Digital Commons Network^™

Meyers Inequality For Stable-Like Operators And Pathwise Uniqueness Of Stochastic Differential Equations With Jumps, Hua Ren

Doctoral Dissertations

We consider a class of symmetric stable-like operators of order $\alpha\in (0,2)$. Let $$\sE(u,u)=\int_{\R^d}\int_{\R^d} (u(y)-u(x))^2\frac{A(x,y)}{|x-y|^{d+\al}} \, dy\, dx$$ be the Dirichlet form for a stable-like operator, let $$\Gamma u(x)=\Big(\int_{\R^d} (u(y)-u(x))^2\frac{A(x,y)}{|x-y|^{d+\al}} \, dy\Big)^{1/2},$$ let $\sL$ be the associated infinitesimal generator, and suppose $A(x,y)$ is jointly measurable, symmetric, bounded, and bounded below by a positive constant. We prove that if $u$ is the weak solution to $\sL u=h$, then $\Gamma u\in L^p$ for some $p>2$. As an application, we prove strong stability results for stable-like operators. If $A$ is perturbed slightly, we give explicit bounds on how much the semigroup and …

Direct Training To Increase Inter-Rater Agreement Between An Observer’S And Teachers’ Self-Report Ratings Of Treatment Integrity, Lindsay M. Fallon Phd

Doctoral Dissertations

Measuring an implementer’s treatment integrity, specifically an implementer’s adherence to steps of an intervention, can be done via direct (e.g., observation) or indirect (e.g., self-report) methods of assessment. Direct observation is a widely used and accepted method of data collection in research due to its technical adequacy. However, direct observation is resource intensive, often making it impractical outside of research. Self-report measures of adherence can be less resource intensive and are commonly used in school settings, yet results from previous research indicate that implementers frequently overestimate their adherence when using self-report measures. To address this issue, results from research that …

Central Office Leadership And Literacy Reform, Anna Cutaia-Leonard

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored the leadership roles of a school district’s, Memorial Public Schools, central office in literacy reform as related to five areas of a theoretical frame that included: (a) activities related to bringing a coherent focus on the reform effort within the instructional core; (b) activities related to developing the instructional leadership necessary to carry out the reform effort; (c) activities related to professional learning necessary to build the capacity of teachers to implement the reform; (d) activities related to ensuring that the reform initiative provided equitable educational access for students; and (e) activities related to developing and implementing …

Adaptive And Technical Problems In Curriculum Alignment Reform, Christopher S. Winters

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored the match between (a) strategies suggested in the research as necessary for a well-honed curriculum alignment reform focused on the instructional core and (b) the strategies actually used by one district, Middlerock, in its implementation of a curriculum alignment reform. The study used interpretive qualitative methods (Caelli, Ray, & Mill, 2003) in order to describe the complex inter-relationships involved among the data sources (e.g., district documents, interview data, and an equity audit). The unit of analysis for this study was the set of strategies identified in the research that were used to address technical problems and adaptive …

The Epistemology Of Intuition And Seemings, Paul Silva Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

Rationalism is the view that intuitions are a defeasible source of non-inferential justification. The first part of this dissertation is an exposition and defense of this view. I begin with an account of what it is for a proposition to seem true, arguing that seemings are a sui generis, irreducible propositional attitude that is importantly related to, yet distinct from, perceptual, memorial, and introspective experiences. I then defend the view that intuitions are seemings of a certain sort. I argue that seemings generally, and thus intuitions in particular, are a defeasible source of non-inferential justification, and I defend the epistemic …

Electronic Structure Calculations And Properties Of Alkaline-Earth Molecular Ions, Sandipan Banerjee

Doctoral Dissertations

Alkaline-earth dimers are now been used, as new grounds for, testing fundamental physics laws, precision measurements and quantum computation. As a starting point for such experiments, one needs a very good knowledge of the electronic structure, energetics and long-range behavior of these molecular ions. We perform accurate ab initio calculations for the ground and low-lying excited states of Be₂⁺, Mg₂⁺, Ca₂⁺ and Sr₂⁺ molecular ions. We have also calculated the spectroscopic constants, electronic transition dipole moments, polarizabilities and long-range dispersion coefficients for the various alkaline-earth ionic dimers. We have extended …

Multiscale Modeling Of Enzyme-Catalyzed Methanol Production By Particulate Methane Monooxygenase, Katherine K. Bearden

Doctoral Dissertations

In this work, the conversion of methane to methanol by the particulate Methane Monooxygenase (pMMO) enzyme is investigated using a multi-scale modeling approach. This enzyme participates in carbon cycling and aids in the removal of harmful atmospheric methane, converting it to methanol. The interaction between pMMO and a neighboring enzyme that is present in the same organism is studied, and the unknown pMMO active site is elucidated and tested for methane oxidation towards the production of methanol.

Fundamental knowledge of pMMO's mechanism is not fully understood. Understanding how this enzyme works in nature will provide information towards designing efficient synthetic …

The Effect Of Network Transitions On Spontaneous Activity And Sycnhrony In Devloping Neural Networks, Jude P. J. Savarraj

Doctoral Dissertations

Connectivity patterns of developing neural circuits and the effects of its dynamics on network behavior, particularly the emergence of spontaneous activity and synchrony, are not clear. We attempt to quantify anatomical connectivity patterns of rat cortical cultures during different stages of development. By culturing the networks on dishes embedded with micro electrode arrays, we simultaneously record electrical activity from multiple regions of the developing network and monitor its electrical behavior, particularly its tendency to fire spontaneously and to synchronize under certain conditions. We investigate possible correlations between changes in the network connectivity patterns and spontaneous electrical activity and synchrony. Cocultures …

Intrinsic Mode Function Synchronization Measures For The Anticipation Of Seizures In Epilpsy, Daniel William Moller

Doctoral Dissertations

Epileptic seizures affect as many as 50 million people and often occur without warning or apparent provocation. We explore the applicability of noise-assisted Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) for patient-specific seizure anticipation synchronization measures as applied to the EEMD intrinsic mode function (IMF) output. Intracranial EEG data were obtained from pre-surgical monitoring at the Epilepsy Center of the University Hospital of Freiburg. Data from twenty patients were analyzed. For each recorded channel, non-overlapping time windows were submitted to the EEMD algorithm, producing twelve levels of IMFs. IMF synchronization measures (mean and maximum coherence, mean and maximum cross-correlation, correlation coefficient and …

Message Framing Effects In The Delivery Of Sleep Hygiene Information To Parents Of Elementary And Middle School Children, Aimee L. Blackham

Doctoral Dissertations

In order to achieve all the benefits of sleeping, adequate quantity and quality of sleep are required, particularly for children and adolescents because of the issues of physical, emotional, and psychological development. Recent reviews of the literature have concluded children and adolescents consistently do not get enough sleep, and childhood sleep problems have serious negative effects on children and their families. Self-help guides have been proven to be effective, but the particular framing of the message is vital to its overall persuasiveness. Many researchers have found that these framing effects are important to the overall persuasiveness of a message. However, …

The Relationship Between Breastfeeding And Postpartum Depressive Symptoms In Women From Ecuador, Mexico And Puerto Rico, Jan Weingrad Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

The Relationship Between Breastfeeding and Postpartum Depressive Symptoms in Women

from Ecuador, Mexico, and Puerto Rico

Jan Weingrad Smith, PhD

University of Connecticut, 2012

This study used a secondary data analysis to describe the relationship between breastfeeding and the development of postpartum depressive symptoms in a low-income cohort of women from Ecuador, Mexico, and Puerto Rico in the United States. It also explored the risk of developing postpartum depressive symptoms in low-income women from these communities regardless of their decision to breastfeed. Data were collected between 2006 and 2012 at a Federally Qualified Community Health Center Prenatal Center in New …

Advertising Effects On Consumer Processing Of Brand Extensions: Applying The Categorization Model And Framing Theory, Jungsuk Kang

Doctoral Dissertations

This study proposed and tested a conceptual model of consumer processing of brand extensions. The sequential flow of this model is described as follows: (1) consumer exposure to a brand extension spontaneously activates a parent brand category and its extension product category associated with the brand extension; (2) this activation will trigger two types of holistic evaluation, involving consumer assessment of the parent-brand image and product-feature fit between the parent brand category and its extension product category; (3) this holistic evaluation will facilitate either a category-based or a attribute-based judgment of the similarity between the parent brand and its brand …

Enrollment Decisions Of The Underrepresented: Recruiting And College Choice At Military Institutions, Daniel C. Rose

Doctoral Dissertations

This phenomenological study examined the college enrollment decisions of 20 high school students who participated in the Genesis Invitational program at the United States Coast Guard Academy. The Genesis program was designed to generate interest in postsecondary education among first generation and underrepresented minority students. I used college choice theory as a theoretical framework to analyze and understand the enrollment decisions of Genesis participants considering selective institutions of higher education. Specifically, I conducted semi-structured phone interviews during the mid-choice and post-choice phases of high school seniors’ college choice processes and examined application materials they had submitted to both the Genesis …

Snoop-Forge-Replay Attack On Continuous Verification With Keystrokes, Khandaker Abir Rahman

Doctoral Dissertations

We present a new attack called the snoop-forge-replay attack on the keystroke-based continuous verification systems. We performed the attacks on two levels – 1) feature-level and 2) sample-level.

(1) Feature-level attack targets specific keystroke-based continuous verification method or system. In feature-level attacks, we performed a series of experiments using keystroke data from 50 users who typed approximately 1200 to 2300 keystrokes of free text during three different periods. The experiments consisted of two parts. In the first part, we conducted zero-effort verification experiments with two verifiers ("R" and "S") and obtained Equal Error Rates (EERs) between 10% and 15% under …

Nonlinear Granger Causality And Its Application In Decoding Of Human Reaching Intentions, Mengting Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

Multi-electrode recording is a key technology that allows the brain mechanisms of decision making, cognition, and their breakdown in diseases to be studied from a network perspective. As the hypotheses concerning the role of neural interactions in cognitive paradigms become increasingly more elaborate, the ability to evaluate the direction of neural interactions in neural networks holds the key to distinguishing their functional significance.

Granger Causality (GC) is used to detect the directional influence of signals between multiple locations. To extract the nonlinear directional flow, GC was completed through a nonlinear predictive approach using radial basis functions (RBF). Furthermore, to obtain …

Multi-Scale Characterization Of Nanostructured Sodium Aluminum Hydride, Shathabish Narasegowda

Doctoral Dissertations

Complex metal hydrides are the most promising candidate materials for onboard hydrogen storage. The practicality of this class of materials is counter-poised on three critical attributes: reversible hydrogen storage capacity, high hydrogen uptake/release kinetics, and favorable hydrogen uptake/release thermodynamics. While a majority of modern metallic hydrides that are being considered are those that meet the criteria of high theoretical storage capacity, the challenges lie in addressing poor kinetics, thermodynamics, and reversibility. One emerging strategy to resolve these issues is via nanostructuring or nano-confinement of complex hydrides. By down-sizing and scaffolding them to retain their nano-dimensions, these materials are expected to …

Molecular Self-Assembly Of Functionalized Pentacenes And Fullerenes On Metal Surfaces By Stm And Dft Investigations, Jun Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

Enormous efforts have been made in seeking alternative pathways to more effectively use solar energy. Organic solar cells, composed essentially of carbon-based organic molecular materials, have attracted considerable scientific and industrial attentions because of their economic and environmental benefits. It is advantageous to have the comprehension of the molecular structures and interfacial morphologies for these active molecular materials on substrates in the nanoscale regime.

Controlling the heterostructures of the molecular donor and acceptor materials is essential to overcoming the efficiency bottleneck in organic photovoltaics. Molecular self-assembly on patterned substrates provides a bottom-up approach to create well-controlled molecular heterojunctions and a …

Approaches To Modeling Pathogen And Natural Organic Matter Removals In Slow-Rate Biofilters, Jeffrey Dale Senders

Doctoral Dissertations

There are limited expressions capable of estimating removals in one of the world's oldest and most sustainable water treatment systems: slow-rate biofilters. This research addresses the problem by deriving semi-empirical models that predict pathogen and natural organic matter removals within these natural and engineered sand filters. The more complex pathogen model, or phenomenological colloidal filtration theory (pCFT), applies the 1937 Iwasaki solution to New England pilot scale E. coli observations. The derived pCFT was then calibrated through a series of experimental bench scale phases. Further pCFT validation came by way of a seamless application to multiple microorganisms. Viruses (MS2 as …

Characterization Of Low-Temperature Properties Of Plant-Produced Rap Mixtures In The Northeast, Marcelo S. Medeiros Junior.

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation outlined herein results from a Federal Highway Administration sponsored project intended to investigate the impacts of high percentages of RAP material in the performance of pavements under cold climate conditions. It is comprised of two main sections that were incorporated into the body of this dissertation as Part I and Part II. In Part I a reduced testing framework for analysis of HMA mixes was proposed to replace the IDT creep compliance and strength testing by dynamic modulus and fatigue tests performed on an AMPT device. A continuum damage model that incorporates the nonlinear constitutive behavior of the …

What Do Students Do In Self-Formed Mathematics Study Groups?, Gillian E. Galle

Doctoral Dissertations

An implicit assumption of many university classes is that students will spend a large amount of time outside the classroom refining their understanding of the material to develop mastery of the concepts. This is especially true in first year mathematics courses at the undergraduate level. However, little is known about what students do to fulfill this didactical contract with their instructors. The currently available research relies primarily on self-reported data from the students collected through questionnaires or interviews. This study sought to start describing what students do while studying mathematics in a self-created group outside of the classroom setting through …

Essays On Valuing Non-Market Goods In Imperfectly Competitive Markets, Laura Beaudin

Doctoral Dissertations

Debates on climate change have conceded to most parties acknowledging the existence of negative impacts of changing weather patterns. However, these impacts have not fully been assessed. One way which changing climates can negatively impact an economy is by changing the market structures of its most influential industries; making these markets more imperfectly competitive and taking value away from consumers. This dissertation draws on this fact and suggests accurate ways to both identify and quantify the costs of climate change.

In the first chapter of this dissertation, the ski industry is used as a case study. A unique data set …

Impressions Of College Intructors: Stability And Change In Student Ratings, Kari L. Dudley

Doctoral Dissertations

Although the topic of stability and change in classroom impressions research is not new, there remain unanswered questions about what impressions are stable, when they are likely to change, and for whom they are likely to change over the course of a semester. My research will begin to answer those questions.

My research took place in four college classroom studies and assessed students' impressions of their instructor's teaching effectiveness and personal qualities 1) after the first day of class, 2) before and following at least one exam, and 3) at the end of the semester. My results supported previous findings …

Aspects Of Holography In Lorentz-Violating Gravity, Jishnu Bhattacharyya

Doctoral Dissertations

The study of black hole thermodynamics has provided deep insights into the nature of quantum gravity. In particular, it is almost universally accepted nowadays that 'quantum gravity is holographic', so that the maximum amount of information allowed in a given region of spacetime is proportional to the area of the boundary rather than the volume of the region. This is against the conventional notion of extensivity of information (entropy), but in accord with Bekenstein's proposal on the proportionality of black hole entropy to its event horizon area. Due to the very definition of black holes, however, conventional black hole thermodynamics …

The Multifaceted Nature Of Mathematics Knowledge For Teaching: Understanding The Use Of Teachers' Specialized Content Knowledge And The Role Of Teachers' Beliefs From A Practice-Based Perspective, Lauren E. Provost

Doctoral Dissertations

This work investigates middle school teachers' mathematics knowledge for teaching (MKT) as defined by Hill (2007). Within this two-part dissertation, the level of MKT was considered as well as the role of teacher beliefs in actual specialized content knowledge (SCK) use, a specific type of mathematics knowledge for teaching vital in quality mathematics instruction. Additionally, the model of MKT knowledge was explored through confirmatory factor analysis on a large, national dataset of middle school mathematics teacher survey responses involving mathematics knowledge for teaching. SCK was found to be vital in quality mathematics instruction yet not sufficient. Teacher beliefs about the …

Extreme Value Theory: Applications To Estimation Of Stochastic Traffic Capacity And Statistical Downscaling Of Precipitation Extremes, Eric Matthew Laflamme

Doctoral Dissertations

This work explores two applications of extreme value analysis. First, we apply EV techniques to traffic stream data to develop an accurate distribution of capacity. Data were collected by the NHDOT along Interstate I93, and two adjacent locations in Salem, NH were examined. Daily flow maxima were used to estimate capacity, and data not associated with daily breakdown were deemed censored values. Under this definition, capacity values are approximated by the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution for block maxima. To address small sample sizes and the presence of censoring, a Bayesian framework using semi-informative priors was implemented. A simple cross …

Bacterial Biodegradation Of Soluble Crude Oil Hydrocarbons And The Influence Of Protists In Simulated Arctic Seawater And Sea Ice, Heather Ballestero

Doctoral Dissertations

With expected increases in vessel traffic, drilling, and exploration for petroleum and natural gas, the potential for an Arctic oil spill is heightened, yet knowledge of contaminant fate and behavior is limited in this environment. With challenging conditions in the Arctic and limited equipment caches, response will be extremely difficult. In freezing conditions, oil may become encapsulated in ice. Understanding biodegradation potential in this environment can dictate response options for spills that occur in Arctic marine waters. The influence of protists on bacterial biodegradation of water accommodated fractions (WAF) of petroleum hydrocarbons is unknown, yet important because it could enhance …

Multiscale Numerical Modeling And Characterization Of Carbon/Carbon Composites, Borys Drach

Doctoral Dissertations

Carbon/carbon composite is a high-performance material with a unique set of physical and thermo-mechanical properties making it irreplaceable for severe environment aerospace applications. Its complex hierarchical microstructure presents materials scientists and engineers with substantial modeling challenges when it comes to predicting material's behavior under various loading conditions. My research has been focused on characterization, mutliscale modeling and mechanical testing of this composite. A set of new elasticity solutions for the carbon fiber surrounded by multiple layers of pyrolytic carbon represented as a multicoated cylinder is presented on the microscale. On the mesoscale, deterministic and statistical approaches to evaluation of contributions …

New Microarray Image Segmentation Using Segmentation Based Contours Method, Yuan Cheng

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of the research developed in this dissertation is to develop a more accurate segmentation method for Affymetrix microarray images. The Affymetrix microarray biotechnologies have become increasingly important in the biomedical research field. Affymetrix microarray images are widely used in disease diagnostics and disease control. They are capable of monitoring the expression levels of thousands of genes simultaneously. Hence, scientists can get a deep understanding on genomic regulation, interaction and expression by using such tools.

We also introduce a novel Affymetrix microarray image simulation model and how the Affymetrix microarray image is simulated by using this model. This simulation …

Microfluidic Devices Applied On Enriching Post –Translational Modified Proteins For Proteomics, Hui Xia

Doctoral Dissertations

In this work, microfluidic devices were developed for enriching post-translational modified proteins. Post-translational modifications (PTM) of proteins play essential roles in cellular physiology and disease. The identification of protein substrates and detection of modification site helps understand PTM-mediated regulation in essential biological pathways and functions in various diseases. However, PTM proteins are typically present only at trace levels, making them difficult to identify in mass spectrometry based proteomics. This work study is about the design, fabrication and testing of the microfluidic device for the enrichment of abundant amount of PTMs. Carbonylated protein is used as a representative PTM to illustrate …

Using Power-Law Properties Of Social Groups For Cloud Defense And Community Detection, Justin L. Rice

Doctoral Dissertations

The power-law distribution can be used to describe various aspects of social group behavior. For mussels, sociobiological research has shown that the Lévy walk best describes their self-organizing movement strategy. A mussel's step length is drawn from a power-law distribution, and its direction is drawn from a uniform distribution. In the area of social networks, theories such as preferential attachment seek to explain why the degree distribution tends to be scale-free. The aim of this dissertation is to glean insight from these works to help solve problems in two domains: cloud computing systems and community detection.

Privacy and security are …