Digital Commons Network^™

The Architecture Of The Great House In The Contemporary Postcolonial Novel, Julie Kloo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project explores the use of the symbol of the Western European Great House by contemporary postcolonial novelists and consists of four chapters, each focusing on the ways that the power structures connected to the Great House impact the lives of the characters in four different postcolonial locations: Ireland, South Africa, Puerto Rico, and India. The use of the Western European Great House in Edna O'Brien's House of Splendid Isolation (1994), André Brink's Imaginings of Sand (1996), Rosario Ferré's The House on the Lagoon (1995), and Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh (1995) reveals the continuing impact of colonial power …

Extraordinary Leaders For Unordinary Times: A Grounded Theory Study, Doris E. Candelarie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Across the United States, school districts are working to turnaround their lowest performing schools in order to meet the requirements of Adequate Yearly Progress mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. These failing schools are facing district, state, and federal sanctions of closure, takeover, or restructuring. A new phenomenon emerging from this dire state in education is the turnaround leader. An educational turnaround leader is one who leads a high poverty, low performing school to dramatic improvement. Limited research exists on educational turnaround leaders, but what is available hypothesizes that turnaround leaders have different characteristics and qualities. …

One Of Us: Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes And A Personal Record, Torgeir Ehler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This present work explores the relationship of Joseph Conrad's status as a Polish exile to his creative and biographical work. Its main focus is on the tandem publications of the novel Under Western Eyes and his autobiographical volume A Personal Record, both published within a year of each other and written contemporaneously. The first chapter is a short biographical survey of Conrad's life and addresses some later biographical works by his wife, among others. An overview of critical works that deal with Under Western Eyes is presented in the second chapter. An investigation into narrative structure and its use in …

Fuzzy Optimal Swarm Of Autonomous Aircrafts For Target Determination And Convergence Control System, Zach D. Richards

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis project proposes analytical and theoretical algorithms for a networked swarm of autonomous vehicles, such as those used in planet exploration, and to be used in target location determination and convergence, an algorithm of this type could be used in an Autonomous Stratospheric Aircraft (ASA), thus having the possibility of being used for the exploration of a planet as well as many other applications. Upon locating an unknown location of a specified target, the algorithm would then swarm and eventually converge upon the location. There are two similar, but fundamentally different algorithms proposed in this project. These algorithms are …

Scalable And Efficient Outlier Detection In Large Distributed Data Sets With Mixed-Type Attributes, Anna Koufakou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An important problem that appears often when analyzing data involves identifying irregular or abnormal data points called outliers. This problem broadly arises under two scenarios: when outliers are to be removed from the data before analysis, and when useful information or knowledge can be extracted by the outliers themselves. Outlier Detection in the context of the second scenario is a research field that has attracted significant attention in a broad range of useful applications. For example, in credit card transaction data, outliers might indicate potential fraud; in network traffic data, outliers might represent potential intrusion attempts. The basis of deciding …

Mea Familia: Ethnic Burial Identifiers In St. Michael's Cemetery, Pensacola, Florida, Amy Giroux

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Grave markers from St. Michael'ss Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida, were studied for evidence of ethnicity and acculturation. The 1,447 grave markers dating from 1870 to 1939 were used to test two hypotheses: 1) the grave markers for ethnic groups represented in the cemetery during the project's time period have identifiable sets of burial attributes; and 2) changes in the visible ethnic attribute sets show evidence of the acculturation of ethnic groups over time. Physical attributes pertaining to grave markers, and personal characteristics (e.g. sex, age) for the individuals inscribed upon the markers were collected for analysis. Historical sources were used …

Political Spaces And Remediated Places: Rearticulating The Role Of Technology In The Writing Center, Russell Carpenter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Writing center directors (WCDs) often situate their programs in physical and virtual spaces without fully studying the pedagogical and political implications of their decisions. Without intense study, writing centers risk building programs within spaces that undermine their missions and philosophies. In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre argues that "From the analytic standpoint, the spatial practice of a society is revealed through the deciphering of its space" (38). The study of space also reveals important political and financial priorities within the institution. Furthermore, the positioning of buildings and the spatial layout of a campus display the institution's priorities and attitudes …

The Old South And Continental Europe : A Transatlantic Conversation, M. Benjamin Gilstrap

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Roses Are Red, Violets Are Bluehow Poetry In Science Can Help Students Learn Something New, Kimberly Casselman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was an attempt to examine how poetry integrated with science could assist eighth graders in the memorization of key science vocabulary words. Furthermore, it would investigate if student attitude, interest, and motivation would improve with the use of the poetry. Instruction was adjusted to implement poetry into astronomy lessons. Memorization activities such as poems, chanting, and repetition were used to help students remember the vocabulary and the definitions. Pre/post tests were used to interpret if the poetry did assist in the memorization of the astronomy vocabulary. Science interest surveys and science attitude surveys were used to interpret if …

Physical Ergonomic And Mental Workload Factors Of Mobile Learning Affecting Performance Of Adult Distance Learners: Student Pers, Rochelle Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Distance education is the fastest growing educational modality because of advances information technology has made over the past 25 years. Adult learners have become the fastest growing population in distance education. Adult learners, through technical tools and devices they use on the job, have become more digitally literate and mobile, making the ability to access class work on the go a necessity. Mobile learning or m-learning (learning that uses wireless, portable, mobile computing, and communication devices) is becoming an extension of distance learning, providing a channel for students to learn, communicate, and access educational material outside the traditional classroom environment. …

They've Come A Long Way Since P.L. 94-142: Standards-Based Instruction And Its Impact On Increasing School Attendance Rates For Students With Disabilities, Lywinda Anne Siegler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students with disabilities have a higher rate of missed days of school as compared to their nondisabled peers. This dissertation will examine the effect Standards-based Instruction has on the school attendance rates of children with disabilities. The purpose is to determine whether rates of attendance will increase for students with disabilities who receive standards-based instruction over the period of the 2003 -2004, 2004 -2005, and 2006-2007 school years. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania implemented standards in mathematics and reading, writing, speaking, and listening in 1999. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has 500 public school districts. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has designated …

Teacher Education And Technology Integration: How Do Preservice Teachers Perceive Their Readiness To Infuse Technology Into The Learning Environment?, Anne Koch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the past twenty years, substantial investments have been made in educational technology at the K-12 level. While increased integration of technology in K-12 teaching is more likely to occur when prospective teachers are exposed to a variety of computer uses in the majority of their undergraduate courses prior to their teaching in schools, due to the limited exposure in the use of technology by university teachers as well as the fast paced changes, preservice teachers often are not prepared for integrating and using technology in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of preservice …

Estuarine Influence On Tidally Driven Circulation In The South Atlantic Bight, Peter Bacopoulos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A high-resolution, finite element-based, shallow water equation model is developed to simulate the tides in the South Atlantic Bight. The model is constructed to include all of the estuarine features along the southeastern United States seaboard: coastal inlets, rivers and tidal creeks, sounds and lagoons, intertidal zones including salt marshes and mangrove swamps, and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The estuaries are represented in the finite element mesh using triangular elements with side lengths on the order of tens of meters. Also incorporated into the model is a spatially distributed bottom friction parameterization, based on the various landcover and benthic characteristics …

Vibia Perpetua's Diary: A Women's Writing In A Roman Text Of Its Own, Melissa Perez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Writing the history of women in antiquity is hindered by the lack of written sources by them. It has been the norm to assume that the only sources that can tell us something about them are the sources written by men. This thesis challenges this convention as it concerns the social history of Rome through the exploration of a written source by a woman named Vibia Perpetua. She was a Roman woman of twenty-two years from Roman Carthage, who was martyred on March 7, 203 C.E. The reason that we know of this Roman woman and what happened to her …

Looking Over That Country Again : The Country And The City In Southern Modernism And Postmodernism, Benjamin S. Child

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Woodie Long : Memory Painter / By Stacey E.B. Smith, Stacey E.B Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Ozy : Portrait Of A Record Dealer, Eric Feldman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Understanding Functional And Symbolic Variation In Rockshelters Of The Caves Branch River Valley Of Western Belize, Central America, Jessica L. Hardy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Rebellion Upon Sea Power : The Revolt Of The Admirals And The Fight For Navy Air, William M. Beasley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Case Study Of The State University, Extension, And The College Of Agriculture As They Explore And Implement A Metro Research And Outreach Initiative, Deno Deciantis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The national Cooperative Extension and Land Grant University Systems have been struggling with their future direction due to the question of relevance related to urban and metropolitan citizens for a great number of years. This system is quite traditional in that it follows the customary rural, production agriculture focus with an overwhelming percentage of its resources aimed at those efforts. At the State University, like most other traditional land grant institutions, there has been an inner systemic struggle regarding programming to urban areas. This institution was able to establish a metro initiative in one of the state's major cities. Its …

Saving The "Slaves Of Kings And Priests": The United States, Manifest Destiny, And The Rhetoric Of Anti-Catholicism, Michael Solomon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to demonstrate how anti-Catholicism, like other domestic issues such as race, economics, and politics, influenced U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America during the first half of the nineteenth century. Catholicism, the Roman Catholic Church, and monarchism/despotism were all seen by U.S. elites as interconnected forces that undermined the growth and stability of republicanism in Latin America. U.S. politicians were able to manipulate anti-Catholic rhetoric in order to justify certain U.S. diplomatic policies toward Latin America. Anti-Catholic rhetoric could be separated into missionary and exclusionary arguments. Followers of Manifest Destiny utilized missionary anti-Catholic rhetoric to sanction U.S. territorial …

Public School Board Governance Practices In Western Pennsylvania And Ayp Scores; Is There A Relationship?, Kyle William Foust

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated what, if any, relationship exists between school board governance practices and student achievement as demonstrated by a school district's Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores in both math and reading for 2007-2008 school year. To measure the effectiveness of governance practices, a survey created by Thomas Holland and adapted by Richard Smoley (1999), which empirically assesses the performance of school boards, was administered to members of the following types of public school boards: urban, suburban, rural, and charter. Smoley's survey measures six dimensions of effectiveness: Decision Making, Functioning as a Group, Exercising Authority, Connecting to the Community, Working …

Human Development As Integral Development: The Social Teaching Of The Church In An African Context, Joseph Kariuki Kamau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It has been commonly held that the main cause of underdevelopment is the lack of capital. This dissertation is based on the observation that underdevelopment still persists in Kenya despite billions of dollars in foreign aid from Western Europe and North America. The main focus of this dissertation is an attempt to understand an effective remedial action to such an economic situation of underdevelopment. The dissertation seeks to find the remedy for underdevelopment by the methodological means of demonstrating how a holistic understanding of human development entails integral development in Kenya.

The thesis and the overview of this dissertation are …

Macroscopic Traffic Safety Analysis Based On Trip Generation Characteristics, Chowdhury Siddiqui

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has shown that incorporating roadway safety in transportation planning has been considered one of the active approaches to improve safety. Aggregate level analysis for predicting crash frequencies had been contemplated to be an important step in this process. As seen from the previous studies various categories of predictors at macro level (census blocks, traffic analysis zones, census tracts, wards, counties and states) have been exhausted to find appropriate correlation with crashes. This study contributes to this ongoing macro level road safety research by investigating various trip productions and attractions along with roadway characteristics within traffic analysis zones (TAZs) …

Testing Bias In The Occupational Interview: A Pilot Study On Racial Discrimination, Brandon Presley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the possibility of the occupational interview utilizing tests that prove to be bias towards one particular race or another. This study is a pilot study and represents the first step in developing a more extensive research design to examine testing bias within the occupational employment interview setting. Ten black students and ten white students are asked to complete two types of occupational interview samples. Those samples are then reviewed by two black hiring managers and two white hiring managers. The results are examined to determine if one test had a greater impact …

The Impact Of Advanced Placement (Ap) Participation And Success On School-Wide Student Achievement, David Christiansen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate two research questions concerning: (a) the relationship between the percentage of students within a high school who participated in the Advanced Placement program and the school-wide student achievement of a high school and (b) the relationship between the percentage of students within a high school who successfully performed in the Advanced Placement program and the school-wide student achievement of the high school. It was determined in this study that there was a statistically significant relationship between Advanced Placement (AP) student participation and school-wide student achievement and there was a statistically significant relationship …

Analysis Of The Physical Forcing Mechanisms Influencing Salinity Transport For The Lower St. Johns River, Derek Giardino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is the forcing mechanisms incorporated with salinity transport for the Lower St. Johns River. There are two primary analyses performed: a historical data analysis of primary forcing mechanisms to determine the importance of each individual influence, and a tidal hydrodynamics analysis for the Lower St. Johns River to determine the required tidal constituents for an accurate resynthesis. This thesis is a preliminary effort in understanding salinity transport for the Lower St. Johns River for engineering projects such as the dredging of navigation canals and freshwater withdrawal from the river. The analysis of the physical forcing …

An Uncertain Place In Uncertain Times: The South Caucasus, Nathan Burns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to address how geopolitical factors influence the foreign policies of states in the South Caucasus. Due to the recent Russia-Georgia War, this region is central to contemporary foreign policy, fueling discussions of a New Cold War between the US and Russia. With the explicit goal to provide policy relevant research on this critical region, the South Caucasus states (Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia) are examined in three separate case studies. Utilizing qualitative analysis of historical event data, each case examines the role of five different variables: energy resources, routes, demography, proximity, and state leadership. That …

The Clash Of Thoughts Within The Arab Discourse, Chadia Louai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Clash of Civilization thesis by Samuel Huntington and the claims of other scholars such as Bernard Lewis reinforced the impression in the West that the Arab world is a homogeneous and rigid entity ready to clash with other civilizations. In fact, some in the West argue that world civilizations have religious characteristics, for that reason the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will be primarily cultural and religious. However, other scholars argue that there is no single Islamic culture but rather multiple types of political Islam and different perception of it. Therefore, the monolithic aspect of Islam …

An Evaluation Of The Global Institute For Leadership Development - Gild 2008 As A Provider Of Custom Executive Education, Don Digirolamo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine how participants perceived the effectiveness of their experience in the 2008 Global Institute for Leadership Development – GILD as a provider of custom executive education. GILD is an intensive one-week institute sponsored by Linkage, Inc. GILD has been presented as an accelerated growth experience designed to differentiate superior leaders from average leaders. During its twelve-year history, the Global Institute for Leadership Development (GILD) has not yet been comprehensively evaluated.

GILD 2008 was held from October 12 – 17 in Palm Desert, California. Two hundred eighty nine people from around the world participated …