NPD project management decision is to assign …

Virtual World Commerce Adoption (Vwca) : A Case Study Of Second Life Investigating The Impacts Of Perceived Affordances, Trust, And Need Satisfaction, Kamolbhan Olapiriyakul

Dissertations

Virtual worlds are computer-simulated worlds in which multi-players can simultaneously interact in a rich graphical environment. The development of virtual worlds, along with the massive growth of users, creates opportunities for business organizations. This dissertation involves many studies regarding virtual world adoption in business by virtual consumers.

Most of the research in Information Systems (IS) was conducted investigating factors influencing technology adoption, such as ease of use and usefulness, subjective norms and behavioral controls, self-efficacy, performance and effort expectancy, flow, etc. However, most of these research studies focused neither on design aspects related to affordances nor users' goal-oriented behaviors, such …

Modeling And Quasi-Monte Carlo Simulation Of Risk In Credit Portfolios, Bo Ren

Dissertations

Credit risk is the risk of losing contractually obligated cash flows promised by a counterparty such as a corporation, financial institution, or government due to default on its debt obligations. The need for accurate pricing and hedging of complex credit derivatives and for active management of large credit portfolios calls for an accurate assessment of the risk inherent in the underlying credit portfolios. An important challenge for modeling a credit portfolio is to capture the correlations within the credit portfolio. For very large and homogeneous portfolios, analytic and semi-analytic approaches can be used to derive limiting distributions. However, for portfolios …

Algorithms In Comparative Genomics, Satish Chikkagoudar

Dissertations

The field of comparative genomics is abundant with problems of interest to computer scientists. In this thesis, the author presents solutions to three contemporary problems: obtaining better alignments for phylogeny reconstruction, identifying related RNA sequences in genomes, and ranking Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in genome-wide association studies (GWAS).

Sequence alignment is a basic and widely used task in bioinformatics. Its applications include identifying protein structure, RNAs and transcription factor binding sites in genomes, and phylogeny reconstruction. Phylogenetic descriptions depend not only on the employed reconstruction technique, but also on the underlying sequence alignment. The author has studied and established a …

Optimal Train Control On Various Track Alignments Considering Speed And Schedule Adherence Constraints, Kitae Kim

Dissertations

The methodology discussed in this dissertation contributes to the field of transit operational control to reduce energy consumption. Due to the recent increase in gasoline cost, a significant number of travelers are shifting from highway modes to public transit, which also induces higher transit energy consumption expenses.

This study presents an approach to optimize train motion regimes for various track alignments, which minimizes total energy consumption subject to allowable travel time, maximum operating speed, and maximum acceleration/deceleration rates. The research problem is structured into four cases which consist of the combinations of track alignments (e.g., single vertical alignment and mixed …

Understanding Cognitive Differences In Processing Competing Visualizations Of Complex Systems, Madhavi Mukul Chakrabarty

Dissertations

Node-link diagrams are used represent systems having different elements and relationships among the elements. Representing the systems using visualizations like node-link diagrams provides cognitive aid to individuals in understanding the system and effectively managing these systems. Using appropriate visual tools aids in task completion by reducing the cognitive load of individuals in understanding the problems and solving them. However, the visualizations that are currently developed lack any cognitive processing based evaluation. Most of the evaluations (if any) are based on the result of tasks performed using these visualizations. Therefore, the evaluations do not provide any perspective from the point of …

Optimal Synthesis Of Planar Adjustable Mechanisms, Chong Peng

Dissertations

Adjustable mechanisms provide degrees of flexibility while retaining desirable features of one degree of freedom close-loop mechanisms, such as simplicity, stability, and high speed capabilities. By adjusting linkage parameters, additional phases of motions can be achieved using the same hardware. However, an adjustment to the mechanism adds only one or two additional design positions and divides desired positions into "phases", each of which contains only a few positions usually insufficient for industrial applications.

In order to extend the design position limitation of adjustable mechanisms, an optimal synthesis method based on link length structural error is developed and applied to kinematic …

Job Seeking And Job Application In Social Networking Sites : Predicting Job Seekers' Behavioral Intentions, Maria Marcella Plummer

Dissertations

Social networking sites (SNSs) are revolutionizing the way in which employers and job seekers connect and interact with each other. Despite the reported benefits of SNSs with respect to finding a job, there are issues such as privacy concerns that might be deterring job seekers from using these sites in their attempts to secure a job. It is therefore important to understand the factors that are salient in predicting job seekers' use of SNSs in applying for jobs.

In this research, a theoretical model was developed to explicate job seekers' intentions to use SNSs to apply for jobs. Two aspects …

Integration Of Electronic And Optical Techniques In The Design And Fabrication Of Pressure Sensors, Ivan Padron

Dissertations

Since the introduction of micro-electro-mechanical systems fabrication methods, piezoresistive pressure sensors have become the more popular pressure transducers. They dominate pressure sensor commercialization due to their high performance, stability and repeatability. However, increasing demand for harsh environment sensing devices has made sensors based on Fabry-Perot interferometry the more promising optical pressure sensors due to their high degree of sensitivity, small size, high temperature performance, versatility, and improved immunity to environmental noise and interference. The work presented in this dissertation comprises the design, fabrication, and testing of sensors that fuse these two pressure sensing technologies into one integrated unit. A key …

Nonlinear Evolution Of Annular Layers And Liquid Threads In Electric Fields, Qiming Wang

Dissertations

The nonlinear dynamics of viscous perfectly conducting liquid jets or threads under the action of a radial electric field are studied theoretically and numerically here. The field is generated by a potential difference between the jet surface and a concentrically placed electrode of given radius. A long-wave nonlinear model that is used to predict the dynamics of the system and in particular to address the effect of the radial electric field on jet breakup is developed, Two canonical regimes are identified that depend on the size of the gap between the outer electrode and the unperturbed jet surface. For relatively …

Relationship Between Photospheric Magnetic Fields And Coronal Activities, Changyi Tan

Dissertations

Coronal emission comes in two forms, a steady component where the corona is heated to million degrees and a much hotter transient component of solar flares. Both components are known to be related to the evolution of surface magnetic fields. This dissertation studies the evolution of photospheric magnetic fields and flow fields and their relation to the properties of these two coronal emission components.

The key issue in the study of the steady coronal emission is the coronal heating problem: how the corona is heated to millions of degrees while the underlying solar photosphere is only a few thousand degrees. …

Cooperative Retransmission Protocols In Fading Channels : Issues, Solutions And Applications, Igor Stanojev

Dissertations

Future wireless systems are expected to extensively rely on cooperation between terminals, mimicking MIMO scenarios when terminal dimensions limit implementation of multiple antenna technology. On this line, cooperative retransmission protocols are considered as particularly promising technology due to their opportunistic and flexible exploitation of both spatial and time diversity. In this dissertation, some of the major issues that hinder the practical implementation of this technology are identified and pertaining solutions are proposed and analyzed. Potentials of cooperative and cooperative retransmission protocols for a practical implementation of dynamic spectrum access paradigm are also recognized and investigated. Detailed contributions follow.

While conventionally …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Metal Oxide Semiconductors For Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Production, Sudhakar Shet

Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the properties of metal-oxide thin films on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)-coated glass substrates, prepared by using radio- frequency (RF) reactive magnetron sputtering for photoelectrochemical (PEC) applications. Metal-oxide thin films as a photoelectrode are of special interest for PEC systems to produce hydrogen in an aqueous solution by solar energy due to their low cost and potential stability.

The following list represents some of the accomplishments and results of this work:

• Narrowing of N-incorporated ZnO (ZnO:N) was achieved by reactive sputtering in a O₂/N₂ mixture ambient, and ZnO:N films with …

Semantics And Efficient Evaluation Of Partial Tree-Pattern Queries On Xml, Xiaoying Wu

Dissertations

Current applications export and exchange XML data on the web. Usually, XML data are queried using keyword queries or using the standard structured query language XQuery the core of which consists of the navigational query language XPath. In this context, one major challenge is the querying of the data when the structure of the data sources is complex or not fully known to the user. Another challenge is the integration of multiple data sources that export data with structural differences and irregularities. In this dissertation, a query language for XML called Partial Tree-Pattern Query (PTPQ) language is considered. PTPQs generalize …

The Use Of Classroom Walk-Through Observations As A Strategy To Improve Teaching And Learning: An Administrative Perspective, Mark J. Weller

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify the possible use of structured classroom walk-through observations as a strategy to improve teaching and learning. A wide variety of programs and initiatives have recently been implemented across the country to improve student achievement. One such initiative is classroom walk-through observations. Classroom walk-through observations are briefly performed by school administrators to gauge the effectiveness of instruction in each classroom. The walkthrough observation gives teachers and administrators a snapshot of teaching and learning aspects throughout the school over time. This research was done collaboratively with Leslie McEntire and Tom Sorensen. The research team …

Xperts And Novices: Differences In Their Use Of Mental Representation And Metacognition In Engineering Design, Raymond Anthony Dixon

Dissertations

Research shows that mental representation such as analogical reasoning is a fundamental cognitive tool for design problem solving (Daugherty & Mentzer, 2008; Hey, Lensey, Agogino, & Wood, 2008; Lewis, 2008). Not much is known, however, about the way students and professional engineers actively generate and change their mental representation when solving a engineering design problem. There are very few studies that show how different types of mental representations; such as metaphors, propositions, and analogies; interplay with higher order cognitive processes; such as planning, monitoring, and evaluation; as engineering designers navigate their problem and solution spaces. This empirical study investigated the …

Immigrant Stories: Generation 1.5 Mexican American Students And English Language Learning In An Illinois Community College, Thomas Lloyd Hansen

Dissertations

The number of recent immigrants to the United States has increased dramatically in the last few years, and more of these immigrants are members of a group often designated as "Generation 1.5" students. These immigrant students were born in another country, came to the United States at the age of 13 or older, and graduated from high school in this country. This qualitative research study occurs within two Illinois community colleges that require some students to enroll in courses below regular English Composition I as indicated by one or more placement tests. These courses are English as a Second Language …

Investigating Efforts To Change Educator Attitudes And Teaching Strategies Through Professional Development Focused On The Use Of Backward Design Curriculum And The Principles Of Efficacy: Educator Behavior, Anissa Rochelle Harris

Dissertations

School districts continually face problems associated with student achievement. The 2001–2002 federal mandate contained in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act held schools accountable for success of all students in reading and mathematics. Standardized tests were employed to measure the success. The purpose of this study was to investigate efforts to change educator attitudes and teaching strategies through professional development focused on the use of backward design curriculum and the principles of efficacy. Participants completed a pre and post Likert survey. Three 45-minute professional development sessions were conducted incorporating discussions on the principles of efficacy and backward design curriculum. …

Towards Evidence-Based Practices In Mathematics Instruction: Investigating The Impact Of Writing On Student Ability To Solve Mathematics Problems, Shaalein Carroll Lopez

Dissertations

Achievement in mathematics education for students in elementary school through college has lagged behind that of other students internationally. As a result, enhancing mathematics achievement for students in the United States of America has long been a priority. Best practices in teaching across all grades emphasize using instructional methods that have been validated through research, though a review of the literature demonstrates a lack of such substantiated practices in mathematics education. This dissertation attempts to contribute to the field of research-based practices in mathematics education by measuring the effects of an instructional practice long used in mathematics classrooms in grades …

Factors Influencing The Decision Of High School Graduating Seniors In Corozal, Puerto Rico, To Pursue University Studies, Aned Yarelis Muñiz Gracia Edd

Dissertations

A university education has become a ticket out of poverty for persons living in highly competitive labor markets. Consequently, access to higher education and the factors that motivate university enrollment have long been studied. However, prior to this study, no noteworthy studies with a focus on high school students and their perceptions about higher education had been conducted in Puerto Rico. This lack of research is surprising because Puerto Rico has one of the world's most competitive job markets where a university degree can mean the difference between dependence on welfare and governmental assistance and a life of self-sufficiency and …