Digital Commons Network^™

Alive, Heran Hao

Theses

My thesis film, "Alive", is a 30-minute short action fiction film. It's about a former police sketch artist who got engaged to his girlfriend just before they were involved in a sudden auto accident. During his search for the driver, the police artist discovers that the accident was actually a deliberate act. The film deals with is the issues of forgiveness and guilt.

The film was shot with a Canon C300 and a Steadicam, sound-mixed with 5.1 surrounding stereo sound technology.

In this essay, I will describe my experience with the entire process, from production at the very beginning, when …

A Conjoint Analysis Of The Value Of Book Covers In E-Book Buying Decisions, Holly Rollins

Theses

The objective of this Thesis was to determine the relative value of the cover design, price, and customer rating (e-book attributes) to consumers of science fiction or fantasy e-books. The motivation for this research was that the way we shop for digital books is different from the way we shop for print books. This led authorities to take positions as different as "[Book covers are] dead because the way we touch digital books is different than the way we touch physical books," (Mod, 2012), and "[Typographic covers] are one way to go," (Bridle, 2010).

A conjoint analysis was designed to …

High Performance Implementation Of Support Vector Machines Using Opencl, Ethan Peters

Theses

Support Vector Machines are a machine learning approach that is well studied, thoroughly vetted and effective in a large number of applications. The objective of this thesis is to accelerate an implementation of Support Vector Machines (SVM) using a heterogeneous computing system programmed using OpenCL in C/C++. LIBSVM, a widely-available, popular and open source implementation of SVM is chosen, allowing the presented work to be integrated seamlessly into existing systems. The proposed framework is evaluated in terms of speed and accuracy when performing training and classification on a number of standard data sets. Testing was based on two work station …

Samantha’S Dilemma: A Look Into A Life With Ai, Thomas Bojarski

Theses

In this paper, I propose a thought experiment, “Samantha’s Dilemma,” which captures the complexity of determining whether moral considerations can be attributed to artificial intelligence (AI). Deciding whether or not we attribute autonomous freedom to artificial beings lays the foundation, not only for our relationships with AI, but with any ‘intelligent’ species we encounter in the future. By analyzing several core arguments regarding the treatment of artificial beings, I will show that abandoning our predominant self-serving tendencies and choosing not to limit the potentiality of autonomous AI is not only the safest course of action, but also the morally correct …

Crush, Tirumalaimuttu Shanmugam

Theses

"Crush" is a 3D Animated Short Film about a kid who gets lost in

his own world of imagination after any typical crush. JoJo, plays the

protagonist in this film. He desires the attention of his classmate PoPo, to propose his interest towards her. After receiving a positive response from her, he gets lost in a dream world. When his heroic exploits in this dream state go awry, Popo loses interest in him. Before Jojo can gain insight from this experience he receives a wink from MoMo. Undoubtedly her attention will send him into another daydream.

Feasibility Studies On Future Exchange Of Agricultural Commodities In Kosovo, Lorez Qehaja

Theses

The agriculture sector in Kosovo is a sector that has great potential to contribute to the economic development of Kosovo. Being a developing country, with a high trade imbalance, Kosovo’s focus is to increase country’s export and try to meet 100% of the local demand with local products. The aim of this paper is to investigate the possibility of creating a regulatory office in Kosovo that would initiate the agriculture commodities futures exchange. The main purpose is to study the possibility of Kosovo to develop such market based on its economic indicators and market features. Three main categories of agricultural …

Sweater, Pei-Chin Chien

Theses

Sweater is a 13 minute short film focusing on the relationship between a mother and a son. Molly, as a single mother, spends most of her time working to support her family but, meanwhile, it deprives her from being with her son, Eden. Gradually, there seems to be a gap between Molly and Eden, and neither of them can get close to each other.

However, Eden finds out accidently that his father, Jacob, is actually alive, which forces Molly to tell Eden the reason why she lied to him. Thus, Eden knows that Molly is a lesbian and realizes that …

Let Me Go, Keqing Yu

Theses

This paper is about how my graduation project 3D animation short Let Me Go was developed and produced. The whole process consists of pre-production, production and post-production. It starts with story study and development by analyzing story structure of several animation shorts. Then it talks about experience and process building story for Let Me Go. Next it is design process for character and environment including 2d concept design and 3d model in Autodesk Maya. During production process, this paper focuses on introducing several rigging techniques and explains why to choose them for animation process. Then some rendering and lighting techniques. …

The Undertow, Xiaoqing Yue

Theses

Seventeen-year-old high-school girl Jessa believes，after her final year of high school, she can leave this small boring town to open up a new and bright life. She grew up in a single family with her mother who is a restaurant service manager. Jessa's mother, Margit, was pregnant before she went to college. In order to raise the little Jessa, Margit gave up studying in college. The only method Jessa can pay the tuition is getting the scholarships for swimming. She thinks she can win one until she finds herself pregnant. The baby's father is Ethan; Jessa met him at a …

Plant Responses To Increased Experimental Nitrogen Deposition In A Boreal Peatland, Meaghan Petix

Theses

Increased nitrogen (N) deposition onto boreal peatlands and forests is anticipated with further expansion of Alberta's oil sands industry and consequently, an increase in sources of nitrogen oxide emissions. Increased N deposition has the potential to affect peatland flora and alter N cycling patterns in peatlands, therefore it is imperative to investigate at what level of excess N deposition these effects take place. This thesis discusses results from the first two years of a five year N fertilization study being conducted at a peatland complex near the hamlet of Mariana Lake in northeastern Alberta, Canada aimed at quantifying the N …

Towards 3d Matching Of Point Clouds Derived From Oblique And Nadir Airborne Imagery, Ming Zhang

Theses

Because of the low-expense high-efficient image collection process and the rich 3D and texture information presented in the images, a combined use of 2D airborne nadir and oblique images to reconstruct 3D geometric scene has a promising market for future commercial usage like urban planning or first responders. The methodology introduced in this thesis provides a feasible way towards fully automated 3D city modeling from oblique and nadir airborne imagery.

In this thesis, the difficulty of matching 2D images with large disparity is avoided by grouping the images first and applying the 3D registration afterward. The procedure starts with the …

Interlanguage Idiomatics:The Acquisition Of English Idioms By Saudi Learners, Halah Banjar

Theses

Mastery of idioms in a second language is an important part of learners' lexical and cultural competence. This study provided insights into the processes that partake in interlanguage idiomatics. It also looked at the role of participants' first language in the comprehension and production of idioms in their second language. Participants were 31 Saudi graduate students' who were learners of English. They were tested in receptive and productive knowledge of 15 English idioms of three types of idiomatic expressions: a) English idioms which have their exact equivalents in Arabic; b) English idioms which are similarly expressed in both languages, and …

Energy Drinks: Factors That Influnce College Students' Consumption, Nameer Nassir Faris

Theses

The purposes of this study were: To assess factors that influence energy drink consumptions among college students. To analyze the reasons behind consuming energy drinks as well as the reasons for not consuming them. And to evaluate the participants' knowledge regarding energy drinks' ingredients, safety, and side effects. A total of 417 undergraduate students who registered in 101 general education classes during the Fall 2013 semester at the departments of Health Education, Kinesiology, and Nutrition at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale participated in the study. Energy drink use was associated with the number of the paid employment hours (p= .000). …

The Export Potential Of Kosovo's Natural Resources And Their Impact On The Kosovo Economy, Arif Hoti

Theses

Kosovo is a young country with many acute problems from a political, economic, and social perspective. Its economy represents one of its many current struggles. Kosovo’s unemployment rate is extremely high (“Assessment of the Employment Strategy: the need for a concrete strategy,” 2013) and its trade deficit is enormous (“External Trade Statistis 2011,” 2012). Accordingly, most of the money in Kosovo leaves the country for imported goods from other countries. Therefore, the country’s economy is unable to benefit from the multiplier effect and thus loses the opportunity of creating new jobs within the country’s borders. Consequently, if the country shall …

Raine Azure, Lucas Gonzalez

Theses

Raine Azure is an animated graduate thesis film, with a runtime of 6:27. This animation follows the story of March and Autumn, a brother and sister (respectively) tasked to protect a crystal altar that serves as the world's rain dynamo. They set off to save the world from a beast which has stolen the power of the altar and upset the world's balance. Along the way, March discovers that a balance exists between self-reliance and dependence on others.

The primary goals during the production of this film were to explore and develop my

skills in animation, character design, and music …

Le Couple, Jieting Chen

Theses

Le couple is my animated thesis film. It is 6 minutes 50seconds long. I created this work with Junran Mo.

Our short film is a humous look at a dysfunctional marriage from two conflicting points of view. One point of view is the couple's external objective reality and the other is the husband's fantasies. On the surface of the film the placid husband is dominated by his pleasure seeking wife. While he submissively watches his wife's gluttonizing, he plots revenge at every turn. Theirs is a classic cartoon relationship based on such warring duos such as Roadrunner and Wiley e …

Live In The Moment: The Essence Of Life, Ta-Wen Huang

Theses

I have thought about the essence of human life ever since I witnessed the impermanence of people's lives through a near-death experience I had when I was nineteen years old. Life is a given amount of time, space, and memory, and every person, event, and object in the universe is stored up in time, space, and memory. These three factors combine to create the unique experience, character, and life of each individual person.

A number of experts from different fields, as well as international celebrities, have publicly expressed various thoughts on life. However, most of their theories are explained with …

Waste Cooking Oil-To-Biodiesel Conversion For Institutional Vehicular Applications, David Elliot Frank

Theses

Biodiesel is a renewable, sustainable, clean-burning biogenic fuel that can serve as a substitute for conventional ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD). Biodiesel is comprised of mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids and is produced via transesterification, whereby glycerin is separated from the fatty acid component of either an oil or fat. The full process yields the fatty acid methyl ester (biodiesel fuel) and glycerin, an economically valuable by-product.

As part of a United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Showcase Communities Grant to Monroe County, New York and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the Golisano Institute for Sustainability (GIS) was …

Waste Cooking Oil-To-Biodiesel Conversion For Space Heating Applications, Daniel J. Bruton

Theses

Transesterification is a process that converts triglycerides, like vegetable oil, into fatty acid methyl esters, commonly known as biodiesel. This conversion reaction requires the triglyceride feedstock, an alcohol, and an alkali-catalyst to produce the biodiesel. Biodiesel is a versatile biofuel that is renewable, biodegradable, and environmentally beneficial in the sense that combustion adds only biogenic carbon to the atmosphere. The main limitation of commercialization of biodiesel is cost. However, developing closed-loop systems that have an available triglyceride supply, such as waste cooking oil, as well as demand for diesel based fuels, can achieve substantial emissions reductions and energy avoidance, while …

Role Of Myd88 Protein In The Maintenance Of Immunological Self-Tolerance: Induction Of Autoimmunity By Salmonella Infection Consequent To Myd88 Deficiency., Jincy Merin Issac

Theses

Activation of the innate immune system is a prerequisite for the induction of adaptive immune responses to both infectious and non-infectious agents. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a family of proteins important for recognizing pathogen associated molecular patterns. MyD88 is an adaptor molecule whose function is critical in TLR signaling. MyD88-deficient (MyD88^-/-) mice exhibit heightened susceptibility to infections, even by attenuated strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. Paradoxically, despite their hypersusceptibility, infected MyD88^-/- mice produce elevated serum levels of anti-Salmonella antibodies regardless of the route of infection. This hypergammaglobulinemia was observed with both Th1-driven (IgG2c and IgG3) …

Aerobic Biodegradation Of 2, 4 Dichlorophenol In A Spouted Bed Bio-Reactor (Sbbr), Taghreed Tahseen Al-Khalid

Theses

Chlorinated phenolic compounds represent a major class of hazardous pollutants commonly encountered in wastewater generated by the petroleum and petrochemical industries. In this regard, biological treatment, as an economical and green technology, has been shown to be one of the most promising approaches for the removal of many organic water pollutants such as chlorophenols. Under aerobic conditions, bacteria utilize chlorophenols as a source of carbon and energy. This study aimed at developing an integrated system for biodegradation of 2, 4 dichlorophenol (DCP) in a specially designed spouted bed bioreactor (SBBR), characterized by systematic intense mixing, resulting in enhanced biodegradation rates. …

“Una Isla Caribeña Sobrepoblada”: Luis Muñoz Marín’S Overpopulation Discourse, 1922-1948, Luimil Mishette Negrón-Pérez

Theses

In the years that preceded Luis Muñoz Marín's tenure as Puerto Rico’s first elected and longest running governor, he used Puerto Rico’s so-called alarming population growth as the explanation for the island’s troubles and reform failures. In the early 1920s, the young neo-malthusianist, carved a place for himself as a staunch supporter of policies advocating for state provided birth control in a climate where critics of the jíbaros (Puerto Rico’s peasants) deemed them immoral and barbaric for having too many children. Less than twenty years later though, the same jíbaros who were causing Puerto Rico’s problems in the twenties were …

Recasting The Darwinian Dilemma, Abram L. Brummett

Theses

It is uncontroversial to say that evolution has contributed little to the content of our factual judgments about the world. It is also uncontroversial to say that evolution has had a lot to contribute to the content of our non-factual judgments. What has been controversial is the extent to which evolution has influenced the content of our moral beliefs, and whether such influence has any metaethical implications. Sharon Street has received a lot of attention for her attempt to “debunk morality” in her paper, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value.” She argues that not only have evolutionary influences …

Lessons In Betrayal, Donald Quentin Counts

Theses

An Abstract on the Thesis of Donald Q. Counts Title: Lessons in Betrayal Each of the selected works in this thesis share one common element, as they attempt to explore the nature of betrayal as a thematic element, and each story depicts a different aspect of this theme. Cold Hearted is a coming-of age story, as a young boy discovers what it can mean when family cannot be trusted. Threads can be viewed as science fiction or magic realism, but at heart it concerns itself with a man whose own nature has led to time itself turning against him. Then …

Harmless Stories, David Wraith Dandridge

Theses

A collection of short stories.

On The Necessary Connection Between Law And Ethics: The Ethical Content Of Law, Michael D. Sigler

Theses

I defend the claim that there is a necessary connection between law and ethics. I do so by analogy with other social rule-based systems, such as capitalism. Most social rule-based systems are (in part) conceptually understood by the collective overall content of their rules. If legal systems, which are also social rule-based systems, are best understood in the same way, then the collective overall content of legal systems’ rules tells us how to understand the concept of law. One possibility for the collective overall content of legal systems’ rules is ethical content. If so, then there is a necessary connection …

Travelmacedonia: A Solution For The Discovery Of Macedonia As A Place Of Travel, Violeta Mangovski

Theses

TravelMacedonia is a thesis, which explores the relationship between interactive design and marketing. Both are studied in respect to create an improved marketing system for Macedonia's tourism, as it is under discovered. A website and app prototype are created in order to meet the goal of increasing awareness of Macedonia and desire to travel there. This topic is relevant to the field of design because of its importance in making the retrieval of information not only accessible, but also to provide this information in an easily accessible and readable way.

The website is designed to surprise users of how interesting …

World Warrior, Dan Farruggia

Theses

The purpose of this thesis project is to research the design elements of three of the most recognizable armors in world history (the Samurai, the Knight, and the Viking) and adapt them for futuristic character designs for my own fictious real-time computer game called World Warrior. Much like the command and conquer game Age of Empires, players will pick from a vast range of civilizations, construct their own civilization, build an army, and destroy their opponents. It will take place far into the future, and in a time period where great civilizations such as the Byzantines, the Saracens, the Persians, …

The Sublime & The Picturesque In Art, James M. Chleboun

Theses

Is it possible to create "classical'' landscape pictures of today? The genre of drawing and painting landscapes is the subject for this thesis. For comparing for relevancy, the binary topic is two aesthetic terms, the Sublime and the Picturesque. I will show what the art critics and artists say about those terms with several historical and contemporary artists a<; examples. I will explain what I did with some of my drawings and paintings in relation to the terms within the "classical" composition format.

The challenge for my work is to compose the contemporary landscape using the classical composing principles used by Old Masters. A contemporary German artist has succeeded very well in composing the '·classical·' landscapes of today with modern cultural attributes, but they …

Watt Community Rowing Center High-Performance Athletes Yield High-Performance Architecture, Allison Marie Lachance

Theses

The Watt Community Rowing Center (WCRC) is a conceptual project that will

demonstrate and quantify how an architectural design response can be both spatially evocative and technologically grounded. The WCRC is an architectural design evolving the typical rectangular boathouse into an energy-efficient boathouse that stimulates `out of the box', forward thought, focused both on architectural form and sustainable design. The WCRC is a synthesis of architecture, environment, and athletics and is a conceptual design and theoretical research exploration. The proposed architectural solution motivates a new form in sustainable architecture that encourages the participation of building occupants. The interaction between individuals …