Digital Commons Network^™

Montessori Principles: Do Montessori Parents Understand Their Significance And Apply Them To Their Family Lives?, Cody Davis Sanantonio

Masters Theses

This study was designed to offer insight to Montessori educators regarding the grasp that parents who choose Montessori for their children possess of the basic Montessori principles. These principles, which are applied in Montessori schools around the world each day, serve as the underpinning of Montessori philosophy, and since parents are the most significant teachers in their children's lives, it makes sense that parents are working in harmony with the guiding principles of their children's schools. Montessori schools have enjoyed a long history of serving children and families, and have often maintained waiting lists of prospective families who want the …

From Half-Rotaxanes To Poly-Rotaxane Architectures, Heather Renee Schoonover

Masters Theses

The host-guest abilities of macrocyclic compounds made them important players in the field of supramolecular chemistry, especially those studying mechanical bonds. Rotaxanes and catenanes are among the most well-known examples of mechanically interlocked molecules. Our approach in the synthesis of poly-rotaxane systems involves the preparation of pseudorotaxanes with donor capabilities and then use metallic centers to assemble the poly-rotaxane architectures.

A pyridine-based half-rotaxane has been synthesized and the subsequent solution studies revealed a large association constant. ¹H-NMR studies show that these interlocked species exhibit a slow exchange on the NMR timescale. Using the single point method and VT-NMR several …

The Effects Of Chemical Treatment And Light Exposure On Pah Concentrations In Biochar, Fathima Nadheesha Muhammed Khalid

Masters Theses

A series of experiments quantifying extractable polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in biochar before and after various treatments were conducted. The analytical approach included solvent extraction of PAHs with toluene, further isolation and column cleanup before gas chromatography mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis. The treatment methods include exposing biochar samples to sunlight and UV radiation with and without additives and reacting with hydrogen peroxide.

Two biochar samples from the Eastern Illinois University bench-type gasifier and commercial biochar were analyzed. Analyzing of three biochar types revealed that plant biochar has lower total PAH concentration than wood (W) biochar or wood and plant (giant …

The Effect Of Electrochemical Modification On The Surface Topography And Chemical Make-Up Of Strontium Titanate, Kelly J. Harmon

Masters Theses

Previous research into the oxidation and reduction of strontium titanate and the changes that result from this has been carried out. The oxidation and reduction of strontium titanate at high temperatures and high pressures has been investigated for the effect that it has upon the surface topography of strontium titanate and the chemical makeup of the strontium titanate. Research into the electrochemical oxidation of perovskites, similar in structure to that of strontium titanate, have even provided evidence pointing to the identity of the oxygen species being incorporated into the strontium titanate.

This research seeks to investigate what changes occur to …

Wind Energy Assessment Using A Wind Turbine With Dynamic Yaw Control, Md Nahid Pervez

Masters Theses

The goal of this project was to analyze the wind energy potential over Lake Michigan. For this purpose, a dynamic model of a utility-scale wind turbine was developed to estimate the potential electrical energy that could be generated. The dynamic model was supported by wind data collected by an unmanned buoy based Laser Wind Sensor data acquisition system that has been deployed in Lake Michigan since October, 2011. Data summarization tools were also developed to help profile the wind resource based on the collected data.

Analysis Of Model Uncertainty In Hydraulic Modeling: The Bstem Application To The Osage River, Annabell Leigh Ulary

Masters Theses

"Uncertainty is inevitable when creating any kind of model. A model can be used in the most accurate way possible, if the uncertainties are understood. This study determines the level of uncertainty in the Bank Stability and Toe Erosion Model (BSTEM) of the Osage River downstream of Bagnell Dam between Lake Ozark, MO and Jefferson City, MO. The statistical analysis of the BSTEM model was performed using the aid of SAS statistical computer modeling software. There were 4 different analysis values used to determine the best fit model for all dependent variables. These values include the F-test, the coefficient of …

Comparison Of Class Ii Injection Well Area Of Review Requirements With Area Of Evaluation For Hydraulically Fractured Wells, Yashesh Jitendra Panchal

Masters Theses

"Since 2010 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been proposing plans to study, and has now initiated research regarding the potential impact of hydraulic fracturing processes on drinking water sources. Their work refers to an 'Area of Evaluation' around a hydraulically fractured well, inferring that the wells immediately around hydraulic fractured wells should be studied, to evaluate the conditions of these wells and their potential to contaminate overlying USDWs. Class II injection wells must have a minimum 1/4 mile radius area of review to determine the condition of wells surrounding the proposed injection well. All wells within this AOR …

Comparative Evaluation Of N-Acetylcysteine And N-Acetylcysteine Amide In Acetaminophen-Induced Oxidative Stress, Ahdab Naeem Khayyat

Masters Theses

"Acetaminophen (APAP) is the most widely used pharmaceutical analgesic-antipyretic agent in the world, but its toxicity is a common cause of drug-induced hepatotoxicity. With APAP toxicity, cellular glutathione (GSH) is depleted. This results in the availability of N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine (NAPQI), is a toxic metabolite of APAP that binds to cellular macromolecules, which leads to cell necrosis. N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), a GSH precursor, is the only approved antidote for an acetaminophen overdose. It is a negatively charged molecule that diminishes its penetration into the cells, thereby requiring fairly high doses that increase the severity of side effects. In addition, oral and …

Parallel-Connected Solar Arrays, Majed Meshal Alabbass

Masters Theses

"The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the advantages of having various series-parallel configurations of solar arrays and make a comparison between them. The objective is to determine the best PV system configuration and thus improve the overall efficiency of a solar array. The primary focus of this thesis is to study the parallel connection of PV panels for achieving maximum efficiency while extracting maximum energy from the solar radiation. A comparison between a series connected and a parallel connected solar PV array justifies the need for installing a parallel configured solar PV array to achieve optimum performance. The …

Assessment Of An Enterprise Employee Portal Using Dashboard Monitoring System: A Case Study, Aditi Mishra

Masters Theses

"A portal is a browser-based application that provides a web platform for users to improve inter-department collaboration and customer service. Portals are classified either as internal facing portals or external public facing portals. This study addresses the problems facing an internal portal related to its contents, functions and usability and provides a list of essential contents and functions that it should include through integrating theories and industry best practices. The theory framework is based on literature review and the industry best practices are based on the analysis of a number of internal portals of companies used as case studies. These …

Transmission Shaft Design For Hydrokinetic Turbine With Reliability Consideration, Goutham Pusapati

Masters Theses

"Hydrokinetic energy, a relatively new kind of renewable energy, can be generated from flowing water in rivers or oceans. Hydrokinetic turbines (HKTs) are a major system for hydrokinetic energy, and the reliability of the HKTs is critical for both their lifecycle cost and safety. The objective of this work is to apply advanced methodologies of reliability analysis and reliability-based design to the transmission shaft design for a horizontal-axis, non-submerged HKT. The deterministic shaft design is performed first by considering failure modes of strength and deflection using distortion energy, maximum shear and deflection theories. Then the reliability analysis of the shaft …

Shopping Alone Online Vs. Co-Browsing: A Physiological And Perceptual Comparison, Ceren Topaloglu

Masters Theses

"Although shopping is a social activity frequently performed with friends and family members, most online shopping is done alone. With the development of Web 2.0 technologies and the increasing popularity of social networking sites, online social shopping has emerged as a new phenomenon that allows more social interaction, participation, and satisfaction for customers while shopping online. Therefore, companies have started to use social shopping tools in their e-commerce websites to facilitate online social shopping. Co-browsing is one of the more recent online social shopping tools available, enabling users to shop or browse together by offering synchronized web views and chat …

Part Height Control Of Laser Metal Additive Manufacturing Process, Yu-Herng Pan

Masters Theses

"Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) has been used to not only make but also repair damaged parts in a layer-by-layer fashion. Parts made in this manner may produce less waste than those made through conventional machining processes. However, a common issue of LMD involves controlling the deposition's layer thickness. Accuracy is important, and as it increases, both the time required to produce the part and the material wasted during the material removal process (e.g., milling, lathe) decrease. The deposition rate is affected by multiple parameters, such as the powder feed rate, laser input power, axis feed rate, material type, and part …

Wetting And Drying Cycles And The Fungal Communities On Leaf Litter In Streams, Kele Qwinn Thrailkill

Masters Theses

"Leaf litter is a major source of energy for streams in deciduous forests. Fungi play a critical role by converting the leaves into nutritional material for the rest of the food web. The breakdown of leaf litter and associated biota, including invertebrates and fungi, have been proposed as measures of stream health in systems affected by anthropogenic activity. Rates of leaf breakdown can be depressed in streams affected by acidity, metals, organic contaminants, and other stressors. Climate change may lead to alterations in stream hydrology such that streams experience more frequent floods as well as drying episodes. Fungal communities can …

Examining The Efficiency Of Multimodal Transportation Systems: A Systems Dynamics Approach, Lizzette Pérez-Lespier

Masters Theses

"With international trade becoming a big part of the world's economic activity, the demand for good freight transportation systems has grown substantially. The appropriate use of transportation is an integral part of the supply chain's effectiveness. Therefore, the continuous economic globalization, the growing demand for speed-to-market product delivery, and the need to manage global supply chains more effectively, has led to the sustained increase in demand towards multimodal transportation systems (MTS). MTS play an essential role in corporations competing in global markets in the 21st century. In transportation, the effectiveness and efficiency of the whole system depends upon the interconnectivity …

Chemical Transformations Of Arylsulfonamide Molecular Crystals, Rajan Giri

Masters Theses

The pursuit of chemical specificity and efficiency of chemical reaction in molecular crystals has attracted considerable attention over the last decade. The successful control of molecular alignment prior to such transformations continues to provide opportunities for near quantitative yields of new materials. This thesis reports the predictable self-assembly of aryl sulfonamide materials constructed from cinnamic acid and phenylpentadienoic acid fragments capable of forming supramolecular dimers that undergo unique photocyclization reactions. Use of racemic and enantiopure single-component building-blocks provides access to enantiocontrolled [2+2] photodimerized products.

Solid-state reaction precursors were prepared using conventional solution-based synthetic organic techniques. Component chirality (racemic or homochiral) …

Determination Of Structural Stabilities Of Metal-Free Porphyrin Cytochrome C, Zinc Cytochrome C, And Cobalt Cytochrome C, Usha K. Tottempudi

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Internet Accessible Remote Real-Time Laboratory For Computer Networking Curriculum, Oyindamola Idowu

Masters Theses

Despite the availability of equipment required to teach hands-on laboratory practices in a computer networking curriculum, educators are faced with the challenge of extending such practices to students in remote locations. Distance learning has become a substantial part of the current education system, requiring institutes of learning adjusting from traditional face-to-face courses to content that can be carried out over the internet so that students can complete part or all the requirements for certain courses in an online modality. Unfortunately, traditional networking laboratories were designed with the assumption students will be physically present. This research is aimed to provide at …

Using Field Studies To Meet The Next Generation Science Standards, Amy Brown

Masters Theses

New science standards, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), recently have been released which require students to use modeling and other process skills and cross-cutting concepts to show understanding of core concepts. Understanding by design approach was used to develop an ecology curriculum in line with the NGSS framework, using field studies to involve students in real science. A schoolyard habitat area on Neoga School District property was used for the field studies. Students were assessed with pre- and post-tests, traditional classroom grades on labs and projects and the Modified ATSI and Children's Science Curiosity Scale. All students showed significant …

Crystal Structures Of Metal Sulfonates, Jon Lyle Obrecht

Masters Theses

Designing new materials with predictable chemical and physical properties has long been a goal of synthetic chemists. The functional properties of molecular compounds are intimately tied to the underlying chemical framework. In addition to atom selection and chemical connectivity, the spatial organization of the molecules often contributes to the function of materials. Because crystals are constructed of periodic arrays of components (i.e. atoms or molecules) with structures easily assessed via X-ray diffraction, crystalline materials offer ideal candidates to explore the relationship of component selection and crystal packing to material property.

One such property that has been extensively examined by …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The All Power Labs Power Pallet As A Training Tool For Biomass Gasification Education, Christopher Che Frederick

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to provide a better understanding of classroom training with regard to renewable energies. A lecture series and survey were developed by the principle researcher and presented to students in the Alternative and Renewable Energy Systems class and Machine Design class at Eastern Illinois University. The lecture series introduced students to biomass gasification and its application at Eastern Illinois University. The survey analyzed participant's level of knowledge of gasification technologies. The survey's pre and post test scores were used to validate the effectiveness of the training.

The All Power Labs Power Pallet was utilized as …

Systems Simulation Using Promodel: An Online Teaching Method, Gustavo Sioni Bosoli

Masters Theses

This study was designed with the purpose to create an online method to deploy the concepts and practical knowledge necessary for the course System Simulation {TEC 5523) offered by Eastern Illinois University. The course is currently offered on a hybrid format, with part of it being ministered in the classroom and the remaining on the online environment. This research focused on creating a set of multimedia and step-by-step lessons aimed to substitute the part of the course that demands the students to be present in the classroom. These lessons were developed based on exercises from the textbook currently used for …

Women Authors Of Technical Writing Textbooks From 1923 To 1973, Melissa Nicole Wampler

Masters Theses

"The published histories of technical writing textbooks do not usually include many women-authored textbooks. To find out why women-authored textbooks have been marginalized in these pedagogical histories, I selected seven women-authored textbooks and four men-authored textbooks published from 1923 to 1973, investigated the backgrounds of the authors and key features of their textbooks, and used the collected data to compare the women-authored textbooks to the men-authored textbooks. I was not able to find any reason why the women-authored textbooks have been or should be marginalized in histories of technical writing textbooks; however, my study had several limitations. My thesis begins …

Broad-Spectrum Antibacterial Properties Of Metal-Ion Doped Borate Bioactive Glasses For Clinical Applications, Megan Ottomeyer

Masters Theses

"Bioactive glasses with antimicrobial properties can be implemented as coatings on medical devices and implants, as well as a treatment for tissue repair and prevention of common hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA A borate-containing glass, B3, is also undergoing clinical trials to assess wound-healing properties. The sensitivities of various bacteria to B3, B3-Ag, B3-Ga, and B3-I bioactive glasses were tested. In addition, the mechanism of action for the glasses was studied by spectroscopic enzyme kinetics experiments, Live-Dead staining fluorescence microscopy, and luminescence assays using two gene fusion strains of Escherichia coli.

It was found that gram-positive bacteria were more …

Quantization Noise Analysis Of A Closed-Loop Pwm Controller That Includes Σ-Δ Modulation, Anupama Balakrishnan

Masters Theses

"Σ-Δ modulation is a popular noise shaping technique which is used to move the quantization noise out of the frequency band of interest. Recently, a number of authors have applied this technique to a pulse width modulation (PWM) controller for switching power converters. However, previous analysis has not incorporated the effects of analog-to-digital converter (ADC) resolution or feedback control on the Σ-Δ modulator. In this work, quantization due to ADC resolution and PWM resolution are analyzed, considering the effects of noise-shaping and feedback. A number of simulations have been performed to explore the impact of various design choices on output …

Security Analysis Of A Cyber Physical System : A Car Example, Jason Madden

Masters Theses

"Deeply embedded Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) are infrastructures that have significant cyber and physical components that interact with each other in complex ways. These interactions can violate a system's security policy, leading to the leakage of rights and unintended information flow. This thesis will explore information flow as it uses a public channel. In order to exemplify the use of the public channel, a vehicle being composed of the computer system and its operators will show how information is disclosed to an observer. The example is made up of a vehicle traveling across some terrain with an observer watching the …

Parameter Optimization For Controlling Aluminum Loss When Laser Depositing Ti-6al-4v, Richard Charles Barclay

Masters Theses

"The ability to predict the mechanical properties of engineering materials is crucial to the manufacturing of advanced products. In the aerospace industry, Ti-6Al-4V is commonly used to build structures. Any deviation from the alloy's standard properties can prove detrimental. Thus, the compositional integrity of the material must be controlled. The ability to directly build and repair large, complicated structures directly from CAD files is highly sought after. Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) technology has the potential to deliver that ability. Before this process can gain widespread acceptance, however, a set of process parameters must be established that yield finished parts of …

Robust Methods For Construction Of Global Potential Energy Surfaces, Phalgun Lolur

Masters Theses

"This thesis is about the development of robust methods for construction of global potential energy surfaces to study the spectroscopy and dynamics of molecular systems. A potential energy surface represents the electronic energy of a molecule as a function of its geometry. This is central to how chemists view molecular systems in terms of motion across a rich energy landscape where barriers separate wells corresponding to different stable structures. The range of molecular distortions defines the potential energy surface. Computing the potential energy surface of a molecule has become a fundamental operation in modern theoretical chemistry studies. The Born-Oppenheimer approximation …

Immersed Finite Element Method For Interface Problems With Algebraic Multigrid Solver, Wenqiang Feng

Masters Theses

"This thesis is to discuss the bilinear and 2D linear immersed finite element (IFE) solutions generated from the algebraic multigrid solver for both stationary and moving interface problems. In contrast to the body-fitting mesh restriction of the traditional finite element methods or finite difference methods for interface problems, a number of numerical methods based on structured meshes independent of the interface have been developed. When these methods are applied to the real world applications, we often need to solve the corresponding large scale linear systems many times, which demands efficient solvers. The algebraic multigrid (AMG) method is a natural choice …

Search-Based Model Summarization, Lokesh Krishna Ravichandran

Masters Theses

"Large systems are complex and consist of numerous components and interactions between the components. Hence managing such large systems is a cumbersome and time consuming task. Large systems are usually described at the model level. But the large number of components in such models makes it difficult to modify. As a consequence, developers need a solution to rapidly detect which model components to revise. Effective solution is to generate a model summary. Although existing techniques are powerful enough to provide good summaries based on lexical information (relevant terms), they do not make use of structural information (component structure) well. In …