Digital Commons Network^™

A Piecewise Linear Generalized Poisson Regression Approach To Modeling Longitudinal Frequency Data, Jennifer Borgesi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this research we consider experiments that generate longitudinal frequency data. Often times this data comes from two or more experimental groups. Experiments that yield such data are common in the medical field and are often designed with the purpose of ascertaining differences among

experimental groups. Standard modeling techniques, such as repeated measures ANOVA, are inadequate for application to longitudinal frequency data because they ignore the correlation between the measurements as well as the discrete nature of the data. We present a piecewise-linear, generalized Poisson regression model for longitudinal frequency data. Based on the generalized Poisson distribution, this model is …

An Analysis Of The Use Of Web-Based Instruction In The Physical Education And Related Departments In The Pennsylvania State System Of Higher Education, Joanne Leight

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of web-based instruction (WBI) in Physical Education and related Departments in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PSSHE) was studied by analyzing computer use, obstacles to WBI, factors supporting WBI, degree of WBI implementation, WBI for Physical Education majors versus non-majors, and types of courses that utilize WBI. The data were collected via an instrument returned by 57 of 148 faculty members surveyed. Data analysis indicated the following: primary obstacles to WBI utilization were lack of time to prepare and lack of adequate training; the primary factors supporting WBI utilization were software and hardware resources. Data indicated …

The Rhetorical Dimensions Of Radio Propaganda In Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, Frank Rybicki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intrinsic power and subtle influence of broadcasting is not readily recognized by the average consumer of mass media. This circumstance has an abusive potential for those wishing to use the electronic media for ulterior motives. Such was the case between 1933 and 1945 when the Nazis unleashed their manipulative mass media campaign that helped facilitate totalitarian control over the German people. This dissertation is the study of its radio component. Special emphasis is placed on the origins, construction, and subsequent implementation of Nazi broadcast rhetoric heard on domestic and short wave radio during the twelve-year period of the Third …

Pseudomonas Aeruginosa 1244 Pilin Glycan: Surface Location And Induction Of Immune Response, Erica Sentgeorge Jewell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

P. aeruginosa 1244 pilin is covalently modified with a carbohydrate moiety, which is structurally similar to the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) O-antigen repeating unit. Studies were conducted using transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy with the monoclonal glycan-specific antibody, 11.14, to determine the location of the glycan. It was found that the glycan is evenly distributed over the entire surface of the pilin fiber and not restricted to the tip. The immunogenicity of the pilin glycan was also studied. Rabbits were immunized with pure LPS-free pili to determine if the pili produce anti-LPS antibodies. The serum obtained from the rabbits was …

Planar Magnetics Design For Low-Voltage Dc-Dc Converters, Shangyang Xiao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objectives of this thesis are to design planar magnetic devices based on accurate electromagnetic analysis and miniaturize magnetics within desired low profile as well as small footprint. A novel methodology based on FEM simulation is proposed. By introducing Maxwell 2D simulator, optimal interleaving structures can be found to reduce AC losses that cannot otherwise be accounted for by conventional method. And 3D simulator is employed to make the results more realistic. Thus, high-efficiency high-power density magnetics is achieved.

Modeling Of Membrane Solute Mass Transfer In Ro/Nf Membrane Systems, Yu Zhao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Five articles describing the impact of surface characteristics, and development of mass transfer models for diffusion controlled membrane applications are published in this dissertation. Article 1 (Chapter 3) describes the impact of membrane surface characteristics and NOM on membrane performance for varying pretreatment and membranes during a field study. Surface charge, hydrophobicity and roughness varied significantly among the four membranes used in the study. Membrane surface characteristics, NOM and SUVA measurements were used to describe mass transfer in a low pressure RO integrated membrane system. Inorganic and organic solute and water mass transfer coefficients were systematically investigated for dependence on …

Biostability In Drinking Water Distribution Systems Study At Pilot-Scale, Michael Le Puil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biostability and related issues (e.g. nitrification) were investigated for 18 months in 18 pilot distribution systems, under various water quality scenarios. This study specifically investigated the impact of steady-state water changes on HPC levels in chlorinated and chloraminated distribution systems. Chlorination was more effective than chloramination in reducing HPC levels (1-2 log difference). There was a rapid increase in HPC corresponding to the change in steady-state water quality, which was observed in all PDS. Modeling effort demonstrated that HPC levels reached a maximum within five days after water quality change and return to initial level ten days after the change. …

Effects Of The Soil Properties On The Maximum Dry Density Obtained Fro, Andres Arvelo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the construction of highways, airports, and other structures, the compaction of soils is needed to improve its strength. In 1933 Proctor developed a laboratory compaction test to determine the maximum dry density of compacted soils, which can be used for specifications of field compaction. The Compaction of soils is influenced by many factors, the most common are the moisture content, the soil type and the applied compaction energy. The objective of this research is the analysis of the maximum dry density values based on the soil classification and characterization. The method of choice in the determination of the maximum …

Predicting Air Quality Near Roadway Intersections Through The Applicat, Brian Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With substantial health and economic impacts attached to many highway-related projects, it has become imperative that the models used to assess air quality be as accurate as possible. The United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently promulgates the use of CAL3QHC to model concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) near roadway intersections. This model uses steady-state and macroscopic methods to model the physical phenomena (e.g., emission rates, atmospheric dispersion, etc.) occurring at intersections. These methods are not straightforward and unintuitive for the users. Therefore, this project investigated the possibility of developing a model that is theoretically more realistic and flexible …

Performance Analysis Of Low-Power, Short-Range Wireless Transceivers, Usha Neupane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To address the various emerging standards like BluetoothTM, Home RF, Wi-fiTM (IEEE 802.11), ZigBeeTM etc., in the field of wireless communications, different transceivers have been designed to operate at various frequencies such as 450 MHz, 902-920 MHz, 2.4 GHz, all part of designated ISM band. Though, the wireless systems have become more reliable, compact and easy to develop than before, a detailed performance analysis and characterization of the devices should be done. This report details the performance analysis and characterization of a popular binary FSK transceiver TRF6901 from Texas Instruments. The performance analysis of the device is done with respect …

Modeling Crash Frequencies At Signalized Intersections In Central Flor, Smitha Kowdla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A high percentage of highway crashes in the United States occur at intersections. These crashes result in property damage, lost productivity, injury, and even death. Identifying intersections associated with high crash rate is very important to minimize future crashes. The purpose of this study is to develop efficient means to evaluate intersections, which may require safety improvements. The area covered by the analysis in this thesis includes Orange and Seminole Counties and the City of Orlando. The aforementioned counties and city thus represent Central Florida. Each County/City provided data that consisted of signalized intersection drawings that were either in the …

Effects Of Deposition Temperature And Post Deposition Annealing On The Electrical Properties Of Barium Strontium Titanate Thin Film For Embedded Capacitor Applications, Ranganathan, Ravip Peelamedu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A higher degree of system level integration can be achieved by integrating the passive components into semiconductor devices, which seem to be an enabling technology for portable communication and modern electronic devices. Greater functionality, higher performance and increase in reliability can be achieved by miniaturizing and reducing the number of components in integrated circuits. The functional potential of small electronic devices can be enormously increased by implementing the embedded capacitors, resistors and inductors. This would free up surface real estate allowing either a smaller footprint or more silicon devices to be placed on the same sized substrate. This thesis focuses …

Performance Of Interface Elements In The Finite Element Method, Kairas Rabadi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research is to assess the performance of interface elements in the finite element method. Interface elements are implemented in the finite element codes such as MSC.NASTRAN, which is used in this study. Interface elements in MSC.NASTRAN provide a tool to transition between a shell-meshed region to another shell-meshed region as well as from a shell-meshed region to a solid-meshed region. Often, in practice shell elements are layered on shell elements or on solid elements without the use of interface elements. This is potentially inaccurate arising in mismatched degrees of freedom. In the case of a shell-to-shell …

Autonomous Robotic Automation Systemwith Vision Feedback, Jeffery Rosino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, a full design, development and application of an autonomous robotic automation system using vision feedback is performed. To realize this system, a cylindrical manipulator configuration is implemented, using a personal computer (PC) based PID controller from National Instruments. Full autonomous control will be achieved via a programmable human machine interface (HMI) developed on a PC using Borland C++ Builder. The vision feedback position control is accomplished using an ordinary "off-the-shelf" web camera. The manuscript is organized as follows; After Chapter 1, an introduction to automation history and its role in the manufacturing industry, Chapter 2 discusses and …

Failure Mode Identifications Of Rc Beams Externally Strengthened With, Chris O'Riordan-Adjah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The application of carbon reinforced-fiber polymers (CFRP) to structures is a new development that is still under intense research. However, the rehabilitation or retrofit of damage reinforced concrete members by the external bonding of CFRP is becoming increasingly popular in the construction industry. The objective of the tests presented in this thesis is to study different CFRP designs on the reinforced concrete beams and compare their failure modes. The main goal is to determine the CFRP design on the reinforced concrete beams that result in a progressive and gradual failure mode with enough warning before final failure. Different CFRP designs …

Decision Support Model For Construction Crew Reassignments, Angela M. Sist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The reassignment of crews on a construction project in response to changes occurs on a frequent basis. The factors that affect the crew reassignment decision can be myriad and most are not known with certainty. This research addresses the need for a decision support model to assist construction managers with the crew reassignment problem. The model design makes use of certainty factors in a decision tree structure. The research helped to determine the elements in the decision tree, the appropriate combination rules to use with the certainty factors, and the method for combining the certainty factors and costs to develop …

Characterization Of Protein Prenyltransferases And Protein Prenylation In Plasmodium Falciparum, Thiago Gaspar Dasilva

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Malaria kills at least one million people each year, mostly children - a death every 30 seconds. Almost one half of the world population is at risk from malaria. Antimalarial drugs are the only means for the treatment of about 500 million annual global malaria cases. Because of prevalent drug-resistance it is extremely urgent to identify new drug targets. Many proteins involved in eukaryotic signal transduction and cell cycle progression undergo post-translational lipid modification by a prenyl group. Protein prenyltransferases, which catalyze the post-translational prenyl modification, have been established as a target for anticancer therapy. Research done in our laboratory …

Factors Affecting The Practices Of Iso 9001:2000 Quality Management System In Saudi Business Organizations, Mohammad Mesaad Al-Asiri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since it's release in Dec 2000, there has been a slow movement towards the new version of ISO 9001:2000 by ISO 9000:1994 certified organizations. Of the 561,747 ISO 9000 certified businesses, 167,210 are certified under the new ISO 9001:2000, which is less than 30 % of the total ISO 9000 certified companies. Although many studies have been conducted to understand and assess the practices of ISO 9000:1994 standards, no research has been done to investigate the practices of ISO 9001:2000 in Saudi Arabia. This study is designed to investigate the implementation practices of the new ISO 9001:2000 standard in Saudi …

Antenna-Coupled Tunnel Diodes For Dual-Band Millimeter-Wave/Infrared F, Mohamed Abdel Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The infrared and millimeter-wave portions of the spectrum both have their advantages for development of imaging systems. Because of the difference in wavelengths, infrared imagers offer inherently high resolution, while millimeter-wave systems have better penetration through atmospheric aerosols such as fog and smoke. Shared-aperture imaging systems employing a common focal-plane array that responds to both wavebands are desirable from the viewpoint of overall size and weight. We have developed antenna-coupled sensors that respond simultaneously at 30 THz and at 94 GHz, utilizing electron-beam lithography. Slot-antenna designs were found to be particularly suitable for coupling radiation into metal-oxide-metal (MOM) tunnel diodes …

Self Designing Pattern Recognition System Employing Multistage Classification, Manal M. Abdelwahab

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, pattern recognition/classification has received a considerable attention in diverse engineering fields such as biomedical imaging, speaker identification, fingerprint recognition, etc. In most of these applications, it is desirable to maintain the classification accuracy in the presence of corrupted and/or incomplete data. The quality of a given classification technique is measured by the computational complexity, execution time of algorithms, and the number of patterns that can be classified correctly despite any distortion. Some classification techniques that are introduced in the literature are described in Chapter one. In this dissertation, a pattern recognition approach that can be designed to have evolutionary …

Finite Element Analysis Of Left-Handed Waveguides, Balasubramaniam, Vellakkinar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this work, waveguides with simultaneous negative dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability, otherwise known as left-handed waveguides, are investigated. An approach of formulating and solving an eigenvalue problem with finite element method resulting in the dispersion relation of the waveguides is adopted in the analysis. Detailed methodology of one-dimensional scalar and two-dimensional vector finite element formulation for the analysis of grounded slab and arbitrary shaped waveguides is presented. Based on the analysis, for waveguides with conventional media, excellent agreement of results is observed between the finite element approach and the traditional approach. The method is then applied to analyze left-handed …

A Mobile Robotic Computing Platform For Three-Dimensional Indoor Mappi, Kenneth Mccoig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are several industries exploring solutions to quickly and accurately digitize unexplored indoor environments, into useable three-dimensional databases. Unfortunately, there are inherent challenges to the indoor mapping process such as, scanning limitations and environment complexity, which require a specific application of tools to map an environment precisely with low cost and high speed. This thesis successfully demonstrates the design and implementation of a low cost mobile robotic computing platform with laser scanner, for quickly mapping with high resolution, urban and/or indoor environments using a gyro-enhanced orientation sensor and selectable levels of detail. In addition, a low cost alternative solution to …

Pedagogy For Internet-Based Teaching And Learning And The Impact Of That Pedagogy On Student Achievement And Satisfaction, Janet Perkins Kemerait

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to identify appropriate pedagogical practices for Internet-based teaching and learning, determine the status of their use in the community college adjunct instructor's Internet-based classroom, and examine the impact of these practices on student academic achievement and satisfaction. Frequencies, measures of central tendency, percentages, and SPSS Cross Tabulation procedures described and analyzed data from student and instructor surveys to answer these questions. Internet-based best practice and recommended practice pedagogical methods and strategies were identified through extensive content analysis of the professional literature. Internet-based adjunct instructors at a Central Florida community college rated 43 selected recommended …

Demographics Of Western South Dakota Wetlands And Basins, Bryan A. Rieger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wetlands, whether natural or man-made in origin, are an important feature of the semiarid landscape of western South Dakota. These wetlands have numerous social and economic values and functions for both landowners and non-owners, as well as for fish and wildlife species. For this reason, accurate information about wetland abundance, characteristics and distribution is important. These demographic summaries of wetland resources of western South Dakota were based on digital wetland data, as delineated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) office. Surface water covers approximately 257,006 ha or about 2.4% of the 10,810,700 ha of western …

Factors Influencing A Declining Pronghorn Population In Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota, Jaret D. Sievers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) were reintroduced into Wind Cave National Park (WCNP) in 1914 and thus, have inhabited the park for almost a century. A decline in the population has raised concern for the continued existence of pronghorn inside the park. Historically, pronghorn numbers reached greater than 300 individuals but were estimated to be less than 50 individuals during this study. Knowledge of food habits, genetic structure, causes of mortality, survival rates, and information related to movements were important to developing an understanding of factors contributing to this decline. Past studies have described spatial relationships and breeding behavior of adults and …

Effects Of Fire On The Nutritional Ecology Of Selected Ungulates In The Southern Black Hills, South Dakota, Teresa J. Zimmerman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research in the 1990s indicated that populations of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the northern and central Black Hills had declined since the late 1970s likely due to habitat deterioration. In August 2000, the Jasper fire consumed nearly 35,000 ha of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forest in the southern Black Hills. To ascertain the nutritional condition of white-tailed deer and mule deer (O. hemionus) and their response to fire, 5 adult white-tailed deer and 5 adult mule deer were collected in burned and unburned habitat, in February and August, 2002 and 2003. Collected deer were weighed and necropsied at a …

Influence Of Diets Formulated To Increase The Supply Of Ketones Or Ketone Precursors On The Carbohydrate Status And Performance Of Transition Dairy Cows, Jeffrey Michael Defrain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research to date has focused on increasing the supply of glucose precursors in transition dairy cows to reduce ketosis. Ketones and ketone bodies represent energy sources for body tissues; therefore, conserving blood glucose for lactose synthesis in the mammary gland. This led to the hypothesis that transition cows might benefit from diets formulated to stimulate rumen epithelial ketogenesis or dietary ingredients supplying ketone precursors. A series of experiments were conducted to study the impact of diets formulated to increase the supply of ketones (via feeding lactose, glycerol, or an alphaamylase enzyme preparation) or ketone precursors (feeding Ca soaps of longchain …

Discriminant, Convergent, And Discriminative Validity Of The Asperger Syndrome Diagnostic Scale, Koren Marie Boggs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Thermodynamic Studies Of Micellization And Adsorption For Three Alkyltrimethylammonium Bromides Using Isothermal Titration Calorimetry / By Adam Eugene Smith, Adam Eugene Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Common Ground : Looking At The Culture Of Oxford High School Athletics, Christopher Jay Hedglin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.