Digital Commons Network^™

Predicting Building Energy Performance: Leveraging Bim Content For Energy Efficient Buildings, Eddie Villanueva Aquino

Master's Theses

Reducing and managing the environmental impacts of building structures has become a priority of building stakeholders and within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) community; although, conflicting approaches and methods to combat the issues are present. For example, green building standards are widespread throughout the world; however each one has its own characteristics and consequently its own specific requirements. While all have proven to be effective rating systems and have similar requirements, the distinguishing characteristic that separates them is their treatment of performance and prescriptive metrics. The feature they all severely lack or currently limit is the inclusion of strict …

Exploring The Solution Behavior Of The Translational Gtpase Bipa Using Molecular Dynamics, Gilman L. Dionne

Master's Theses

BipA is a conserved prokaryotic GTPase necessary for securing bacterial survival and successful invasion of the host. Structural and biochemical studies indicate that GTP and ppGpp compete for binding to BipA to promote differential association of BipA to either the 70S or 30S ribosomal species. Exactly how guanine nucleotide binding to BipA prompts a change in the association of this protein with the ribosome is not understood. Crystallographic models show local structural rearrangements occur near the nucleotide-binding pocket but unexpectedly the overall domain arrangement, and therefore intramolecular contacts are similar in the various guanine nucleotide bound states. One explanation is …

Carbonate Production Selectivity In A Room Temperature Carbonate Fuel Cell Using Pt/C, Co(Ii)Pc, And Synthesized Tobermorite As Orr Catalysts, Gregory L. Crettol

Master's Theses

Room temperature anion exchange membrane fuel cells perform better when transporting carbonate vice hydroxide ions. Carbonate anions provide long-term membrane stability and improved oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics at the cathode and hydrogen oxidation kinetics at the anode, while also showing membrane conductivity comparable to hydroxide exchange membranes. Researchers have investigated potential non-platinum catalysts that have physical and electrochemical properties that favor the adsorption of CO₂ over H₂O, thereby, promoting the direct electrochemical formation of carbonate, which prevents membrane degradation caused by OH^- attack. This thesis introduces an in situ pulsed Galvanostatic technique that parallels analytical …

Comparative Gene Analysis And Prediction Of Innate Immunity And Apoptosis Machinery In Hydrothermal Vent Tubeworms, Corey M. Bunce

Master's Theses

Siboglinid tubeworms are an emerging model system for symbiosis in extreme conditions. At deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean, they harbor a chemoautotrophic symbiont in a specialized organ, the trophosome, where the bacteria carry out primary production via oxidation of reduced sulfur compounds. The trophosome of siboglinid worms is suggested to be tightly regulated, symbiont-responsive, and developmentally homeostatic. The purported mechanism involves a cellular proliferative or apoptotic response to bacterial signals, environmental cues, or nutrition. Though these processes are well understood in more amenable model systems, there has been little work uncovering the tubeworm’s genetic potential for sensing and …

The Forgotten Space: Between Discourse, Document, And The Deck Of A Ship, Talia B. Shabtay

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Age- And Experience-Related Distribution Of Parvalbumin-Expressing Gabaergic Interneurons Within The Hippocampus & Surrounding Cortices, Jennifer A. Corriveau

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Distinct Roles Of First Impressions And Physiological Compliance In Establishing Effective Teamwork, Andrea M. Bizarro

Master's Theses

Objective measures of team dynamics would be valuable complementary tools for researchers and practitioners to use along with subjective measures when deciding which individuals work together most effectively as a team, or when designing training or task environments to promote more effective teams and teamwork. Consistent with control theory, the present study investigates how first impressions and physiological compliance early during team formation impact team effectiveness outcomes including: team satisfaction, work-related flow experiences, team processes, and performance outcomes. In a theory-driven attempt to objectively measure the extent of mutual control during teamwork, physiological compliance was calculated as root-mean squared (RMS) …

The Effects Of Three Different Types Of Opportunities To Respond On Disruptive Behavior In A Second Grade Music Classroom, Abigail S. Welles

Master's Theses

The following research study was conducted to examine the effects of three types of opportunities to respond (OTRs) on student disruptive behavior in a music class setting. Participants in this study were male and female students ranging from 6 to 9 years old in the same second grade class. Students were each called upon to read rhythms from flashcards in duple meter containing both quarter notes and paired eighth notes. Using an alternating treatments design, students read a card individually and the class responded in one of the following ways: (a) no response, (b) using a verbal choral response, or …

Electrocaloric Cooling Efficiency Of Perovskite Ferroelectric Thin Films, Shawn C. Fonseca

Master's Theses

Ferroelectric thin films have been investigated recently for their electrocaloric properties. The electrocaloric effect is a coupling of electrical and thermal properties that results in a temperature change in response to an externally applied electric field. Through extensive material coefficient of performance (COP) calculations for Barium Titanate (BTO) and Lead Titanate (PTO), it is shown that electrocaloric materials provide comparable cooling efficiencies to thermoelectrics. The calculation is based on the Ericsson refrigeration cycle and results compare material COP values for various thermal and electric field boundary conditions. Direct application of this technology will be discussed, including on-chip cooling and different …

Can Acartia Spp. Adapt To Climatic Warming? Heritable Within-Population Genetic Variation In Life History Traits, Benjamin L. Cournoyer

Master's Theses

To predict the response of the biota to environmental change requires information on intrapopulation variation in life history traits and the proportion of phenotypic variation attributable to genes, heritability. Yet, knowledge of these parameters in marine populations is very limited. In the present study, I consider phenotypic plasticity and heritability of temperature-dependent, fitness-related life history traits in two coastal copepod species, Acartia tonsa and Acartia hudsonica, from Long Island Sound, a temperate estuary on the east coast of the USA. Acartia hudsonica is a purportedly cold-adapted species and A. tonsa a warm-adapted one. I used a full-sibling, split family design …

Connecticut Grown Forest Products: An Assessment Of Consumer Willingness To Pay, Nicholas R. Wright

Master's Theses

In December of 2010, the Connecticut Departments of Agriculture and Environmental Protection agreed to extend the Connecticut Grown label associated with agricultural products to forest products traceable to Connecticut sources. 85 percent of the forests in Connecticut are privately owned, which has led to the preliminary promotion of the label to be connected to small local enterprise. Furthermore, wood must be harvested following environmental guidelines set by the DEEP.

The success of this program hinges on consumer interest in a locally grown label and how it relates to the wood products being purchased. Little research has been done on consumer …

Assessing The Equity Of Transit Supply Distribution In Metropolitan Areas Using Lorenz Curves And Gini Coefficients, Kelly L. Bertolaccini

Master's Theses

The equitable distribution of transit services is a major concern of transportation planners and policymakers worldwide. In the US, planners are required by law to consider equity concerns when investing in new transportation infrastructure and services. However, equity can be difficult to assess in a consistent, objective, and quantitative way. Australian researchers recently developed a single, system wide measure which reflects the horizontal (or spatial) equity of transit service distribution in a metropolitan area. This measure, a variation of the Gini coefficient, specifically measures how well transit supply meets transit demand. While using a single measure to assess the equity …

Hcmv Promotes Breast Cancer Metastasis: Impacts Of Cmvil-10 In The Tumor Microenvironment, Robin Bishop

Master's Theses

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a highly species-specific, common human pathogen. While a large majority of people are infected with HCMV worldwide, infection is typically asymptomatic in immune competent individuals. To enhance virus persistence and avoid immune detection by the host, HCMV exploits the strategy of encoding homologs of cellular cytokines. One factor produced by HCMV-infected cells is the viral cytokine cmvIL-10, which acts through the cellular IL-10 receptor to induce downstream cell signaling. In instances where HCMV-infected cells infiltrate the tumor microenvironment, the presence of cmvIL-10 in may initiate events that promote a more invasive tumor phenotype. Cancer cells that …

Implementation And Application Of The Response Eam For Hcp Metals, Matthew J. Stagon

Master's Theses

Atomistic simulations are a powerful tool for the study of materials, especially in the determination of underlying atomistic mechanisms. Molecular dynamics (MD) is an atomistic simulation method that is well suited for a large number of atoms in a system, up to one billion. MD holds sufficient physical rigor while keeping the number of calculations reasonable for modern computational power. In molecular dynamics, a mathematical potential is used to capture the physics of the interaction between two adjacent atoms or molecules. Existing potentials fail to adequately represent the interaction between some materials, such as Magnesium and Titanium, or are based …

Evaluating The Use Of Ipad To Analyze Dental Implant Sites From Cbct Acquisitions: A Comparative Study Between Ipad And 3 Display Systems, Alejandro Carrasco

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Microfluidization And Homogenization On The Composition And Structure Of Liposomal Aggregates From Whey Buttermilk And Commercial Buttermilk, Tracey Mai T. Nguyen

Master's Theses

Milk derived ingredients from the production of cheese and butter can be used as vehicles for nutrients. Buttermilk is a nutritious product of milk that comes from the churning of cream into butter. One of the advantages of buttermilk is that it is enriched in milk fat globule components, such as phospholipids and forms emulsions with fat when treated with high shear. The objective of this work was to explore the effects of shear on regular buttermilk and whey buttermilk in terms of liposomal aggregate size and chemical composition. The effects of microfluidization at 2000 psi and homogenization at 2000 …

Relating Naturalistic Global Positioning System (Gps) Driving Data With Long-Term Safety Performance Of Roadways, James Michael Loy

Master's Theses

This thesis describes a research study relating naturalistic Global Positioning System (GPS) driving data with long-term traffic safety performance for two classes of roadways. These two classes are multilane arterial streets and limited access highways. GPS driving data used for this study was collected from 33 volunteer drivers from July 2012 to March 2013. The GPS devices used were custom GPS data loggers capable of recording speed, position, and other attributes at an average rate of 2.5 hertz.

Linear Referencing in ESRI ArcMAP was performed to assign spatial and other roadway attributes to each GPS data point collected. GPS data …

The Design And Fabrication Of An Electrostatically Actuated Diaphragm With A Silicon-On-Insulator Wafer, Elizabeth L. Brooks

Master's Theses

Electrostatically actuated silicon membranes were designed, modeled, fabricated, and characterized. The intended application was for use in a microspeaker. Fabrication issues necessitated the use of thick diaphragms with a large gap between the electrodes. The devices did not function as speakers but did show actuation with a high DC voltage. Device dimensions were chosen by examining membrane mechanics, testing the processing steps required for device fabrication, and modeling with COMSOL. Several adhesives were researched to fabricate the device sidewalls, including BCB, PMMA, and TRA-Bond F112. A method for patterning PMMA through photolithography was found using a scanning electron microscope. Masks …

Design, Fabrication And Test Of An Operationally Responsive Aircraft With Niirs Evaluated Imager, Colin Burt

Master's Theses

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are a growing asset. Currently UAS are on the cutting edge with resources being spent developing the capabilities mostly for military use. This project is intended to create a system for non-defense customers. Specifically, the Operationally Responsive Aircraft (ORA) will appeal to academic institutions, individual consumers, future customers new to the UAS industry, as well as anybody trying to get airtime for custom sensors.

The system developed in this project utilizes dual aluminum external payload bays attached to a ParkZone Radian aircraft. Each external payload bay can contain approximately 500 $\text{cm}^3$, with a height and width …

Smarter Neat Nets, Ryan Swords Dehaven

Master's Theses

This paper discusses a modification to improve usability and functionality of a ge- netic neural net algorithm called NEAT (NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topolo- gies). The modification aims to accomplish its goal by automatically changing parameters used by the algorithm with little input from a user. The advan- tage of the modification is to reduce the guesswork needed to setup a successful experiment with NEAT that produces a usable Artificial Intelligence (AI). The modified algorithm is tested against the unmodified NEAT with several different setups and the results are discussed. The algorithm shows strengths in some areas but can increase the …

Manufacturing Exports And Job Creation: A Case Study Of Mississippi, Daniel Assamah

Master's Theses

The impact of exports on jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, has not been convincingly established. However, most researchers have identified the manufacturing sector as the highest exporter in the United States. Studies regarding this relationship have both been conducted at the national and state level, mostly using the input-output model. Using the state of Mississippi as a case study, this study examines the direct relationship between manufacturing exports and manufacturing jobs among the twenty-one manufacturing industries under the 3-digit level of the North American Industrial Classification System. This study further determined the sub sectors that support job creation in the state …

The Oaks: Interpretation And Analysis Of The Support Structures Of A 19th Century Urban Farmstead, Justin Dwayne Beavers

Master's Theses

This thesis documents the results of excavation in 2004 and 2005 of an urban farmstead in Jackson, Mississippi, called The Oaks. This research was conducted in order to find the functions of the various outbuildings at The Oaks. All the artifacts were analyzed at The University of Southern Mississippi and then placed into various models to find any correlations between the buildings at The Oaks and those of other sites like Johnson/Bates in Kentucky.

The kitchen was found to contain various architectural features as well as artifacts that corresponded with the normal findings of an 1800s detached kitchen. The barn …

Why I Killed The Draft Horse: The Golden Bough, Robert Frost, And "Progress", Eugene Charles Mcgregor Boyle Iii

Master's Theses

The absence of criticism on Robert Frost's "The Draft Horse" suggests that it is a challenge to Frost scholarship. This reading views Frost's strange and neglected poem as a return to a monomyth offered by James Frazer's hugely influential The Golden Bough. In "The Draft Horse," Frost reconsiders the concept of ceremonial sacrifice that undergirds Frazer's encyclopedic study of world culture and, by performing ceremony as a kind of modem poesis, Frost complicates the hero/sacrificial object role and critiques the progressive ideology that grounds Frazer's account to fashion a troubling epic for modern America that implicates its national readers …

Net Productivity On Artificial Reefs In The Mississippi Sound Estimated From Settlement Plate Measurements, Viviana Mazzei

Master's Theses

The use of artificial reefs as a coastal management tool has become increasingly popular worldwide. The Mississippi Sound has 67 inshore artificial reefs sites, the main goal of which is to increase the production of economically and recreationally important fish, such as speckled trout, white trout, redfish, and black drum. The success of artificial reefs in meeting this goal depends in part on the quantity of primary and secondary production available on or near the reefs to support a reef-based food web. The objective of this study was to estimate phycoperiphyton net primary production and chlorophyll concentration on four artificial …

Madness, Scalawagery, And Reconstruction: Dr. William M. Compton And Civil War Era Politics, Eugene Allan Branstiter

Master's Theses

This thesis seeks to advance scholars' understanding of Civil War era Mississippi through an examination of the often overlooked role former Whigs and scalawags played in the state's postwar politics. Using the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum and the career of its scalawag superintendent Dr. William M. Compton as lenses, this paper examines Civil War era Mississippi's political, social, and cultural history. In doing so, this thesis seeks to complicate the historical memory of the era—a memory often dominated by images of irreconcilable Redeemer Klansmen and Radical Republicans—by arguing that moderate white Mississippians played a powerful role in rebuilding their society …

Sandcastles In The Sand: Liminality At The Seashore In Carolyn Wells's Marjorie At Seacote, Olivia Jeanne Bushardt

Master's Theses

The American beach at the turn of the twentieth century became a popular site for middle-class families to escape the urban squalor of the cities and play during the summer months. Although relatively unknown today, Carolyn Wells's 1912 novel Marjorie at Seacote depicts how the beach as a liminal space destabilizes the traditional adult and child roles and creates discomfon and ambivalence over these new roles. I first discuss Carolyn Wells and Marjorie at Seacote in terms of historical context and within the framework of girls' series fiction published at the turn of the century. I then explain how the …

Debating The Ideal Soviet Woman: Public Discussions Of Gender And Morality In Khrushchev's Russia, Chelsea Jo Miller

Master's Theses

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union's 1961 Third Party Program and its "Moral Code of the Builder of Communism" dictated that Soviet society would be transformed into a Communist utopia over the course of twenty years. As part of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's larger reform program, the "Moral Code" detailed the ideal characteristics of future Communists while also outlining their relationships with each other, the collective, and the state. Recently, scholars such as Deborah Field and Susan E. Reid have begun to address the tensions between public and private life that characterized this period. Both find that the state …

Inconspicuous But Indispensable: Charles Anderson Dana As Assistant Secretary Of War, Aaron Edward Foster

Master's Theses

Charles Anderson Dana's contributions to Union victory during the American Civil War extend far beyond his well-known relationship with General Ulysses S. Grant. Using both his journalistic talents and patriotism, he gained Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton's trust, which was essential for Dana to perform his duties effectively at the War Department in Washington City from 1864 to 1865. His obligations encompassed a broad spectrum of responsibilities from investigating dishonest contractors and federal officials attempting to defraud the government to authorizing the arbitrary arrests of civilians. He simultaneously performed lesser-known activities such as arranging soldiers' furloughs for the 1864 …

Solving The World's Problems: Walker Percy's Cultural Critique In Love In The Ruins, Jeremy Ryan Gibbs

Master's Theses

This thesis examines Walker Percy's manipulation of time in Love in the Ruins as a component of indirectly communicating his solution to problems in twentieth-century Western society: existential authenticity. By examining this often overlooked novel, I clarify the process by which Percy conveys his solution and the difficulties inherent in his attempts to do so. Research shows how Percy perceived such problems stemmed from the tendency of postmodern thought to place human subjective experience within an overarching, objective framework. These problems that Percy exaggerates in the novel are essentially distractions of immediacy that lead the characters away from choosing authentic …

The Effect Of Social Networking On Grief, Heather Margaret Gianatassio

Master's Theses

Death and loss are complicated issues. They are further complicated by the Internet and the increased usage of social media; however, there is little research on the effects of social media on grief. This project's goal was to gather information about grieving via online social networking sites. Data was collected from 20 in memoriam profile webpages on Facebook and MySpace. The deceased were between the ages of six months and 32 years. Results indicate that society is using social media as a form of support and comfort in times of loss.