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Treatment Of Specific Animal Phobias And The Relationship Of An Opiate Antagonist To Outcome, Andrea T. Kozak

Dissertations

Previous research with non-humans, and humans to a lesser degree, suggest the endogenous opiate system is at work to assist an organism in times of pain or stress. One-session exposure treatment is an effective treatment for specific animal phobia and entails modest degrees of stress during implementation. At the present time, the mechanisms at work that facilitate the success of this intervention have been incompletely investigated. The focus of the present study was to determine whether the endogenous opiate system is activated during the treatment of persons with specific animal phobias. In a double-blind investigation, 15 individuals with specific animal …

An Evaluation Of Methylphenidate Preference In Adults Diagnosed With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Emily Kathleen Macdonald

Dissertations

Methylphenidate (MPH) is widely used in the treatment of ADHD, and is associated with positive effects across a wide range of domains. In spite of the clinical effectiveness of MPH, concern has arisen with respect to its abuse potential. The present study examined the reinforcing effects and participant-rated effects of MPH in adults diagnosed with ADHD. Participants included 10 volunteers (ages 18-22) diagnosed with ADHD who were receiving MPH treatment. The reinforcing effects were assessed using a double-blind choice procedure with 4 sampling and 8 choice sessions. During sampling sessions, participants completed a self-report questionnaire before receiving either placebo or …

Cellular Proliferation, Death And Histology In Gambusia Affinis Livers After Exposure To 2-Aminofluorene And Benzidine, Susan J. Lentz

Dissertations

A fundamental need exists for aquatic animals in the biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems for environmental carcinogens. G. affinis, a small fish species, is selected for this study due to its hardiness, non-migratory nature, geographic diversity and ability to develop tumors. Molecular tools for cellular proliferation and death are examined for use with G. affinis. Additionally, these tools are used to investigate the early carcinogenic effects of 2-aminofluorene and benzidine, both individually and combined, on G. affinis livers.

Antibodies to proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), p53, cleaved caspase-3 and cleaved poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) were examined for use in G. …

Using Behavioral Systems Analysis To Improve The Placement Service Of The Association For Behavior Analysis, Lori H. Miller

Dissertations

This dissertation demonstrated the use of behavioral systems analysis tools in the development of a useful service in a non-profit association. The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to design a placement system that would add value to the field of behavior analysis by placing behavior analysts in appropriate jobs, internships, and graduate programs; (2) to develop a data collection infrastructure that would assist the Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) in the assessment of the trends related to the human resources of the field; and (3) to advance the knowledge and methodology of behavioral systems analysis.

Six objectives were …

Affective Expression And Behavior In Sex Offenders, Peter F. Rausch

Dissertations

This analytic variable study examined potential differences that exist among juvenile and adult sex offenders on the emotional expressiveness variables of alexithymia and affective orientation, and three behavior variables including self-defeating behavior, risk taking, and reckless behavior. In addition, the adult sex offenders' attachment style in current relationships was examined.

Research questions were tested by t -tests. The significance level for all analyses was set at the .05 level. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to determine the primary attachment style of the adult sex offenders in current relationships.

Participants in this study were 47 juvenile sex offenders from …

New Graphical Approach On The Analysis Of Experimental Data, Suha Sari

Dissertations

This study presents a new graphical method to identify significant effects in factorial experiments. The proposed methods are obtained for the different cases in which the design can be of full factorial or fractional factorial and the factor levels can be pure or mixed.

We focus on the different decomposition methods, for example orthogonal components system and orthogonal contrast method, to make use of the chisquare plot which requires that the sums of squares are of the same degrees of freedom. Examples and simulations illustrating the different cases of the procedure are presented.

A Behavior Systems Analysis Approach To Designing A Hlgh-Impact Knowledge Management System, Jacalyn S. Smeltzer

Dissertations

Behavior systems analysis is an approach to designing and managing systems that incorporates the human-performance-technology model of systems analysis and considers the basic principles of behavior when analyzing causes of performance deficiencies and in selecting interventions to address those deficiencies. Behavior systems analysis focuses on three major conditions that influence behavior: (1) the motivation of the individual, (2) the immediate environmental cues, and (3) the consequences of behavior (Malott & Garcia, 1987; Suarez, 2001). The present study used behavior systems analysis to design a knowledge management system (independent variable) for a small business, a consulting firm in the employer-provided training …

Organizational Power And Politics: More Than Meets The Eye In Program Planning, Susan Shaver

Dissertations

Organizational power and politics influence corporate training in ways not often discussed. This study explores the effects of organizational power and politics on program planning and how planning, with its inherent power and politics (see Cervero & Wilson, 1994a), influences the daily practices of corporate trainers.

This study was informed by the literature of systems theory and constructivism. Von Bertalanffy’s (1968) general systems theory, in which the whole of a system is considered to be greater than the sum of its parts, Senge’s (1990) systems view that interrelationships within organizational structures, (not events), underlie complex situations, and Lincoln & Guba’s …

Parallel Simulation Of Microflows By Dsmc And Burnett Equations, Yichuan Fang

Dissertations

The primary objective of this dissertation is to numerically simulate and study the heat transfer and flow characteristics in fluidic microelectromechanical system (MEMS). In typical microfluidic MEMS applications, the ratio of the gas mean-free-path to the characteristic length scale, or the Knudsen number, can be large. The traditional mathematical models of continuum fluid based on the Navier-Stokes equations may become invalid because of their constitutive relations of viscous stress and heat flux.

In this study, the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method and the conventional Burnett equations are applied to model the microflows in microchannels from molecular and continuum point …

Group Processes In Group Supervision: A Quantitative And Qualitative Study, Jeremy M. Linton

Dissertations

Although group supervision is widely employed with counselors during their training (Holloway & Johnston, 1985; Prieto, 1998) little research concerning its practice has been offered in the literature. The fact that group supervision practices appear to be based on assumptions that lack empirically-based support has led some researchers to raise ethical concerns regarding its continued use (Hess, 1997; Prieto, 1996). In particular, many have raised concerns regarding counselor educators and supervisors' lack of understanding regarding the role of group processes in group supervision. Accordingly, this exploratory studysought to investigate counselor-trainees' experiences of group processes in group supervision. The study also …

Image Morphological Processing, Vijayalakshmi Gaddipati

Dissertations

Mathematical Morphology with applications in image processing and analysis has been becoming increasingly important in today's technology. Mathematical Morphological operations, which are based on set theory, can extract object features by suitably shaped structuring elements. Mathematical Morphological filters are combinations of morphological operations that transform an image into a quantitative description of its geometrical structure based on structuring elements. Important applications of morphological operations are shape description, shape recognition, nonlinear filtering, industrial parts inspection, and medical image processing.

In this dissertation, basic morphological operations, properties and fuzzy morphology are reviewed. Existing techniques for solving corner and edge detection are presented. …

Fully Nonlinear Interfacial Waves In A Bounded Two-Fluid System, Lyudmyla Leonidivna Barannyk

Dissertations

We study the nonlinear flow which results when two immiscible inviscid incompressible fluids of different densities and separated by an interface which is free to move and which supports surface tension, are caused to flow in a straight infinite channel. Gravity is taken into consideration and the velocities of each phase can be different, thus giving rise to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Our objective is to study the competing effects of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability coupled with a stably or unstably stratified fluid system (Rayleigh-Taylor instability) when surface tension is present to regularize the dynamics. Our approach involves the derivation of two-and …

Efficient Resource Allocation And Call Admission Control In High Capacity Wireless Networks, Jiongkuan Hou

Dissertations

Resource Allocation (RA) and Call Admission Control (CAC) in wireless networks are processes that control the allocation of the limited radio resources to mobile stations (MS) in order to maximize the utilization efficiency of radio resources and guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of mobile users. In this dissertation, several distributed, adaptive and efficient RA/CAC schemes are proposed and analyzed, in order to improve the system utilization while maintaining the required QoS.

Since the most salient feature of the mobile wireless network is that users are moving, a Mobility Based Channel Reservation (MBCR) scheme is proposed which takes the …

Optimization For Source Localization And Geoacoustic Inversion In Underwater Acoustics, Urmi Ghosh-Dastidar

Dissertations

Matched-field inversion techniques are widely used for source localization and geoacoustic parameter estimation. These inversion methods correlate the received data with modeled data and find the model parameters which provide the maximum correlation. However, when a large number of unknown parameters is involved, many modeled data need to be generated and correlated with the observed data and thus, matched-field inversion can be computationally intensive. An optimization process applied to matched-field inversion is often required to accelerate the inversion process.

In this work, tabu is applied to matched-field inversion for source localization and environmental parameter estimation. Tabu is a global optimization …

High Pressure Effects On Electron Transport And Structure Of Colossal Magnetoresistive Materials, Congwu Cui

Dissertations

Pressure effects on the electronic, magnetic properties and structure of several typical colossal magnetoresistive manganites, La_0.60Y_0.07Ca_0.33MnO₃, Pr_1-xCa_xMn0₃ (X = 0.25, 0.30, 0.35), Nd_1-xSr_xMnO₃ (x = 0.45, 0.50), were explored through high pressure resistivity and structure measurements. It was shown that pressure up to ~7 GPa induces more complicated charge, spin and lattice state changes than in the low pressure range explored previously. In La_0.60Y_0.07Ca_0.33MnO₃, pressure induces a local atomic structure transformation at a critical …

Pharmacophore Derivation Using Discotech And Comparison Of Semi-Emperical, Ab Initio And Density Functional Comfa Studies For Sigma 1 And Sigma 2 Receptor-Ligands, Dawoon Jung

Dissertations

This study describes the development of pharmacophore and CoMFA models for sigma receptor ligands. CoMFA studies were performed for 48 bioactive sigma 1 receptorligands using [H³ ](+) pentazocine as the radioligand, for 30 PCP derivatives for sigma 1 receptor-ligands using [³H](+)SK-F 10047 as the radioligand and for 24 bioactive sigma 2 receptor-ligands using the radioligand [H³](+)DTG in the presence of pentazocine. Distance Comparisons (DISCOtech) was used as the starting point for CoMFA studies. The conformers, derived by DISCOtech were optimized using AMi, or HF/3-21G* in Gaussian 98. The optimized geometries were aligned with the pharmacophore, …

Nonlinear Optical Properties Of Novel Nanostructured Ion Implanted Laser Ablated Silicon Using Femtosecond Pulse Excitation, Elaine Nicole Lalanne

Dissertations

The study of the nonlinear optical properties of novel nanostructured ion implanted and laser ablation of Silicon is motivated by the need for materials that exhibit large values of the real part of the third order nonlinear susceptibility (χ⁽³⁾_Re). This property is essential for light controlled phase or refractive index modulation at low power, where the optical properties are used for optical switching devices. Previous nanosecond (ns) measurements indicated values of-2.8 x 10 ^-5; esu ( γ = 532 nm) for χ⁽³⁾_Re.

The characterization of nonlinear optical properties of the samples was studied …

Image Enhancement Techniques Applied To Solar Feature Detection, Artur J. Kowalski

Dissertations

This dissertation presents the development of automatic image enhancement techniques for solar feature detection. The new method allows for detection and tracking of the evolution of filaments in solar images. Series of H-alpha full-disk images are taken in regular time intervals to observe the changes of the solar disk features. In each picture, the solar chromosphere filaments are identified for further evolution examination. The initial preprocessing step involves local thresholding to convert grayscale images into black-and-white pictures with chromosphere granularity enhanced. An alternative preprocessing method, based on image normalization and global thresholding is presented. The next step employs morphological closing …

Effects Of Implementation Of Decaborane Ions In Silicon, Cheng Li

Dissertations

The next generations of Si microelectronic devices will require ultra shallow p-type junctions formed by implantation of B ions with energies below 1 keV, at which available beam currents are severely limited by space charge effects. To solve this problem, decaborane (B₁₀H₁₄) cluster ion implantation has been suggested as an attractive alternative to conventional B implants, because one decaborane ion implants ten B atoms simultaneously and each of the B atoms only carries approximately 1/11 of the total ion energy. Thus the same implantation depth and dose as with monomer B ions can be obtained using …

New Full Wave Theory For Plane Wave Scattering By A Rough Dielectric Surface - The Fictitious Current Method, Byung-Tae Yoon

Dissertations

A new full wave method for scattering of plane waves from a rough dielectric surface is developed. This new theory begins by postulating a zero-order field solution which does not satisfy Maxwell's source-free field equations. The zero-order field, however, is made to satisfy Maxwell's source equations. This is done by introducing a fictitious volume current distribution. Since the original problem does not possess a volume current distribution, its introduction represents a measure of the error in the postulated zero-order solution. To improve this solution, the fictitious volume current distribution is cancelled by the introduction of a second fictitious current distribution, …

Dynamic Multi-Ramp Metering Control With Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (Spsa), Jiangtao Luo

Dissertations

Ramp metering was proven to be a viable form of freeway traffic control strategy, which could eliminate, or at least reduce, freeway congestion. In this study, the development of ramp metering control strategies, models, and constraints (e.g., meter locations, ramp storage capacities, lower and upper bounds of ramp metering rates) are discussed in detail. The pre-timed and demand/capacity metering control strategies were first evaluated, while the potential metered ramps were determined. A Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (SPSA) algorithm is proposed to dynamically optimize multiple-ramp metering control by maximizing the total throughput subject to a number of constraints. The ramp metering …

Application Of Adaptive Optics To The Spectroscopic Investigation Of Small-Scale Solar Structures, Klaus Hartkorn

Dissertations

We study bright points, umbral dots and the G-band using a two-dimensional spectrometer and an Adaptive Optics system, which allows us to record high-resolution dopplergrams and residual intensity images. We find evidence that bright points are smaller than 120 km in diameter. Bright points are situated exclusively in regions of enhanced G-band brightness and do not show a change in their shape or a displacement in their position of more than 120 km horizontally over a height range from 0 km to 320 km above photospheric level T = 1. We do not find velocity differences of more than 100 …

Theoretical And Experimental Studies Of The Field-Induced Phenomena In Flowing Suspensions, Nikolai Markarian

Dissertations

The present work describes results of experimental and theoretical studies of the behavior of dilute suspensions subject to high gradient AC electric fields. When a spatially non-uniform electric field is applied to a suspension, in which the particles and the suspending fluid have different dielectric permittivities andlor conductivities, the particles migrate towards the regions of high or low electric field strengths depending on the sign of their polarization. This phenomenon, referred to as dielectrophoresis, has found numerous applications for the control and manipulation of the particle motions.

Presented in Chapter 3 are the results of studying the field -induced motion …

Development Of A Multivariate Logistic Model To Predict Bicycle Route Safety In Urban Areas, Cheryl Allen-Munley

Dissertations

In response to the renewed appreciation of the benefits of bicycling to the environment and public health, public officials across the nation are working to establish new bicycle routes. During the past two decades, a number of methods have been endorsed for the selection of "suitable" bicycle routes. These methods are limited in that they do not explicitly address bicycle safety nor do they reflect urban conditions.

The purpose of this research is to develop an objective bicycle route safety rating model based on injury severity. The model development was conducted using a logistic transformation of Jersey City's bicycle crash …

Investigation Of An Integrated Regional Environmental Watershed Methodology, Marshall R. Boggio

Dissertations

Recent public awareness of the environment has placed increased emphasis on the health and current state of the regional watershed. The watershed has been defined as that area in which water flowing across and beneath a given land surface drains into a specific stream or river, ultimately flowing through a single point or outlet on that stream or river. Since the processes involved are many and are analyzed in the literature on an individual basis, the current investigation attempts a more holistic approach by suggesting a methodology that integrates all elements of the hydrologic cycle. The investigation utilizes the area …

Time-Frequency Investigation Of Heart Rate Variability And Cardiovascular System Modeling Of Normal And Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (Copd) Subjects, Douglas Alan Newandee

Dissertations

A study has been designed to add insight to some questions that have not been fully investigated in the heart rate variability field and the cardiovascular regulation system in normal and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) subjects. It explores the correlations between heart rate variability and cardiovascular regulation, which interact through complex multiple feedback and control loops. This work examines the coupling between heart rate (HR), respiration (RESP), and blood pressure (BP) via closed-loop system identification techniques in order to noninvasively assess the underlying physiology.

In the first part of the study, the applications of five different bilinear time-frequency representations …

Goddesses In The Union: A Qualitative Study Of Women In Leadership Positions In College And University Union Settings, Susan H. Payment Edd

Dissertations

The student union facilities found on the majority of college and university campuses within the United States serve a variety of functions. Commonly referred to as the “living room” of the campus community, student unions provide space for co-curricular educational experiences, study and reflection, organizational meetings/business, retail operations, dining and entertainment. The field of university union management attracts individuals that enjoy working in complex, high-energy environments where learning and student development are encouraged. Despite the overwhelming presence of women in today's workforce, the realm of university union management remains dominated by men. A “glass ceiling” appears to exist in this …

The Relationship Between Decision-Making And Accountability: A Case Study Of Two State Community College Systems, Bonnie Ann Dowd Edd, Mba, Bba

Dissertations

Inherent to college governance in many community colleges throughout the nation is the expectation that a collegial or participatory model of decision-making is the appropriate mode of governance. This type of model structures an organization to allow the opportunity for all constituencies to participate in decision-making. Some states, such as California, have mandated a participatory decision-making process, commonly referred to as “shared governance” (AB1725) while others operate in a similar manner but not by legislative mandate. Regardless of the model of decision-making used to govern community colleges, most states are being asked to address educational accountability with regard to student …

Managing Stigma In Planned Lesbian-Parent Families, Natalie Cheffer Phd, Mn, Cpnp

Dissertations

The gay-and lesbian-parent family is a family form becoming more prevalent in today's diverse society. Now, with advances in reproductive technology and a growing acceptance of homosexuality, gay men and lesbians are having, adopting, and raising children in record numbers. The purpose of this study was to identify how parents and children in planned lesbian-parent families live in a homophobic society where they face social prejudice on a daily basis. Data were obtained from interviews with 12 planned lesbian-parent families. Data analysis included interviews with the parents as well as analysis of 48 of the children's drawings and the stories …

The Lived Experience Of Latina Women Giving Birth In The United States, Ana-Maria Gallo Phd

Dissertations

As the Latino community continues to grow in the United States, it is essential that cultural considerations be addressed, particularly in health care. Cultural assessment is of the utmost importance when trying to understand the phenomena of childbirth. Childbirth is one of the most significant events in a woman's life. It is complicated when giving birth in a country other than one's own. Therefore, it is crucial to comprehend and appreciate how culture influences the birth experience. Nurses play an essential role in assisting women of diverse cultures to fulfill their expectations regarding traditions, beliefs, and practices regarding childbirth. The …