Digital Commons Network^™

The Effects Of An Education Program On Women's Knowledge And Behavior During Menopause, Diana L. Stenger

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine if women's knowledge of perimenopause, menopause, and related health issues increased after participation in an educational workshop. The first objective was to determine if there was an increase in particip cipants' knowledge of physiological and psychological changes often experienced during perimenopause, menopause, and related health issues. Two further objectives were to determine if women reported learned treatment options and made any behavioral health changes to manage perimenopause, menopause, and related health issues, from attending the educational workshop, during a 3-month follow-up telephone survey. A quasiexperimental pre-test and post-test design involved a purposive …

The Influence Of Internet Pornography On Heterosexual Male University Students' Attitudes Toward Sexuality, Misty Baker

Masters Theses

The purpose of conducting this study was to explore heterosesexual male, Midwestern university students' attitudes regarding internet pornography. This study explored the use of internet pornography, with a specific focus on: a) the age of first exposure to internet pornography; b) the usage characteristics of internet pornography among heterosexual male university students; c) the sexual attitudes and beliefs toward women among heterosexual male university students;and d)the sexual activity history of heterosexual male university students. A 29-item questionnaire was designed by the researcher to explore exposure to internet pornography, sexual behavior, sexual attitudes, and attitudes toward forced sex. Fifty-five participants completed …

Communication And Authenticity: Transformations Of The Self In The Digital Age, John Dowd

Masters Theses

Through an examination of disembodied forms of communication and technological discourse, this project explores the concepts of authenticity and its implications for communication research. Situated within phenomenological notions of embodiment, authenticity can serve as an important tool for doing rhetorical criticism. It provides an ethical component to criticism that is sorely lacking within many social scientific approaches to the study of human communication, which operate under the guise of objectivity. As authenticity, subjectivity, and embodiment are inescapably connected and as all three provide the foundation for this project, chapter one provides a working definition of each. It is argued that …

High Stakes Assessments: Influencing Post-School Outcomes For Students With Disabilities, Lynn Holdheide

Masters Theses

Public reports during the last 20 years such as "A Nation at Risk," have criticized students' lack of knowledge and skills upon exit from high school with a diploma. As a result, federal policy initiatives spanning the last decade have focused on raising the nation's education standards. In 2001 the United States Congress enacted the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) as a significant education reform agenda to improve the quality of education and enforce accountability in the public schools. Mandates within the NCLB legislation have elevated standardized testing beyond a simple measurement of a student's skills to a broader …

Off The Welfare Rolls And Back Into Poverty: A Look At 11 Years Of Illinois Welfare Reform, Amber Williams

Masters Theses

In 1996, the Republican-lead 104th Congress passed into law the most sweeping welfare reforms the United States had experienced in 60 years. The legislation, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, ended the decades-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children welfare and instituted the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families system. The new system ended entitlements, cut benefits to legal immigrants, set a two-year time limit for people to receive welfare benefits without working, and a five-year lifetime limit. In Illinois, the time limits for receiving cash benefits cut thousands of people off of the welfare rolls in the years …

Toward Improving Performance Measurement In Public Sector Organizations, Matthew Thomas Kutz

Masters Theses

"The objective of this research is to investigate various means of improving the performance measurement methods for public sector organizations. A case study is conducted using data from the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). As a government organization, MoDOT must publish measurements of its performance for the general public and for the legislators who provide funding. Currently, MoDOT produces a quarterly publication, called the Tracker, for performance measurement reporting. This research hypothesizes that the Tracker is not an effective performance measurement system and stakeholders of MoDOT would benefit from a more concise and pointed report of MoDOT performance. A software …

Manufacturing Of High Performance Composites Using Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding, V. G. K. Menta

Masters Theses

"The objective of this research is to establish and enhance the existing Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) process to manufacture high performance composite parts usable in the aerospace industry.

Flat, hat, pi and multi stiffened panels have been manufactured by the VARTM process using AS4-5HS and AS4-8HS carbon fabric, and SI-ZG-5A low viscosity epoxy resin. Silicone-based reusable molds have been designed and developed to manufacture stiffened panels. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments of the SI-ZG-5A resin system were conducted to determine the storage modulus, loss modulus, and the glass transition temperature. The density and …

Screening New Cytokinesis Genes And Investigation Of Regulation Of Hof1 In Cytokinesis, Jung Eun Park

Masters Theses

"In 1996, a complete sequence of the budding yeast genome was completed and numerous studies begun to discover the function of genes. A primary concern of this study was to identify genes that may function in cytokinesis. Seven candidate genes were chosen, which were previously shown to localize to the bud neck, the site of cytokinesis, or interact with a protein that is involved in cytokinesis. Six of those uncharacterized genes, YHR149C, YLR187W, YOL070C, YMR124W, YPL158C, and YOR304C-A, were identified by data generated by GFP tagging of the yeast proteome. Data from a large-scale two-hybrid screen was used to identify …

Interactive And Dialogue Based Learning In Engineering Education, Siddartha Thummuri

Masters Theses

"This thesis focuses on a class room architecture that provides high levels of interactivity which enhances the students' learning environment both in distance and on-campus contexts and forms a basis for practical learning. Two analyses are presented in this thesis, the first one being a simple measure of levels of interactivity in this course architecture, based on rubric and the second one, a comparative analysis, to demonstrate the effectiveness of interactive (multi-directional information flow) classrooms as opposed to conventional (unidirectional information flow) classrooms and that this course architecture is ideal for enhancement of distance learning and an excellent route to …

An Exploratory Study Of The Videoblogger's Community, John Warmbrodt

Masters Theses

"Videoblogs (vlogs) have emerged as a new form of virtual community. The goal of this study was to explore and understand the videoblogger community by studying the community's structure and the motivations of vloggers"--Abstract, page iii.

Security Analysis Of A Cyber-Physical System, Han Tang

Masters Theses

"Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are an integration of computing and physical processes. Information flow is an inherent property of CPSs and is of particular interest at their cyber-physical boundaries. This thesis focuses on discovering information flow properties and proposes a process to model the information flow in CPSs. A Cooperating FACTS Power System serves as a tangible example to illustrate modeling information flow using the proposed process. The proposed process can be used to model the information flow security, help analyze current information flow security requirements, and aid in the design of further security policies in CPS"--Abstract, page iii.

Terahertz Data Processing For Standoff Detection Of Improvised Explosive Devices, Amit Bipin Shah

Masters Theses

"Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are homemade, non-conventional explosive devices, which are used to destruct and incapacitate individuals and property. IEDs are becoming a popular weapon of attack among terrorists and insurgents due to their easy of making and capability to cause major damage. Hence, is has become necessary to develop efficient systems for detecting and disarming these devices. The Terahertz technology which uses electromagnetic radiations between 0.3 THz to 10 THz for imaging is one of the most recently developed detection techniques and is ideally suitable for detection of IEDs and similar devices. Although a lot of work has been …

Selective Laser Sintering Of Stearic Acid-Coated Alumina Ceramic, Jason J. Nolte

Masters Theses

"The purpose of this research is to develop a process that will enable a Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) machine to create geometrically complex green parts of various sizes that become strong, dense ceramic parts after sintering. This will be applicable to SLS systems already operational in industry, and may offer a more cost-effective, more time-efficient method for producing high-temperature ceramic rapid prototype parts. Alumina was the chosen ceramic for the developmental stage of this research. Fine alumina powder (average particle size of 0.4 µm) was coated with stearic acid, which served as a binder. Green parts were made from this …

Performance Improvements Of Automobile Communication Protocols In Electromagnetic Interference Environments, Fei Ren

Masters Theses

"Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) is frequently encountered in automobile communication systems due to a large number of inductive nodes used in these systems. This thesis investigates the effects of EMI on two types of automobile communication systems, the Controller Area Network (CAN) and the FlexRay. It also proposes a modified Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) scheme to improve the communication performances in EMI environments"--Abstract, page iii.

Fast Sphere Decoder For Mimo Systems, Praveen G. Krishnan

Masters Theses

"This work focuses on variants of the conventional sphere decoding technique for Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) systems. Space Time Block Codes (STBC) have emerged as a popular way of transmitting data over multiple antennas achieving the right balance between diversity and spatial multiplexing. The Maximum Likelihood (ML) technique is a conventional way of decoding the transmitted information from the received data, but at the cost of increased complexity. The sphere decoder algorithm is a sub-optimal decoding technique that is computationally efficient achieving a ;symbol error rate that is dependent on the initial radius of the sphere. In this thesis, …

Fine Particle Classification Using Dilute Fluidized Beds, Rajasekharan Pillai Annapoorneswari

Masters Theses

"The main objective of this project is to classify spherical soda-lime glass particles based on their size using a dilute fluidized bed system. The influence of inclined plates in the column, plate separation, plate inclination, and number of plates on the overall separation efficiency of particles will be investigated. The effect of column shape on the classification efficiency will also be assessed"--Introduction, page 3.

Development Of A Liquid Injection Propane System For Spark-Ignited Engines Via Fuel Temperature Control, Brian Charles Applegate

Masters Theses

"This work describes the development of a thermally controlled liquid propane injection system...A liquid fuel system, as described in this work, offers power gains over vaporized fuel introduction due to the ability to use the heat of vaporization from the vaporizing fuel to cool the intake charge and improve the volumetric efficiency of the engine. This system uses temperature to control the state of the fuel in the fuel system"--Introduction, page 1.

A Real Time Operating System Based Test-Bed For Autonomous Vehicle Navigation, Pravin Dhake

Masters Theses

"Research and experiments on ... Autonomous Navigation Schemes and Algorithms need an efficient test-bed for objective performance analysis. These algorithms often require sensor inputs from the systems such as the speed and steering sensors to apply feedback control action. An efficient test-bed provides status of all sensors and records of all previous sensor values is very desirable. This work involves developing for such a test-bed to support research on Autonomous Navigation schemes and Algorithms involved in these applications. Different approaches are analyzed and an optimum approach to design test-bed is implemented"--Abstract, page iii.

Modular Architecting For Effects Based Operations, Emel Meteoglu

Masters Theses

"Effects Based Operations (EBO) is a way of thinking for planning, executing and assessing any operations for the effects they produce, rather than dealing with actions, targets or even objectives. The literature on EBO has been growing day by day; however, there is still a need for modeling techniques and tools that provide more efficient and effective effects based assessment, planning and analysis in order to further develop the capabilities of the operations. In this context, this thesis presents an introduction to EBO by focusing on its methodology, its challenges and also its applicability in different systems. Moreover, this thesis …

The Importance And Influence Of Groundwater Fluctuations In Phytoremediation, Jeff A. Weishaar

Masters Theses

"The primary purpose of this research is to study the relationship between microbial degradation and plant uptake of volatile hydrocarbons, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. While these compounds are known to biodegrade and are capable of transport into plant tissue, any relationship between the two removal mechanisms remains largely unknown. The goal of this work is to better understand the interactions of these multiple biological processes within a phtytoremediation effort"--Introduction, page 3.

Antimicrobial Activities Of Aldehydes And Ketones Produced During Rapid Volatilization Of Biogenic Oils, Aruna Lamba

Masters Theses

"The overall objective of the research presented in this thesis was to evaluate the antimicrobial properties of commercially available neat compounds in order to validate the analytes which were found in the smoke generated during rapid volatilization of biogenic oil esters and mineral oils. To attain this objective various analytes were selected from the analytical data provided for the smoke, and neat compounds were purchased. A special desiccator was designed to conduct experiments. Simultaneously vapor phase concentration of the neat compounds was determined to establish relation between neat compounds and the analytes found in smoke. Other part of the thesis …

Dancing Through Film Musicals: Narratives In Motion, Dara Phillips

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to discover if and how dance communicates vital plot and character information nonverbally. The example analyzed was the film Singin’ in the Rain. This thesis examined the six dance sequences in the film to determine if the dancing is an integral, powerful, and significant communicative addition to the film. Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm was used in conjunction with Seymour Chatman’s concept of kernels and satellites to determine if the dances communicated significantly to the film’s viewers. The Narrative Paradigm, though loosely framed, provided the concepts of coherence and fidelity. These concepts helped determine if …

Nonprofit Arts Organizations In Grand Rapids, Michigan: An Exploratory Study, Ruth Terry

Masters Theses

To date little research at the local level has been conducted regarding arts and cultural nonprofits. This information is necessary to determine the future course of this sub-sector in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The purpose of this survey is to create a “snapshot” of area nonprofit 501(c)(3) arts agencies and provide information to arts professionals, arts advocates, and policymakers. Through a review of the literature, questions for an exploratory survey were generated. Findings show that participants in this sample found the local arts community and their own financial systems effective. However, additional findings and other studies show that further investigation is …

Computer Model To Select Leed Certification For Building Projects, Ruba Mirghani Mohammed

Masters Theses

According to the US Green Building Council (USGBC) residential and commercial buildings in the United State consume huge amounts of natural resources; pollute the environment, and generate large amounts of waste, all of which affect the environment, economy, public health, and productivity. As a result, USGBC committees developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system to help professionals improve the quality of buildings and lessen their impact on the environment.

The (LEED) Green Building Rating System is a point-based system for certifying the level of a building's sustainability. There are four LEED certification categories: (1) Certified, (2) …

Expression And Characterization Of Hyperthermophilic Aqujfex Pyrophilus Flagellin Protein In Mesophilic Bacterial Systems, Srivani V. Mukkamala

Masters Theses

The structural protein flagellin, FlaA derived from hyperthermophilic Aquifex pyrophilus, a rod shaped eubacterial species that grows near hydrothermal vents at an optimum growth temperature of 85 °C forms elongated thermostable flagella nanotubes. FlaA was successfully over-expressed for the first time using pET28c plasmid in E. coli BL21 cells at 37 °C. The protein was isolated from inclusion bodies that were solubilized by alkaline pH, refolded by dialysis and purified by chromatographic techniques. The FlaA was characterized by fluorescence, light scattering and circular dichroism. The FlaA was not in the correct folded form to form flagella as efforts to …

Where Are The News Media Role Models? A Study Of Skepticism Of The Mainstream News Media Among Communications Graduate Students, Lindsey J. Hugelier

Masters Theses

Recent research has shown that the consequences of news media skepticism can lead the public to disbelieve facts, have differing opinions about important issues, and to choose non-mainstream media sources to receive information. These reactions can be dangerous for the news media industry. It is important to gauge if communications graduate students, potential future media professionals, mistrust the mainstream news media. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between skepticism of the mainstream news media and news choices of communications graduate students. The author surveyed 76 communications graduate students at Grand Valley State University. Results showed that …

First Year Resident Assistant Retention At Grand Valley State University, Karl Rishe

Masters Theses

The following study investigated the perceptions of resident assistants at Grand Valley State University in regards to retention rates of first year resident assistants. The study looked for links between cognitive dissonance about the resident assistant position and the intent to return to the position the following year. The study was qualitative by nature, asking a series of questions to first-year resident assistants concerning job responsibilities, perceptions of the position before applying and while in the position, and their relationship with their supervisor.

There were few studies found that addressed resident assistant retention or how the perception of the resident …

Investigation Of The Effects Of A Rapid Response Team On Nurse Satisfaction, Collaboration, And Communication, Jacob William Ainsworth

Masters Theses

The positive effects of Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) on clinical outcomes are well known; however little is known about the effects of the RRT on the registered nurses (RNs) who utilize it. The purpose of this study was to a) examine the overall perceptions of nurses on satisfaction, collaboration, and communication and b) explore the differences in perceptions of satisfaction, collaboration, and communication between RNs who have utilized the RRT versus those who have not using a descriptive design. Data were collected by questionnaires from a sample of 340 RNs who worked at a midwestem institution. The results indicated a …

Human Trafficking: A Theoretical Application Of Anomie On The Tier Placement System Utilized By The U.S. Department Of State’S “Trafficking In Persons” Report, Jennifer L. Melvin

Masters Theses

This study reviews the U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report. Specifically, the purpose of the current study is to utilize data, consistent with anomic theory, in order to assess the validity of the tier plaeement system utilized by the Trafficking in Person’s Report. In order to develop a baseline of information, a review of the literature available on human trafficking was conducted. Subsequently, through the employment of various statistical analyses (i.e. ANOVA, logistic regression), an examination of the Trafficking in Person’s Report was conducted in order to assess the validity of the tier placement system in accordance with …

Ayatollah Khomeini And The Islamic Revolution In Iran, Dustin John Byrd

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the events leading up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the role of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in bringing about that revolution. It attempts to demonstrate the social, psychological, political, and religious factors that led to the rise of Khomeini as the leader of the revolution. It furthermore focuses on Khomeini's strategy to oppose, destabilize, and eventually overthrow the Shah of Iran through various means. This thesis is limited to the study of Khomeini as a revolutionary figure, not as a head of state, and therefore I do not examine Khomeini after the overthrow of the …