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The Alternate Incentive To Early Teacher Retirement, Vernon Dean Guinn

Masters Theses

The major emphasis of the study was to formulate an answer to the question being asked by the study group under the Illinois Project for School Reform, "How to improve the quality of teachers within the school system?" Specifically, this study analyzed the results of a study done by the Planning and Research Department of the State Board of Education, prepared in April 1977. Under this study's proposal, four areas of substantial disincentives were identified as reasons for teachers not taking early retirement. The age discrimination effect has since been overcome with early retirement incentives now being offered in many …

Anatomy Of A Strike, Elizabeth Ann Johnson

Masters Theses

This field experience is a historical examination of events and conditions leading up to and including the strike of 1982 between the teachers and the Paris, Illinois School District 195. A review of the literature parallels many of the conditions that led up to and were present in the Paris strike and its settlement. It also emphasized the relationship of unionism with the rise of teacher militancey.

This field study consists of six chapters. Chapter one is concerned with the overview of the problem. Chapter two reviews the historical background of labor unions, and the rise of teacher unions from …

Cooperating Teacher Training: Proposals For A Needs Assessment, Program Design, And Evaluation, Ingrid J. Murray

Masters Theses

The period of student teaching is the most vital part of the pre-service training of a teacher, and the college supervisor and the cooperating teachers play important roles in the preparation program. Research studies indicate that many classroom teachers act as cooperating teachers with no preparation for the role. Because of the growing trend to provide more clinical experiences for student teachers, there is a need for an appropriate orientation in the form of instructional programs for the growing number of cooperating teachers. It was with this concern in mind that the present study was undertaken.

Since cooperating teacher education …

Analysis And Trends Of Education And Employment: 1985 Fountain Central High School Graduates, Beverly J. Shelton

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived quality of education and the employment expectations of the 1985 graduates of Fountain Central High School and to gather current statistics on those graduates. Subjects comprised 103 graduates of a rural, west central Indiana public high school. The graduates were administered a survey to determine opinions and perceptions of education received, to determine whether they were employed or continuing their education, and to determine what trends may be developing or maintained.

Today' s students reflect a much wider range of preparation, as indicated by grades and class rank. The test …

Instruction And Entertainment: Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, Marco L. Bergandi

Masters Theses

The "Nun's Priest's Tale" is one of the most entertaining stories in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales--it is captivating, witty, and amusing--but it is also one of the most instructive in the entire collection. In fact, the Nun's Priest himself emphasizes the instructional purpose of his tale by telling his listeners "Taketh the moralite, goode men" (NPT 3440), advising them to look for the points he makes in his narration.

Although the Nun's Priest never explicitly states the "moralite" of his tale, many scholars have taken his advice seriously and searched for its instruction on their own. Approaching it from a …

The Free Negro In Illinois Prior To The Civil War, 1818-1860, Steven J. Savery

Masters Theses

Free Negroes embodied one of the great dilemmas in the ante-bellum history of the state of Illinois. Nominally a free state, Illinois endeavored mightily to suppress, exclude, and dispose of a class of people who were the ultimate result of the anti-slavery movement. While a majority of Illinoisans deemed the peculiar institution undesirable, they had no intention of accepting free Negroes as equal citizens. Free blacks were often regarded as dangerous and a menace to the well-being of the entire society. Yet, Illinois reconciled its apparently contradictory views on slavery and the free Negro to a remarkable degree.

The reconciliation …

Wit And Humor In Asl, Keila Tooley

Masters Theses

In his article "Linguistics and the Study of Poetic Language," Stankewicz (1960) characterizes poetic organization as "completely embedded in language and fully determined by its possibilities." The purpose of this study is to examine the form that poetic function assumes in a language that itself has a structural organization fundamentally different from that of oral languages and in which, accordingly, the possibilities for poetic organization are radically different.

In wit and poetry, elements of form and meaning—a linguistic system--are used to create complex multi-layered expressions with multiple meanings and systems of form and meaning. Similarities--and differences—in form, function and meaning …

The Battle Of The Wills In Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, Ruth M. Cook

Masters Theses

Throughout the 400 pages of the first installment of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, the heroine vies with at least three important people for the right to govern herself. Her brother, James Harlowe, Jr., is leader of the large extended family unit and is aiming at family aggrandisement by forcing Clarissa to marry a wealthy but odious man, Roger Solmes. Clarissa's mother, Mrs. Harlowe, aims at family peace, hoping to coax Clarissa into the same sort of obedience to patriarchal authority that she has adopted as her lifestyle. Robert Lovelace, a debonair young rake, aims at gaining total control of Clarissa, …

Assembly Process To Collective Behavior Episodes, Karen M. Glumm

Masters Theses

There have been three major reviews of the field of collective behavior out of which have come a challenge for future research. In response to that challenge this thesis is the investigation of growth and dispersal patterns of one short-range non-periodic extemporaneous gathering from beginning to end.

A brief review of the literature will be presented to focus on what has been done with regard to collective behavior episodes. The research has been somewhat limited and has tended to focus on retrospective accounts rather than on-the-spot interviews and observation.

The research for this thesis was conducted on the day of …

The Effects Of Various Adenosine And Xanthine Analogues On Mammalian Sperm Motility, Daniel Joseph Cushing

Masters Theses

Caffeine, theophylline, and a number of other xanthine analogues have been shown to stimulate the motility of mammalian spermatozoa. The mechanism by which these compounds act was assumed to be cAMP phosphodiesterase inhibition. However, it has recently been shown that many of the responses elicited by alkylxanthines and their analogues in various tissues are not the result of cAMP phosphodiesterase inhibition but by antagonism of endogenous adenosine. Using the recently described transmembrane migration method this study observed the effect of a number of xanthine and adenosine analogues on mammalian sperm motility. The hypothesis to be tested was that the increase …

Factors Affecting The Predator-Prey Relationship Between Predaceous Diving Beetle Larvae (Dytiscus Fasciventris) And Two Anuran Tadpole Species (Bufo Americanus And Hyla Crucifer), Todd S. Campbell

Masters Theses

It has previously been demonstrated that American toad (Bufo americanus) tadpoles are more vulnerable to predation by diving beetle larvae (Dytiscus fasciventris) than are spring peeper (Hyla crucifer) tadpoles. A laboratory study was undertaken to further delineate factors that contribute to the differential vulnerability observed. Beetle larvae are more effective tadpole predators in shallow, than in deep, water and appear to prefer to adopt a "sit-and-wait" predator strategy while clinging to emergent vegetation. Depth preference experiments in the laboratory indicated that both tadpole species prefer deep areas to shallow areas irrespective of whether a …

Mating Behavior Of The Giant Waterbug Belostoma Flumineum Say, Janet E. Ruppert

Masters Theses

Sexual selection theory predicts that in the few species where males make a larger parental investment than females and limit female reproduction, females should court and compete for males (i.e. we should observe "sex-role reversal"--Trivers, 1972). These predictions were tested in the laboratory with the giant waterbug Belostoma flumineum Say (Hemiptera: Belostomatidae) . Males of this species characteristically carry and brood eggs on their dorsa, thus making a substantial parental investment.

The courtship sequence in "one male:one female" pairings began with the male "pumping" (rapidly raising and lowering his abdomen at the water's surface). This presumably attracted the female, …

An Analysis Of Waterfowl Hunter Activity And Harvest On Selected Public Hunting Areas In Illinois, Gary E. Potts

Masters Theses

Hunter activity and waterfowl harvest were studied on 11 public waterfowl hunting areas (PHA) in Illinois which utilized 1, 2, or 3-year duck blind allocation systems from 1979-1983. The number of individual hunters, man-days, and average man-days hunted per season varied for each area in each year. The average man-days hunted per season for all study areas was 5.7 with a range of 4.4 to 6.4. Highly significant correlations existed between blind-days and man-days (r=.99), blind-days and man-hours (r=.97), and man-days and man-hours (r=.98) suggesting that the three variables are equally valid for evaluating hunter activity. On 1-year duck blind …

The Use Of Traditional Articulation Tests In Phonological Analysis, Teri L. Moser

Masters Theses

Phonological analysis is an established, comprehensive, and effective means of assessing the speech patterns of unintelligible children. However, many practicing speech-language pathologists have not incorporated this procedure into their diagnostic batteries and continue to use traditional articulation tests because of convenience and familiarity of the tests (Garber, 1984). If articulation tests could be modified to assess phonological simplification processes, speech-language pathologists may be more likely to use this method of speech analysis. The purpose of this study was to determine if traditional articulation tests employing a phonological analysis procedure are a valid measure of phonological simplification processes.

This study compared …

What's On Tv? A Demonstration Of The Utility Of Contextualism And Content Analysis In Mass Media Research, Craig P. Gaumer

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis has been to develop, test and utilize a reliable method to quantify the prevalence of pro- and anti-social behavior on children's television as assessed from a contextualist perspective. Many previous studies in the area of television have arbitrarily assigned either pro- or anti-social labels to television programs without the benefit of analyzing the content of these programs

The few studies that have attempted to analyze the pro- and anti-social content of children's television have used only physical parameters to define pro- or anti-social behavior. Through the development of a reliable method of analyzing the contextually …

The Relationship Between Moist-Soil Plant Seed Production And Drawdown Date In An East-Central Illinois Subimpoundment Managed For Waterfowl Hunting, Jeffrey M. Ver Steeg

Masters Theses

Faced with increasing costs and decreasing federal funds, wildlife managers are turning towards more energy effecient and economical methods of attracting fall migrating waterfowl. The production of food by natural moist-soil plants can be encouraged in low lying areas by timely dewatering and reflooding. This study was designed to determine which of two drawdown dates would result in the greatest seed production by plants known to be valuable waterfowl foods.

A late July 1984 drawdown in an east-central Illinois subimpoundment produced significantly more smartweed (Polygonum spp.) and pigweed (Amaranthus tamariscinus) seed than did a late March 1985 drawdown. …

A New Automated Pulse Testing Analysis Method Applying Inflection Point Theory, Jose Maria Donoso

Masters Theses

"This paper describes a new technique for pulse test analysis that combines the simplicity of the tangent method with the result repeatability of the iterative methods. Inflection points are used instead of time lag with the added advantage that they are calculated by a simple algorithm and are not subject to graphical misinterpretation. Charts are made for the calculation of transmissibility and storage for unequal pulse and shut-in periods from 0.1 to 0.9 relating inflection time to pulse response amplitude and dimensionless inflection time.

The graphs presented for this technique have the same dimensionless cycle period ranges (from 0.44 to …

A New Basin Characteristic For Use In Estimating Impervious Area And Flood Discharges In Urban Missouri Basins, Rodney E. Southard

Masters Theses

"A previous regression analysis of flood peaks on urban basins in St. Louis County, Missouri, indicated that the percentage of impervious area and drainage area were the only basin characteristics of statistical significance in estimating the 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, and 100-year peak-flow discharges at ungaged urban basins. In this statewide regression analysis of urban basins, a new basin characteristic called the percentage of developed area was computed and used in a simple regression analysis. The regression analysis included percentage of developed area as the independent variable and impervious area as the dependent variable, resulting in a simplified procedure …

A Data Structure For The Use Of Patterns In The Perceptual Ordering Of The Game Of Chess, Russ L. Hanna

Masters Theses

"It is well known that the way one perceives a problem can influence the difficulty of solving the problem in a profound way. In the case of computer chess playing programs, one finds that most programs perceive the game in much the same way. They are all based on Shannon's original proposal for chess playing programs. His approach was to generate all of the possible combinations of moves up to a certain number of plays and then a subset of all combinations to a deeper level thereafter. Each of these moves would then be evaluated as to its relative worth. …

A Computerized Audio-Visual Speech Model, Joaquin Alberto Vila Ruiz

Masters Theses

"This thesis describes an expert system able to animate (graphically) and reproduce (acoustically) a text in any language which uses the Latin alphabet. A rule editor has been developed to create and modify the set of letter-to-sound rules of the target language. A parser has been implemented to apply the set of rules and translate text-to-speech. Each phoneme has a unique sound and thus requires its particular positioning of the vocal organs which are displayed in two different projections: a front view and a profile cross view of a human face in synchronization with the output sounds of the speech …

Electron Transitions In Multiply-Charged Ion-Helium Collisions, M. Lou Mckenzie

Masters Theses

"A classical model for He using the Classical Trajectory Monte Carlo method is developed to study multiply charged ions colliding with He at intermediate energies. Reactions studied are single and double electron capture and ionization and electron capture-ionization for projectile charge states q = +1 to +50. The dominant collision process is single ionization. Charge exchange is found to be a two-electron process, where one electron is ionized and one is captured by the projectile. We find our calculations to be in good agreement with available experimental data, supporting our interpretations of the collision mechanisms"-- Abstract, p. iii

Fuel Loading For A Low-Leakage Core In A Pressurized Water Reactor, Omar Ivan Aguilar

Masters Theses

"A study of low-leakage core fuel loading as a means to reduce fast neutron flux incident upon the pressure vessel is presented. The specific case under study is Cycle 5 of Arkansas Nuclear One - Unit Two (ANO-2), a Combustion Engineering Pressurized Water Reactor. Neutron transport calculations were performed using the DOT two-dimensional transport code. The results from DOT provide the angular distribution of the fast neutron flux at the surface of the pressure vessel.

Seven different fuel loading schemes were studied and compared to the Reference Case. The angular distribution of the fast neutron flux for all cases studied …

Genesis Of An Expert System For Umr Degree Auditing, Ruth Sue Dare

Masters Theses

"This paper describes the features, design, and development of an expert system for degree auditing at the University of Missouri--Rolla. It summarizes artificial intelligence as it is known today while specifically addressing expert systems. It describes selected expert systems currently in existence.

The present audit procedure utilized at the University of Missouri--Rolla is discussed. A description is given of the design and development of an expert system, written in LISP, to conduct a degree audit. Finally there are concluding remarks which include an analysis of the system and a discussion of possible system enhancement"--Abstract, page ii.

Mica: Prototyping An Expert System Consultant, Joseph Howard Marchal

Masters Theses

"The United States, as the world's largest producer and consumer of scrap and flake mica, has an obvious economic interest in applications of artificial intelligence technology that would expedite beneficiation of mica. In the fall of 1985, personnel of the Tuscaloosa and Rolla research centers of the Bureau of Mines and of the University of Missouri--Rolla, Institute for Artificial Intelligence started the following long term research project: Develop an Expert System Consultant for the three basic stages of mica beneficiation: Stage 1: characterization of the material; Stage 2: treatment to obtain a concentrate; and Stage 3: evaluation of the resulting …

Experimental Investigation Of The Effect Of Geological Discontinuity Conditions Of Rock Splitting By Blasting, Shijie Qu

Masters Theses

"A series of modal scale, two borehole splitting test blasts was geometrically designed both with concrete and with Plexiglas. The discontinuities were all symetrically located midway between split holes and were oriented perpendicular to the desired split plane. Sand and clay filled discontinuities of 1/16, 1/8 and 1/4 inch width, and closed discontinuities were used. Both discontinuity frequency and width generally reduced the maximum successful split-hole spacing. The regularity and integrity of the split profile became poorer as the discontinuities were closer to the boreholes and the discontinuity width became greater, due to the cratering effect which occurred from the …

The Homodyne Interferometer And Its Use In Finding The Optical Properties Of Graphite, Steven Randle Frey

Masters Theses

"An interferometer based on the principle of homodyning can be used to measure the reflectance of solid samples at microwave frequencies. These measurements provide the low frequency values needed for a Kramers-Kronig analysis. This analysis yields the complex dielectric function, e₁⁺ ie₂, and complex index of refraction, n + ik, of the solid. 2 This interferometer was tested on a pressed pellet sample of powdered Dixon 200-10 graphite and yielded satisfactory results. Also investigated were two different methods of signal modulation: mechanical chopping and a rotating wire grid polarizer" Abstract, p. ii

An Experimental Investigation Of Electrochemical Memory Cells, Timothy Jules Martin

Masters Theses

"An experimental electrochemical memory cell was constructed using a Pt cathode, Cu anode, and CuS0₄ electrolyte. The mechanism of operation of this cell consisted of plating and stripping of Cu from the Pt cathode. A cathode surface area of l.33 X 10^-4 cm² required approximately 700 μs to store 5 monolayers of Cu, writing time. The access time would be the time required to measure the Pt/Cu potential and was undetermined. Fifteen seconds were projected to oxidize the plated copper, producing loss of information, resulting in poor volatility characteristics of the cell. However, this electrochemical memory cell …

The Effect Of Oxygen Partial Pressure On Oxygen And Carbon Incorporation In Czochralski Grown Single Crystal Silicon, Paul Shane Carter

Masters Theses

"The study herein detailed was made to determine the effect of varying the oxygen partial pressure of a Czochralski type crystal pulling furnace using conventional hardware and remelt silicon on the level of incorporated oxygen and carbon in the single crystal. The oxygen partial pressure was measured by a zirconia type oxygen sensor and controlled by additions of hydrogen or carbon dioxide to the argon purge gas. The oxygen and carbon incorporation measurements were made by the Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) method, using the American Standard for Testing Materials (ASTM) standard calibration.

During the study boules which were zero dislocation …

Music: A Nursing Intervention For Increased Intracranial Pressure, Carol Roberts

Masters Theses

Individuals with increased intracranial pressure (ICP) from all causes are subject to periods of marked increased intracranial pressures. Research since the 1960's has focused primarily on pathophysiologic causes and on variations between pathologies. Since 1978, nursing research has identified increases in ICP with patient-related activities such as suctioning, vagal stimulations, positioning, turning, noises, and emotive conversations. The use of therapeutic touch has been identified as a nursing intervention that correlates with a lowering of ICP. Since auditory pathways have been shown to be intact even in severely brain-injured individuals, the use of music (the universal language) may be effective in …

Patient Perception Of Severity Versus Actual Clinical Severity In Acute Myocardial Infarction (Coronary Care, Cardiac Rehabilitation), Denise Kay Busman

Masters Theses

Myocardial infarction affects many people each year. Patients begin to form ideas regarding their myocardial infarction and perceive elements of their environment shortly after admission to the Coronary Care Unit (Runions, 1985). One of the ideas formed concerns the severity level of their myocardial infarction. The pupose of this study was to identify factors contributing to patients' perceptions of the severity level of their myocardial infarction and in turn compare these perceptions with predicted clinical severity. Numerous studies have explored patients' psychosocial reactions and adaptation to coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction. However, few studies identify patients' perceptions of events …