Digital Commons Network^™

Tribological Study Of High Performance Bio-Lubricants Enhanced With Ionic Liquids For Use In Wind Turbines, Edward Cigno

Theses

Wind power is one of the fastest growing power sources worldwide. Large installations of wind power generation are prominent in Asia, Europe and the United States. The gear boxes and bearings of large wind turbines continue to be huge liabilities and fail well short of their 20 year design life. These mechanical failures impose long and expensive repairs. The reliability of wind turbine drive systems may be improved through advances in lubrication. Furthermore, increasing environmental regulations and public policy have ushered in the need for development and implementation of environmentally friendly lubricants. Over the past decade, ionic liquids have emerged …

Islamophilia: Challenging Prejudice And Promoting Mutual Understanding, Lallia Allali

Theses

Muslims across the United States are experiencing an unprecedented increase in discrimination and violence due to a growing fear and hatred towards Islam and Muslims. Many educators have labeled this anti-Islamic phenomenon as “Islamophobia”. Several studies have addressed the existence of “Islamophobia” and discussed its impact on the Muslim community and society at-large. However, few studies focus on helping Muslims transcend their mindset and believe in their ability to challenge prejudice and promote mutual understanding. This two- phase research attempted to fill that gap by first looking at the impact of contact relations and education in reducing Islamophobia …

A Modification And Application Of Parametric Continuation Method To Variety Of Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems In Applied Mechanics, Akshay Patil

Theses

In the field of engineering, researches often come across strong nonlinear boundary value problems which cannot be solved easily. Numerical convergence for many problems, typically solved by the Newton-Raphson linearization algorithm, is sensitive to the initial approach, relaxation parameters and differential topology. Emphasis in the present work is placed on the alternative approach, the so called parametric imbedding of a particular problem into the family of problems. While this may appear to complicate rather than to simplify the problem, its justification lies in the fact that a relation between infinitesimally close neighboring processes results in a simple Cauchy problem with …

Variables That Influence Preference For Response Cost, Isaac M. Nzuki

Theses

Few researchers have compared preference for reinforcement and response cost within a token economy, and the results have shown that preference varies among individuals (e.g., Donaldson et al., 2014; Iwata & Bailey, 1974; Jowett Hirst et al., 2016). Preference for response cost is an interesting phenomenon because response cost is a punishment procedure and is often considered aversive. Therefore, identifying the variables that influence preference for response cost is an important area of research. Some authors have suggested that the immediate delivery or presence of tokens might influence preference for response cost, but these variables have yet to be experimentally …

A Spatial Analysis Of The Relationship Between Obesity And The Built Environment In Southern Illinois, Shiloh Leah Deitz

Theses

Scholars have established that our geographic environments – including infrastructure for walking and food availability - contribute to the current obesity epidemic in the United States. However, the relationship between food, walkability, and obesity has largely only been investigated in large urban areas. Further, many studies have not taken an in-depth look at the spatial fabric of walkability, food, and obesity. The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to explore reliable methods, using sociodemographic census data, for estimating obesity at the neighborhood level in one region of the U.S. made up of rural areas and small towns – southern …

The Big Five And Adhd: An Investigation Of Subtypes And Emotional Regulation, Gabriel Casher

Theses

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a commonly occurring neurodevelopmental disorder in children, affecting 3-7% of children (APA, 2000). Despite the high prevalence of ADHD, conceptualization of its subtypes, ADHD-PI and ADHD-C, remains under debate. One method of describing psychopathology is through the use of personality traits. The current study evaluated relationships between ADHD subtypes, ADHD symptoms, and the Big Five in 83 children between 8 and 12 years of age. Children with ADHD were consistently rated as having lower Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness than children without ADHD. Additionally, children with ADHD-PI had the lowest Openness, and children with ADHD-C had the …

A Practical Application Of Wave-Pipelining Theory On A Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation Coder-Decoder Design, Patrick Chiu

Theses

Pipeline architectures are often considered in VLSI designs that require high throughput. The draw-backs for traditional pipelined architectures are the increased area, power, and latency required for implementation. However, with increased design effort, wave-pipelining can be applied as an alternative to a pipelined circuit to reduce the pipeline area, power, and latency while maintaining the original functionality and timing of the overall circuit. The objective of this paper is the successful application of the theories of wave-pipelining in a practical digital system. To accomplish this, the pipelined portion of an Multi-Channel Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM) Coder-Decoder (CODEC) is …

The Quality Attribute Design Strategy For A Social Network Data Analysis System, Ziyi Bai

Theses

An excellent software project can often identify quality attributes, expressed by the nonfunctional requirements. Quality attributes include modifiability, performance, availability, security, and so on. The nonfunctional requirements that address those quality attributes should be considered during the design phase. The quality attribute design approaches will be considered to achieve those requirements.

In this thesis, an architecture will be designed for a new social network data analysis system, is named Trowser, through several architectural approaches. Before starting the design phase, the source code of an existing social network analysis system, Gephi, is analyzed. The quality attribute design strategies are summarized from …

Structure-Constrained Basis Pursuit For Compressively Sensing Speech, Miguel Dominguez

Theses

Compressed Sensing (CS) exploits the sparsity of many signals to enable sampling below the Nyquist rate. If the original signal is sufficiently sparse, the Basis Pursuit (BP) algorithm will perfectly reconstruct the original signal. Unfortunately many signals that intuitively appear sparse do not meet the threshold for "sufficient sparsity". These signals require so many CS samples for accurate reconstruction that the advantages of CS disappear. This is because Basis Pursuit/Basis Pursuit Denoising only models sparsity. We developed a "Structure-Constrained Basis Pursuit" that models the structure of somewhat sparse signals as upper and lower bound constraints on the Basis Pursuit Denoising …

Toward Establishing A Catalog Of Security Architecture Weaknesses, Joanna Cecilia Da Silva Santos

Theses

The architecture design of a software system plays a crucial role in addressing security requirements early in the development lifecycle through forming design solutions that prevent or mitigate attacks in a system. Consequently, flaws in the software architecture can impact various security concerns in the system, thereby introducing severe breaches that could be exploited by attackers. In this context, this thesis presents the new concept of Common Architectural Weakness Enumeration (CAWE), a catalog that identifies and categorizes common types of vulnerabilities rooted in the software architecture design and provides mitigation techniques to address each of them. Through this catalog, we …

Reading Readers: Documenting Reader Response And Analyzing The Colored Illustrations Found In The Cary Graphic Art Collection’S Copy Of The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Amanda Packard

Theses

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was published in 1499 by Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius. The incunable1 is a distinct example of Renaissance printing; it is illustrated with 172 elaborate woodcuts including eleven full page illustrations and thirty-nine decorative capitals. The Cary Graphic Arts Collection located in The Wallace Center at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) holds a first edition of Aldus’ work. This copy possesses hand-coloring on eighty-four of the 172 woodcuts. I hypothesize that the coloring was done by a previous owner as a form of reader response. How does the reader response and color annotations communicate to other readers? To …

[Code Premonition]™: A 2d Animation Experience Featuring Duik Technology, Jason E. Harris

Theses

WHAT IS CODE PREMONITION?

Code Premonition is a science fiction/suspense short film that is designed with the intent to provide its target audience, adults over the age of 25, with a solid exhibition of imaginative storytelling based on the realization of the following two primary objectives:

1.) Provide the audience with a visually captivating and suspenseful cinematic experience via the effective utilization of voice acting, realistic artwork, fluid animation, real world footage, and special effects.

2.) Provide the audience with a consistent and compelling original story; the treatment of which will provide a well balanced exhibition of both traditional and …

Techniques For Digital Low Dropout Regulator Modeling And Transient Response Enhancement, Paul Martin West

Theses

Low dropout regulators (LDOs) are important components for power management in modern integrated circuits. With the continued scaling down of power supply voltage, digital LDOs have become a more attractive design choice since they avoid the difficulty of designing high-gain amplifiers with low voltage. This thesis investigates techniques for both modeling and enhancement of digital LDO transient response. It discusses the importance of the resistance in the output stage of an LDO, and proposes a simulation model for examining LDO transient response. In addition, the thesis studies circuit techniques to improve LDO transient response. Different LDO circuits are implemented and …

The Inter-Rater Reliability Of The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised In Practical Field Settings, Yuko Matsushima

Theses

This paper examined the inter-rater reliability of psychological assessments in practical field with 42 inmates’ PCL-R scores. As results, this study showed similar ICC and SEM values to those from PCL-manual. Concerning PCL-R structure, factor 2 showed higher ICC value than factor 1, and facet 4 showed higher ICC value than facet 1, 2, or 3. Especially, facet 2 showed low ICC value. Those are consistent with previous studies. However, ICC yielded by factor 2 only and both factor 1 and 2 showed similar ICC values. Considering theoretical and clinical aspects, it was recommendable to use PCL-R total score as …

The Hopeless Hope Or The Poet's Passion In The Farmer's Pragmatic World: Directing Eugene O'Neill's Beyond The Horizon, Nicholas Radcliffe

Theses

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF NICHOLAS B. RADCLIFFE, for the Master of Fine Arts degree in THEATER, presented on December 14, 2015, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: THE HOPELESS HOPE OR THE POET’S PASSION IN THE FARMER’S PRAGMATIC WORLD: DIRECTING EUGENE O’NEILL’S BEYOND THE HORIZON MAJOR PROFESSOR: Olusegun Ojewuyi The Hopeless Hope… documents the process of directing Beyond the Horizon, presented December 11-13, 2015 in the McLeod Theater at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The document specifically details the development of the director’s vision for the production, from the initial readings and research through rehearsal, performance and post-production evaluations. …

Scottsville, Soheil Khosravinejad

Theses

“Scottsville” is a 3D animated Graduate thesis film, which is a mix of personal experiences and stories that I have heard from my friends over time.

The film has a three-dimensional computer-generated imagery (3D CGI) look with a stylized classic soundtrack, but no dialogue.

The story is about a schlimazel person who tries to get into his log cabin on a cold winter night. The location is in the middle of a quiet pine forest. As the character tries to get into the cabin, he realizes that he does not have the keys. He tries different ways, and finally, he …

Learning Chinese Writing: An App Design Concept For Multi-Touch Devices, Xi Zong

Theses

An app design concept to learn Chinese writing for multi-touch mobile & tablet devices

Mandarin can be divided into spoken Chinese and written Chinese. Many people who are taking Mandarin courses were first attracted to the Chinese language because of the writing system, which is considered one of the most complex in the world.

Chinese writing is considered difficult because of the enormous number of characters one has to learn. Mandarin is difficult in comparison to Spanish, Greek, Russian, Hindi, or any other language that requires at most a few dozen symbols to write in the language.

This Chinese writing …

Down, Down, Baby, Ciara M. Duffy

Theses

The series Down, Down, Baby is a visual diary, a documentation of the transitory period of my youth: the moments of freedom, debauchery, and recklessness I experienced with my closest companions. These individuals exist in these moments as a symbol for an undeniable attitude within youth culture that is greater than themselves. Down, Down, Baby illustrates our early reactions to independence and the animals we wanted to be and were, as well as the desire to stay young and relative by creating spectacles of ourselves. This way of living defies the logic of refined sensibility, political correctness, and good taste …

The Development Of Occupational Standards For Use By Ngos Pertaining To The Inclusion Of People With Disabilities In Sports Based Programmes In Developing Countries, Thabo Philmon Tsiki

Theses

The research on both the IT Tralee UNESCO Chair programmes as aligned to articles of the Charter on Physical Education, physical activity and sport (UNESCO, 2015) and MINEPS V Resolutions in Berlin 2013 (UNESCO, 2013), regarding the inclusion of people with disabilities in sports. Therefore, this project focuses on setting up best practices for the inclusion of people with disabilities in sports based programmes in developing countries through developed occupational standards. The aim is to address the lack of inclusion of people with disabilities in sports based programmes in the developing countries.

A qualitative approach is employed to generate data …

The Enclaving Of Dubai: An Investigation Of The Factors Governing The Emergence And Spreading Of The Gated Residential Communities In The City, Mahmoud Saeed Al Mansi

Theses

This study attempts to fill a gap within the current existing literature of the worldwide phenomenon of rise and spread of walled communities. The study primarily examines the factors relating to gated residential communities in Dubai, a city that is not covered in the literature of the subject. Specifically, it traces the emergence of gated residential communities in the urban history of Dubai, investigates their magnitude over time, locates them within the city, and investigates the various factors affecting their spread, particularly in the past few decades. To achieve these objectives, a field survey and a qualitative research were conducted …

Enhancing Snort Ids Performance Using Data Mining, Mohammed Ali Almaleki

Theses

Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) such as Snort apply deep packet inspection to detect intrusions. Usually, these are rule-based systems, where each incoming packet is matched with a set of rules. Each rule consists of two parts: the rule header and the rule options. The rule header is compared with the packet header. The rule options usually contain a signature string that is matched with packet content using an efficient string matching algorithm. The traditional approach to IDS packet inspection checks a packet against the detection rules by scanning from the first rule in the set and continuing to scan all …

The Essence Of Professional Development Experience From The Perspective Of English Teachers In Private Schools In The Uae, Rabab Ali Atwi

Theses

This study aimed at exploring the essence of professional development experience from the perspective of English teachers in private schools in the UAE. To achieve the goal of the study an explanatory mixed method design was used. In the first phase of the study, English teachers (n=200) responded to Professional Development Questionnaire of English Teachers (PDQET). The second phase of the study featured a qualitative method by interviewing a few participants (n=10) from the initial pool sample in the first phase of the study. The study also looked at the English teachers’ ranking of professional development models in terms of …

Primary Math Teachers’ Perceptions Toward Mathematics Weekly Computerized Test, Sirin Darmoch Nasrini

Theses

This thesis is concerned with the computer base tests verses the traditional paper pencil in particular the perception of teachers toward the computer based test.

The main objective of this thesis is to examine the primary mathematics teachers’ perception toward the weekly computerized tests. And how does their gender of years of experience affect their perception toward this unique type of assessment. A mixed method of quantitative and qualitative is used to find out the results. A questionnaire and an interview are the instruments used in the research. The study found out that primary teachers are positive toward the weekly …

Determinants Of Organizational Performance Ln The Semi-Government Sector Of Abu Dhabi: Strategic Management Perspective, Bakheet Saeed Al Katheeri

Theses

With a conceptual model, we focused on evaluating the current situation of strategic management practices in Abu Dhabi’s semi-government sector, a littleresearched area, to understand the relationships between strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation, as elements, and organizational performance; to identify whether environmental dynamism plays moderating roles in these relationships; and to explore the relationship between organisational performance and organizational competiveness. Data were collected in Abu Dhabi from semigovernment organizations of the UAE. A questionnaire was used on a sample population of 210 organizations. 182 completed questionnaires were collected and included in the analysis. The structural equation modelling package, AMOS, was …

Effect Of Substrates, Iba And Types Of Cuttings On Rooting, Salim Mohammed Ai Makhmari

Theses

Tamarix aphylla L. (Locally known as Athel) was selected for the present investigation. It is native to Middle East (which include UAE), North Africa and south Asia. The tree is drought, heat and salt tolerant. It has some traditional uses. The research leading to standardize the propagation of Tamarix aphylla L. is very rare and therefore it is not widely exploited in the urban landscaping. The present study was aimed to standardize the methodology and substrate for rapid propagation of Tamarix aphylla L. tree. The parameters studied were morphological growth parameters, chemical content, biochemical constituents and antioxidant enzymes activities in …

A Case Study Of An Intervention Program For Students With Dyslexia In A Primary School In The Uae, Elazab Mohamed Elazab Elshazly

Theses

The study aims to investigate the impact of an iPad programme on the performance of students with dyslexia on reading, writing and spelling skills in two classes of a public primary school in Al -Ain, UAE. The study follows a mixed method approach (questionnaire; face-to-face interviews; pre-posttests). Twenty (20) 3rd graders male students with dyslexia, attending English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes were the participants of the study. Students’ performance on spelling, reading and writing skills were tested after instructed through an iPad intervention programme with multisensory applications. The experimental group’s performance (10 students with dyslexia) was compared to …

Recycling Ceramic Waste Powder And Its Usage As An Alternative Ingredient In Concrete, Dima Mamoun Kanaan

Theses

Green environment is a challenging concern to accomplish in today’s world. This could be accomplished through an effective and beneficial recycling system through reusing solid waste materials. The study and exploration of alternative ingredients for concrete-making industry started more than five decades ago. Concrete that contains solid waste is referred to as “Green” concrete. Ceramic tiles are widely used in most structures; its production creates waste powder. Using ceramic waste powder (CWP) as an ingredient to partially replace cement in concrete will have a positive and progressive environmental impact in addition will help reserve natural resources. In this study, CWP …

The Extent Of Practicing Different Components Of Professional Learning Communities At The Bani Kinanah Secondary Schools In Jordan, Rami Hussein Mohammad Abdallah

Theses

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which different components of the Professional Learning Community (PLC) were being practiced at the Bani Kinanah secondary schools in Jordan. The study employed a mixed approach to collect data, including a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. For the quantitative approach, 1110 participants responded to the questionnaire. For the qualitative approach, four schools participated: two female schools and two male schools. In every school, three educators have been interviewed. Findings revealed that the extent to which the different components of PLCs were practiced at the Bani Kinanah secondary schools was high, according to quantitative …

Development Of An Efficient Ad Hoc Broadcasting Scheme For Critical Networking Environments, Ahmed Ghulam Mustafa Saber Karam

Theses

Mobile ad hoc network has been widely deployed in support of the communications in hostile environment without conventional networking infrastructure, especially in the environments with critical conditions such as emergency rescue activities in burning building or earth quick evacuation. However, most of the existing ad hoc based broadcasting schemes either rely on GPS location or topology information or angle-of-arrival (AoA) calculation or combination of some or all to achieve high reachability. Therefore, these broadcasting schemes cannot be directly used in critical environments such as battlefield, sensor networks and natural disasters due to lack of node location and topology information in …

The Adoption Of Next Generation Digital Printing Technology In Package Printing, Yujue Wang

Theses

This research addresses the question of which packaging market segments are best suited to adopt next generation digital printing technology in the near future. According to McCluskey and Larson (2001), Molly (2005), and Eldred (2008), waste reduction and cost effectiveness in short run printing, short leadtime printing, and custom printing are the primary benefits of digital printing. The researcher screened eight major package market segments to determine which segments had the most need for these benefits. At the conclusion of this effort, the researcher identified flexible packaging and folding cartons as the two strongest candidates for early penetration by next …