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Meissen Porcelain: Precision, Presentation, And Preservation. How Artistic And Technological Significance Influence Conservation Protocol, Nicole Peters May 2011

Meissen Porcelain: Precision, Presentation, And Preservation. How Artistic And Technological Significance Influence Conservation Protocol, Nicole Peters

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

invention of Meissen porcelain and how these factors impact certain restoration and conservation protocol. The diversity and range of objects produced at the Meissen studio paired with the artistic genius of their design repositioned European ceramics as a superior craft form among its pottery-producing competitors. The ware's enthusiastic reception amongst upper-class European society established the pieces as being highly-valued and prompted their widespread recognition. What resulted was an efflorescence of creativity, artistic and technical accomplishments, and an original aesthetic quality that initiated a new conceptual reframing of how ceramic media could be presented. Throughout the past three centuries, Meissen porcelain …

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Teacher Candidate Perceptions Of Electronic Portfolios, William M. Baronak May 2011

Teacher Candidate Perceptions Of Electronic Portfolios, William M. Baronak

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Today, many students in higher education are considered digital natives - savvier and more experienced with technology than students in the past. In teacher preparation programs, teacher education students are commonly expected to demonstrate achievement of program goals and objectives and national teaching standards in a "portfolio." Gaining in popularity, the electronic portfolio delivers meaningful rich data in an electronic format. Much of the research on electronic portfolios has centered in higher education and has been primarily focused on the delivery of portfolios from the perspective of faculty and on the role of the portfolio in assessment from an administrative …

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Elementary Principals As Reading Instructional Leaders In Selected West Virginia Schools, Robin J. Lewis May 2011

Elementary Principals As Reading Instructional Leaders In Selected West Virginia Schools, Robin J. Lewis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study examined the reading instructional leadership practices of 56 principals in West Virginia K-5 public elementary schools. The purpose of this study was to compare the reading instructional leadership practices and professional development of 40 Reading First principals with 40 non-Reading First principals in West Virginia. The study also compared the percentage of students who have scored mastery or above as measured by the third grade Reading/Language Arts West Virginia Educational Standards Test (WESTEST) in the years 2005, 2006, and 2007. An electronic survey with Likert-type items was distributed to all 40 Reading First Principals and 303 K-5 public …

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Functional Impairments Of College Students With Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder And Necessary Modifications For Higher Education, Sylvia A. Wright May 2011

Functional Impairments Of College Students With Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder And Necessary Modifications For Higher Education, Sylvia A. Wright

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study examines the impact of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) on college age students 18-25 years old. Qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interviews with students and significant others, writing samples and transcript documents, examine functional impairments of students with AD/HD as well as functional impairment impact on relationships, academics and work. This qualitative research, grounded theory, provides a model for future research studies confirming existing theory and provides a basis for new theory.;The conclusion was that functional impairments continue to exist in college age adults with impairments with issues in concentration, organization, time related issues, time management/scheduling and hyperactivity. These …

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An Investigation Of The Effectiveness Of Developmental/Remedial Education At West Virginia Institutions Of Higher Education, Blake J. Renner May 2011

An Investigation Of The Effectiveness Of Developmental/Remedial Education At West Virginia Institutions Of Higher Education, Blake J. Renner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Underprepared college students are a continuing challenge for higher education institutions. Many students arrive at institutions of higher education with weak academic skills and are unable to do college-level school work. As a result, developmental education programs are required to address these inadequacies in student preparation. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of these developmental education programs. The goal is to determine the relationship between developmental education programs in West Virginia four-year higher education institutions and the success of the students in these programs as measured by degree completion and the terms to degree required to …

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A Simulation-Based Transfer Function Modeling Approach For Responsive Production Planning, Jingang Liu May 2011

A Simulation-Based Transfer Function Modeling Approach For Responsive Production Planning, Jingang Liu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this thesis, a novel statistical metamodeling method is proposed to study the input-output dynamic relations of general queueing system, especially when the system going through transient state. This metamodeling approach incorporates discrete even simulation, statistical inference, analytical queueing analysis to estimate a set of transfer function models (TFMs), which fully describe the system dynamic in terms of outputs that are interested: first and second moment of work-in-process (WIP) and first moment of departure rate.;Empirical queueing examples with non-Markov property are studied, including single station-single server system, single-station multi-server with failure system and multi-station multi-server with reentrant flow system and …

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Aircraft Parameter Identification For Application Within A Fault-Tolerant Flight Control System, Kerri B. Phillips May 2011

Aircraft Parameter Identification For Application Within A Fault-Tolerant Flight Control System, Kerri B. Phillips

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A parameter identification study was conducted to identify a detailed aircraft mathematical model for application within a fault-tolerant flight control system that aims to detect, identify, and accommodate for sensor and actuator failures. Specifically, a mathematical model was identified under nominal conditions for two aircraft platforms, and a model was developed for one platform under actuator failure conditions. These models are to be used in flight control law design and to account for actuator failures on the primary control surfaces for one of the research platforms. In order to accurately model the aircraft behavior following a control surface failure, the …

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Design Of Fault Tolerant Control System For Individual Blade Control Helicopters, Sergio Tamayo May 2011

Design Of Fault Tolerant Control System For Individual Blade Control Helicopters, Sergio Tamayo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation presents the development of a fault tolerant control scheme for helicopters fitted with individually controlled blades. This novel approach attempts to improve fault tolerant capabilities of helicopter control system by increasing control redundancy using additional actuators for individual blade input and software re-mixing to obtain nominal or close to nominal conditions under failure. An advanced interactive simulation environment has been developed including modeling of sensor failure, swashplate actuator failure, individual blade actuator failure, and blade delamination to support the design, testing, and evaluation of the control laws. This simulation environment is based on the blade element theory for …

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Outage Probability In Multimodal Networks, Ricky E. Hussmann May 2011

Outage Probability In Multimodal Networks, Ricky E. Hussmann

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the mid 1990's wireless researchers discovered that additional antennas located at the transmitter, receiver or both could help combat the unpredictable nature of the wireless channel. This field of research, known as MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output), became very active and has been thoroughly studied. Manufacturers have sought to incorporate these performance gains into their devices by including multiple transmit and receive antennas. However, as wireless devices such as mobile phones become smaller it becomes impractical to design a handset with multiple antennas.;Cooperative diversity is a technique that may be employed when device sizes are too small to incorporate a local …

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Group Colorability And Hamiltonian Properties Of Graphs, Hao Li May 2011

Group Colorability And Hamiltonian Properties Of Graphs, Hao Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The research of my dissertation was motivated by the conjecture of Thomassen that every 4-connected line graph is hamiltonian and by the conjecture of Matthews and Sumner that every 4-connected claw-free graph is hamiltonian. Towards the hamiltonian line graph problem, we proved that every 3-edge-connected, essentially 4-edge-connected graph G has a spanning eulerian subgraph, if for every pair of adjacent vertices u and v, dG(u) + dG(v) ≥ 9. A straight forward corollary is that every 4-connected, essentially 6-connected line graph with minimum degree at least 7 is hamiltonian.;We also investigate graphs G such that the line graph L(G) is …

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Implementation Of A Helicopter Flight Simulator With Individual Blade Control, Andrew G. Zinchiak May 2011

Implementation Of A Helicopter Flight Simulator With Individual Blade Control, Andrew G. Zinchiak

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Nearly all modern helicopters are designed with a swashplate-based system for control of the main rotor blades. However, the swashplate-based approach does not provide the level of redundancy necessary to cope with abnormal actuator conditions. For example, if an actuator fails (becomes locked) on the main rotor, the cyclic inputs are consequently fixed and the helicopter may become stuck in a flight maneuver. This can obviously be seen as a catastrophic failure, and would likely lead to a crash.;These types of failures can be overcome with the application of individual blade control (IBC). IBC is achieved using the blade pitch …

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A Comparison Of Centralized And Decentralized Developmental Education Courses In Four Public Appalachian Community Colleges And Students' Perceptions Regarding The Seven Principles For Good Practice, Philip M. Keith May 2011

A Comparison Of Centralized And Decentralized Developmental Education Courses In Four Public Appalachian Community Colleges And Students' Perceptions Regarding The Seven Principles For Good Practice, Philip M. Keith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Developmental education courses have become a standard in community colleges in the United States. An overwhelming majority of these public two-year schools offer developmental courses to a wide array of students. At the same time, developmental programs are under a constant barrage of attacks from a variety of stakeholder organizations that view these courses as redundant in the public educational system. As a result, community college systems across the nation are striving to find the most effective and efficient means to offer these courses, to decrease the length of time students are spending in these courses, and to increase the …

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Optimization Of Operating Parameters For Minimum Mechanical Specific Energy In Drilling, Todd Robert Hamrick May 2011

Optimization Of Operating Parameters For Minimum Mechanical Specific Energy In Drilling, Todd Robert Hamrick

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Efficiency in drilling is measured by Mechanical Specific Energy (MSE). MSE is the measure of the amount of energy input required to remove a unit volume of rock, expressed in units of energy input divided by volume removed. It can be expressed mathematically in terms of controllable parameters; Weight on Bit, Torque, Rate of Penetration, and RPM. It is well documented that minimizing MSE by optimizing controllable factors results in maximum Rate of Penetration. Current methods for computing MSE make it possible to minimize MSE in the field only through a trial-and-error process. This work makes it possible to compute …

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Constellation Shaping For Communication Channels With Quantized Outputs, Chandana Nannapaneni May 2011

Constellation Shaping For Communication Channels With Quantized Outputs, Chandana Nannapaneni

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Channel capacity is an important aspect of every digital communication system. Capacity can be defined as the highest rate of information that can be transmitted over the channel with low error probability. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of the input symbol distribution on the information rate when the signal is transmitted over an Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel with a quantized output. The channel was analyzed by transforming it into a Discrete Memoryless Channel (DMC), which is a discrete-input and discrete-output channel. Given the quantizer resolution and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), this thesis proposes a …

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Parameter Estimation Analysis For Hybrid Adaptive Fault Tolerant Control, Peter B. Eshak May 2011

Parameter Estimation Analysis For Hybrid Adaptive Fault Tolerant Control, Peter B. Eshak

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Research efforts have increased in recent years toward the development of intelligent fault tolerant control laws, which are capable of helping the pilot to safely maintain aircraft control at post failure conditions. Researchers at West Virginia University (WVU) have been actively involved in the development of fault tolerant adaptive control laws in all three major categories: direct, indirect, and hybrid. The first implemented design to provide adaptation was a direct adaptive controller, which used artificial neural networks to generate augmentation commands in order to reduce the modeling error. Indirect adaptive laws were implemented in another controller, which utilized online PID …

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First Year Student Expectations: General Education Goals At A Multi-Campus Community College, Sherri Anna Robinson May 2011

First Year Student Expectations: General Education Goals At A Multi-Campus Community College, Sherri Anna Robinson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In recent years, there has been a focus on the importance of general education in colleges and universities as a means of delivering a quality liberal education. Completion of a general education curriculum in the community college is required for successful completion in all associate degree programs. As more students are choosing community colleges to begin their studies, their general education experiences may affect their successful transfer to the baccalaureate, performance in the future workforce and participation as educated citizens.;Unfortunately, students have described general education as "a barrier" to their major or courses to "get of the way." At the …

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Essays On The Effectiveness And Competitiveness Of State Government Expenditures, J. Sebastian Leguizamon May 2011

Essays On The Effectiveness And Competitiveness Of State Government Expenditures, J. Sebastian Leguizamon

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation addresses issues related to the effectiveness and consequences of state and local spending in the United States. Chapter two examines how merit-based aid tuition assistance contributes to the retention of graduates in a state. An analysis of restricted-use administrative data for West Virginia graduates suggests that in-state college graduates that received merit-based aid to attend college are no more likely to work in the state after graduation, compared to those who did not received the assistance. These graduates are between 1.9 and 5.2 percentage points less likely to remain in the state, decreasing the overall effect of merit-based …

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Ecological Benefits Of Mitigation On A Large River Mainstem In An Intensively Mined Appalachian Watershed, Eric Mitchell Miller Jan 2011

Ecological Benefits Of Mitigation On A Large River Mainstem In An Intensively Mined Appalachian Watershed, Eric Mitchell Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Large scale surface mining in the central Appalachians causes significant alteration of headwater catchments, and these impacts may be offset through implementation of stream restoration projects. As an example, several habitat enhancement structures (cross-vanes and j-hooks) were constructed along a 13.7 km section of the Little Coal River as mitigation for mining impacts in the region. The objectives of our study were to: 1-quantify changes in channel morphology, habitat quality, sediment composition, bank stability, biological communities and organic matter processing in response to habitat enhancing structures; 2-relate changes in structural and functional attributes of the Little Coal River mainstem to …

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The Importance Of School Culture In The Advancement Of 21st Century Learning Environments: A Qualitative Study., Lydotta M. Taylor Jan 2011

The Importance Of School Culture In The Advancement Of 21st Century Learning Environments: A Qualitative Study., Lydotta M. Taylor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This qualitative study aims to make explicit the importance of school culture and teacher involvement in shaping and implementing reform efforts. Over the past 60 years, a variety of political leaders have led numerous education reform efforts. The importance of school culture has often been missing from the reform efforts. This study reviews the effectiveness of the Who Took My Chalk?â„¢ intervention and the six defining characteristics of the intervention: student engagement, collaboration, goal setting, action planning, assessing attitudes, and engaging openness. The data collected for this study include pre- and post- interview responses from school faculty on the six …

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Role Of Inhibition In Binaural Processing, Jesse M. Thompson Jan 2011

Role Of Inhibition In Binaural Processing, Jesse M. Thompson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The medial and lateral superior olives (MSO, LSO) are the lowest order cell groups in the mammalian auditory circuit to receive massive binaural input. The MSO functions in part to encode interaural time differences (ITD), the predominant cue for localization of low frequency sounds. Binaural inputs to the MSO consist of excitatory projections from the cochlear nuclei (CN) and inhibitory projections from both the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) and lateral nucleus of the trapezoid body (LNTB). The interaction of excitatory and inhibitory currents within an MSO cell's soma and dendrites over the backdrop of its intrinsic ionic …

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Ash Removal From Low Rank Coal, Deepankar Virendra Sharma Jan 2011

Ash Removal From Low Rank Coal, Deepankar Virendra Sharma

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The work presented here is concerned with cleaning of low rank coals such as Texas lignite. As a result, Jewett Texas lignite was cleaned from 28% ash by weight to 8.5%. In the first part of the thesis, it is proved that conventional cleaning techniques used for bituminous and sub-bituminous having pyritic impurities does not work for cleaning lignite coal because of different coal chemistry and the presence of clay impurities. Hence after trying conventional processes, there was a need for a new technique capable of removing clay from low rank coals.;Micronized coal, obtained from DevourX LLC, proved to be …

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Computational Hybrid Systems For Identifying Prognostic Gene Markers Of Lung Cancer, Ying-Wooi Wan Jan 2011

Computational Hybrid Systems For Identifying Prognostic Gene Markers Of Lung Cancer, Ying-Wooi Wan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Lung cancer is the most fatal cancer around the world. Current lung cancer prognosis and treatment is based on tumor stage population statistics and could not reliably assess the risk for developing recurrence in individual patients. Biomarkers enable treatment options to be tailored to individual patients based on their tumor molecular characteristics. To date, there is no clinically applied molecular prognostic model for lung cancer. Statistics and feature selection methods identify gene candidates by ranking the association between gene expression and disease outcome, but do not account for the interactions among genes. Computational network methods could model interactions, but have …

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Rna In Forensic Science: Novel Techniques For Biological Evidence, Stephanie T. Young Jan 2011

Rna In Forensic Science: Novel Techniques For Biological Evidence, Stephanie T. Young

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The techniques currently utilized for collecting biological evidence at the scenes of violent crimes such as murder, rape, and kidnapping are employed simply to preserve evidence for future DNA analysis. Although DNA is extremely useful in forensic casework, biological samples possess yet another valuable molecule, RNA. The use of RNA in forensic analysis of samples is currently on the rise. In the past, RNA was thought to degrade much too quickly to be of any benefit to the forensic community. The work presented in this dissertation seeks to demonstrate otherwise. While true that RNA is not as stable as DNA, …

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An Exploratory Study On International Students' Adjustment To American Universities., Grace M. Atebe Jan 2011

An Exploratory Study On International Students' Adjustment To American Universities., Grace M. Atebe

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

College students in the twenty-first century face a different political, economic, cultural, and social world than students faced in the previous century. Technology and business have broken down virtually every barrier between countries. As a result, many colleges believe that they must educate and involve their students in cultures beyond their country's borders in the hope of producing inter-culturally competent students. Despite government policies and available financial assistance that encourage study abroad, the vast majority of students in Western countries do not study outside their own borders. Thus, successful integration of international students and scholars with the campus and its …

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Reduced Order Model Of A Spouted Fluidized Bed Utilizing Proper Orthogonal Decomposition, Stephanie R. Beck-Roth Jan 2011

Reduced Order Model Of A Spouted Fluidized Bed Utilizing Proper Orthogonal Decomposition, Stephanie R. Beck-Roth

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A reduced order model utilizing proper orthogonal decomposition for approximation of gas and solids velocities as well as pressure, solids granular temperature and gas void fraction for use in multiphase incompressible fluidized beds is developed and presented. The methodology is then tested on data representing a flat-bottom spouted fluidized bed and comparative results against the software Multiphase Flow with Interphase eXchanges (MFIX) are provided. The governing equations for the model development are based upon those implemented in the (MFIX) software. The three reduced order models explored are projective, extrapolative and interpolative. The first is an extension of the system solution …

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Traffic Optimization For Multimodal Cooperative Networks, Krishna Jyothi Boppana Jan 2011

Traffic Optimization For Multimodal Cooperative Networks, Krishna Jyothi Boppana

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Resource allocation and traffic optimization are crucial problems in multi-traffic wireless networks as resources are scarce and the traffic is shared by multiple users. When application performance is the key concern in a network, utility is considered as a reliable metric. A lot of research has been done on capacity limits of wireless networks under some assumptions on the physics of propagation and some restrictions on the communication strategy employed by the nodes. It has been proved that due to the physical limitation that holds for any communication system, the decrease in throughput problem as wireless nodes increase in a …

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Development Of Advanced Coal Devolatilization And Secondary Pyrolysis Kinetics Models For Cfd (And Process Simulation) Codes, Kiran Pandurang Chaudhari Jan 2011

Development Of Advanced Coal Devolatilization And Secondary Pyrolysis Kinetics Models For Cfd (And Process Simulation) Codes, Kiran Pandurang Chaudhari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Detailed kinetic expressions for the gasification of a wide variety of coals in existing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes such as Multiphase Flow with Interphase Exchanges (MFIX) developed by NETL. These expressions describe the fundamental steps taking place in the gasification of coal, namely, coal devolatilization, tar-gas chemistry, soot formation and the heterogeneous and homogeneous gasification reaction along with combustion reactions. For this purpose, the data generated by PC Coal Lab (PCCL) is used to simulate the gasification of various coals in CFD codes. The CFD code of most interest is MFIX, which is used to describe the hydrodynamics, heat …

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3d Seismic, Attribute-Assisted, Structural Interpretation For Hydrocarbon Exploration And Production: Southwest Pennsylvania, Central Appalachian Basin, Thomas Bradley Donahoe Jan 2011

3d Seismic, Attribute-Assisted, Structural Interpretation For Hydrocarbon Exploration And Production: Southwest Pennsylvania, Central Appalachian Basin, Thomas Bradley Donahoe

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

High quality 3D seismic data provides critical information vital to the delineation of structural fabrics and depositional facies, and it is therefore important to the development of ideas associated with structural and facies architecture and growth history of the Appalachian foreland basin. Traditional wiggle trace imagery is limited by its dominant frequency and low signal-to-noise ratio; while conventional seismic attributes, such as instantaneous amplitude, RMS and frequency methods are not effective at defining fracture intensity and orientation and spatial and temporal relations between faults and folds which are crucial in achieving the hydrocarbon exploration objective in the basin. To overcome …

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Development And Testing Of A Fractal Analysis Algorithm For Face Recognition, Nicholas J. Hansford Jan 2011

Development And Testing Of A Fractal Analysis Algorithm For Face Recognition, Nicholas J. Hansford

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Following an earlier development for fingerprints by Deal (1) and Stoffa (2), it was suggested that this algorithm may work on faces (or more precisely, face images). First, this work transformed a 2-D electronic image file of a human face into a numeric system via a similar random walk process by Deal and Stoffa. Second, the numeric system was analyzed, and the numeric system may then be tested against a database of similarly converted images. The testing determined whether the subject of the image is part of the database. Finally, the efficiency, quickness, and accuracy of such an algorithm were …

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Variances In Diurnal Fatigue Patterns And Mood Among Postpartum Women, Amanda L. Mcbean Jan 2011

Variances In Diurnal Fatigue Patterns And Mood Among Postpartum Women, Amanda L. Mcbean

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Postpartum women have highly disrupted sleep and many experience a disruption in their circadian rhythm during this time. They are also susceptible to mood disruptions during the postpartum period. While mood disruption may be a result of sleep disruption, there are not many data to support a link between circadian rhythm disruption and mood among healthy postpartum women. This study sought to fill that gap. Participants were a convenience sample of 71 women from a larger study. The total sample was 26.4 (SD = 4.0) years old, had a mean annual income of {dollar}51,000 (SD = {dollar}35,000), and had 15.7 …

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