Digital Commons Network^™

Janet V. Jayson : A Look At The Growing Problem Of Ethics Violations In The Newsroom, Elizabeth Leah Allison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Set Design Process Of The Winter's Tale, Jia Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Seepage Erosion Of Streambank Sediment Using Soil Lysimeters, Raja K. Periketi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Art, Aesthetics, And Ecology : Creating A High School Curriculum, Ashley Elizabeth Kalemjian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Integrating Journal Writing With Inquiry Based Science Instruction In A Second Grade Classroom, Lauren Zissman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This action research study investigated the effects of using science journals to promote science writing and to investigate changes in student attitudes in a second grade inquiry-based science class. This was an action research study in which qualitative and quantitative data was collected. The data was collected using science journals, pre and post inventories, field notes, teacher observations, videotaped science inquiry lessons, and surveys. The students demonstrated a true fondness for journal writing and expressed interest in continued use. After concluding this action research study, I better understand the benefits of utilizing journal writing to enhance my teaching of the …

An Inquiry Into Discourse Choices As Indicators Of Gender Attitudes In A Non-Profit Conservative Christian Business, Dawn Marie Kruger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an inquiry into the discourse styles of men and women who work together in a conservative Protestant Christian business. Many conservative Protestant Christian churches teach that the Bible forbids women from holding positions of authority over men. Yet in the communications department of this particular business, women fill the top three management positions, supervising a mixed-gender staff of 15. Research has shown that men and women subconsciously use language markers that indicate personal attitudes toward the same and the opposite genders. This research project draws on that information while it analyzes the oral and electronic discourse of …

How Does The Use Of Picture Books During Instruction Improve Student Word Choice In Writing?, Laurie Anne Mcadams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of my research was to determine how the use of picture books during instruction would improve student word choice in writing. Donald Graves (2003), a renowned researcher in the teaching of writing, states, "All children need . . . to be surrounded with poetry, stories, information books, biography, science and history, imaginative and factual books." Graves' research presents successful classroom instruction when teachers incorporate literature as a fundamental part of their reading and writing instruction. Likewise, Susan Anderson McElveen and Connie Campbell Dierking (2000) conducted a study with their students using picture books as "precise examples" to teach …

Spectral Signature Modification By Application Of Infrared Frequency-Selective Surfaces, Brian Monacelli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is desirable to modify the spectral signature of a surface, particularly in the infrared (IR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. To alter the surface signature in the IR, two methods are investigated: thin film application and antenna array application. The former approach is a common and straightforward incorporation of optically-thin film coatings on the surface designated for signature modification. The latter technique requires the complex design of a periodic array of passive microantenna elements to cover the surface in order to modify its signature. This technology is known as frequency selective surface (FSS) technology and is established in the …

A Dialectical Methodology For Decision Support Systems Design, Wafa Elgarah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As organizations continue to grow in size, reaching global proportions, they have ever increasing impacts on their environments. Some believe that a much broader array of concerns should be brought into organizational decision-making processes, including greater consideration of social, political, ethical and aesthetic factors (Mitroff and Linstone, 1993; Courtney, 2001). Decision environments such as these are decidedly "wicked" (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Designing decision support systems in such environments where there is a high level of interconnectedness, issues are overlapping and a multiplicity of stakeholders is involved, is a very complex task. In this dissertation a methodology for the development …

Assessment And In Vitro Repair Of Damaged Dna Templates From Forensic Stains, Ashley Hall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

DNA extracted from biological stains is often intractable to analysis. This may due to a number of factors including a low copy number (LCN) of starting molecules, the presence of soluble inhibitors or damaged DNA templates. Remedies may be available to the forensic scientist to deal with LCN templates and soluble inhibitors but none presently exist for damaged DNA. In fact, only recently has the biochemical nature, the extent of DNA damage in physiological stains and the point at which the damage inflicted upon a particular sample precludes the ability to obtain a genetic profile for purposes of identification been …

A Comparison Of The Leadership Roles Of Public And Private Elementary School Principals, Caron Staples

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public school principals' role requirements have undergone changes during standards-based reform and accountability (Copland, 2001; Daresh, 1998; Jones, 1999; Lashway, 2003a). This study was designed to identify the leadership role focus and behaviors of public school principals who were attempting to meet the challenges of this movement and to provide valuable information about the effects of accountability reforms on school leadership. Public school principals were subject to the mandated policy initiatives associated with the accountability movement. Private school principals, or lower school heads, were not subject to these federal and state policy reforms. The leadership role and behaviors of public …

The Unraveling Of America's Education System, Amy Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research project takes a critical look at the data that drives educational policies. This research project looks at the data at the national level as well as the regional levels in order to see if the data is functioning differently at the different levels. All data has been collected from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) through reports published by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an independent committee assigned to collect and analyze educational data. The data was collected and then correlations were run between the expenditures per pupil, number of pupils per teacher, standardized test scores, …

A Probe Into Learning Approaches And Attitudes Towards Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (Tell) In Chinese Instruction, Rong Yuan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative research, carried out at the military environment at the Defense Language Institute investigated whether learning approaches could predict learners' language proficiency and learners' attitude towards technology-enhanced language learning (TELL). In addition, it also examined whether learners' demographic factors, such as age, educational backgrounds, prior experience in foreign language learning and in TELL as well as their ability to use PC and the World Wide Web could predict the above mentioned language proficiency and attitude. A cluster sampling method was adopted and data was collected in four Chinese departments at the institute. Both the learning approaches inventory ASSIST and …

Kaleidoscope Catechesis: Critique And Response To Missionary Catechesis In Africa With Particular Reference To The Diocese Of Wa In Ghana, Anthony Y. Naaeke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The question about how to appropriately incarnate the Christian message among different cultures is a perennial one. The very first Christian Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15: 1-35) dealt with this issue and throughout the centuries different cultures have continued to battle with the same issue.

Within the African context, the question arises as to how Christianity can truly be Christian and African at the same time. In other words, how can faith become culture in Africa?

The answer to this question must be rhetorical. That is to say, the proclamation (catechesis) of the Christian message must be expressed in a …

Synthesis Of P-Fe2o3, N-Fe2o3, And Carbon-Modified (Cm)-N-Tio2 And Their Application In Self-Driven Photoelectrochemical Cells: P-Fe2o3/N-Fe2o3, P-Fe2o3/Cm-N-Tio2, And P-Gainp2/Cm-N-Tio2 For Direct Water Photoelectrolysis, William B. Ingler Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My Ph.D. Dissertation describes (1) the influence of metal dopants on the spray pyrolytic synthesis of p-type and n-type iron(III) oxide thin film semiconductors, (2) the fabrication of carbon-modified (CM) n-type titanium dioxide, and (3) various self-driven photoelectrochemical cells (PEC) for water splitting. (1) Stable thin films of Fe2O3 was the first goal pursued in this work. Various metal dopants were investigated to ascertain their viablity as good dopant for iron(III) oxide. These metals included copper, zinc, and magnesium. This was follwed by investigating metals that could improve the conductivity of n-type iron(III) oxide, which included indium, iodine, manganese, and …

Continuity In The Absence Of Declarative Memory In Patients With Moderate Dementia Of The Alzheimer's Type, Scott Frederick Kaper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective: The standard paradigm of research into dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) has yielded little in the way of effective patient treatment. Recent neuroscientific advances into the understanding of implicit memory have opened up new possibilities of patient care. The ontology developed within the existentialphenomenological (EP) tradition provided the best foundation for further research in this direction, toward restoring moderately impaired DAT patients to Erikson's last normative stage of development, gerotranscendence. Drawing from the EP tradition, the idea of continuity was developed for this research. Continuity is composed of four domains: postural modality, discourse, and the patient's focal relationships …

Occidentalism In Late Nineteenth Century Egypt, Alaa Bayoumi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Occidental discourses of three intellectual leaders of late nineteenth century Egypt, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi. It highlights four main factors that shaped the three writers' views of the West. These factors are: the way each writer saw reform as a process, the way each writer viewed the effects of Western foreign policies on the Muslim world, and the attitudes of each writer toward Muslim governments and toward the socially conservative Muslim masses. At the policy level, the study argues that any policy seeking to reform Arabs' perceptions of the US and …

Structural Determinants For Substrate And Inhibitor Recognition By The Dopamine Transporter, Okechukwu T. Ukairo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A long-standing postulate holds that cocaine inhibits DAT-mediated dopamine transport via competition with dopamine for formation of an ionic bond with the DAT transmembrane 1 aspartic acid residue 79. A recent study from our laboratory indicated that mutation of this aspartate to glutamate (D79E) had little or no effect on dopamine affinity or dopamine uptake inhibition potencies for WIN35,428 and cocaine, and decreased WIN35,428 affinity by only 3 fold (Wang et al., 2003). The study cast doubt on the requirement of a dopamine-D79 ion pair, but did not address whether the residue plays a role in recognizing the cocaine pharmacophore. …

Moments Of Seeing: Woolf, Lewis, And Modernist Exteriority, Timothy Vincent

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study reveals that the critical and creative work of Virginia Woolf and Wyndham Lewis, while standing at opposite ends of some glaring contradictions in the modernist period, explores a similar set of verbal and visual aesthetic problems that foregrounds the role of the exterior in the well-documented modernist "discovery" of the interior and the search for a unifying psychological reality behind human perception. For both Woolf and Lewis, the object, the visual image, or what this study calls exteriority, retains the power to "make it new," a phrase always associated with the modernist project, but with an important difference. …

Migrant Mobilization: Factors Contributing To The Success Of The Coalition Of Immokaleee Workers, Jane Walsh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

What factors have facilitated the success of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)? This is the key question that this study attempts to answer. The answer to this question can provide valuable lessons for other farmworker organizations and unions. Social movement literature emphasizes 1) effective leadership; 2) collective identity; 3) the strategic use of various sources of power; 4) conscience constituency involvement; and 5) political opportunities as factors necessary for mobilization. I have used these five factors to analyze the success of the CIW.

The design of this research study includes both participant-observation and in-depth interviews. Subjects for in-person interviews …

Hiv/Aids Education In The Public High Schools Of Three Counties In Southwestern Pennsylvania, Timothy Sheets

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, continues to grow worldwide. The only way to stop infection is to educate the population on prevention by identifying methods of transmission and behaviors that put a person most at risk. Schools are an effective place to teach young people about HIV. The Pennsylvania School Code requires that HIV/AIDS education be provided to all public school students while details of the instruction are locally determined. This study investigated HIV/AIDS education in three counties of southwestern Pennsylvania: what was included in the curricula, what was taught to the students, and how the content …

Structural Study Of Disease Related Proteins, Ayse Sinem Ozyurt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The availability of complete sequences for the genomes of many organisms changes the researcher's attention from genome sequencing to finding the function of gene products, the proteins. The three dimensional (3D) structure of a protein is helpful to understand its function, because tertiary structure is more conserved in evolution than sequence. The 3D structures can be found quickly by using high-throughput (HT) methods for protein expression, purification, characterization and structure determination. This process is very challenging in every step. Therefore we selected nearly 200 cancer related proteins as targets to see the difficulties in trying to determine the web predicted …

Design And Assessment Of Compact Optical Systems Towards Special Effects Imaging, Vesselin Chaoulov

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A main challenge in the field of special effects is to create special effects in real time in a way that the user can preview the effect before taking the actual picture or movie sequence. There are many techniques currently used to create computer-simulated special effects, however current techniques in computer graphics do not provide the option for the creation of real-time texture synthesis. Thus, while computer graphics is a powerful tool in the field of special effects, it is neither portable nor does it provide work in real-time capabilities. Real-time special effects may, however, be created optically. Such approach …

A Predictive Model For Benchmarking Academic Programs (Pbap) Using U.S. News Ranking Data For Engineering Colleges Offering Graduate Programs, Lisa Gay Marie Chuck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Improving national ranking is an increasingly important issue for university administrators. While research has been conducted on performance measures in higher education, research designs have lacked a predictive quality. Studies on the U.S. News college rankings have provided insight into the methodology; however, none of them have provided a model to predict what change in variable values would likely cause an institution to improve its standing in the rankings. The purpose of this study was to develop a predictive model for benchmarking academic programs (pBAP) for engineering colleges. The 2005 U.S. News ranking data for graduate engineering programs were used …

Formalization Of Input And Output In Modern Operating Systems: The Hadley Model, Matthew Gerber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We present the Hadley model, a formal descriptive model of input and output for modern computer operating systems. Our model is intentionally inspired by the Open Systems Interconnection model of networking; I/O as a process is defined as a set of translations between a set of computer-sensible forms, or layers, of information. To illustrate an initial application domain, we discuss the utility of the Hadley model and a potential associated I/O system as a tool for digital forensic investigators. To illustrate practical uses of the Hadley model we present the Hadley Specification Language, an essentially functional language designed to allow …

Spray Cooling For Land, Sea, Air And Space Based Applications, A Fluid Managment System For Multiple Nozzle Spray Cooling And A Guide To High Heat Flux Heater Design, Brian Glassman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is divided into four distinct chapters all linked by the topic of spray cooling. Chapter one gives a detailed categorization of future and current spray cooling applications, and reviews the major advantages and disadvantages that spray cooling has over other high heat flux cooling techniques. Chapter two outlines the developmental goals of spray cooling, which are to increase the output of a current system and to enable new technologies to be technically feasible. Furthermore, this chapter outlines in detail the impact that land, air, sea, and space environments have on the cooling system and what technologies could be …

Self-Assembled Supramolecular Structures Of Chiral Phospholipids: Structure, Mechanical Properties And Patterning, Nidhi Mahajan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lipid molecule is well known natural building block to form different supramolecular structures with specific shape, size and functionality. In my thesis work, I have used DC8,9PC 1,2-bis(tricosa-10,12-dinoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine), a type of chiral lipid to form the vesicles, tubules and ribbons . By using Atomic Force Microscope, I have studied the morphological features of these particular structures. Also, the mechanical properties of lipid tubules have been studied using AFM. Softlithography has been used to pattern the lipid vesicles and tubules into 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional ordered arrays. The structure of self-assembled hollow spherical vesicles was studied using AFM. The applications of soft …

A Content Analysis Of 2004 Presidential Election Headlines Of The Los Angeles Times And The Washington Times, Maureen Mccluskey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research suggested Election 2004 involved many issue regimes and wedge issues (Kaplan, 2004; Drum, 2004; Fagan & Dinan, 2004). Preceding research proposed that the American perception of presidential candidates has been somewhat based on the mass media's increasing priming and agenda setting techniques (Scheufele, 2000; Kiousis & McCombs, 2004). Hence the research addressed two questions: Is there a bias for or against either candidate in the headlines of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Times? If there is bias, which issues tended to produce the most positive, negative and neutral results? All election headlines, from February to November …

Characteristics Associated With The Effectiveness Of Resource Development Programs At Florida Community Colleges, Nancy Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As educational funding from traditional sources decreases and the cost of operating educational programs increases, community colleges are seeking ways to diversify funding streams and increase revenue. For many 2-year colleges, resource development, particularly the procurement of government grants and contracts, represents a viable source of revenue. The purpose of this research was (a) to establish a profile of grant development programs in Florida community colleges and (b) to identify factors associated with successful grant development. A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect information about grant development programs at the 28 publicly-supported community colleges in the state of Florida. …

Differential Radio Link Protocol: An Improvement To Tcp Over Wireless Networks, Jaideep Sarkar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

New generations of wireless cellular networks, including 3G and 4G technologies, are envisaged to support more mobile users and a variety of wireless multimedia services. With an increasing demand for wireless multimedia services, the performance of TCP becomes a bottleneck as it cannot differentiate between the losses due to the nature of air as a medium and high data load on the network that leads to congestion. This misinterpretation by TCP leads to a reduction in the congestion window size thereby resulting in reduced throughput of the system. To overcome this scenario Radio Link Protocols are used at a lower …