Digital Commons Network^™

Communicating History: Podcasts As Public History, Alexandra Serpikov

Theses

Since the arrival of “audioblogging” in the 1980s and its transformative rise in popularity in the early 2000s, podcasts have been used to share stories and information all over the globe. History-themed podcasts in particular have grown in number, with content creators utilizing new and emerging media as platforms for dissemination of historical subjects. As a newer medium, podcasting was never specifically targeted to be an educational endeavor, yet it is sharing history through a widely accessible platform. This raises the question, are historically themed podcasts a form of public history? If they are, then how do they function as …

Post Millennium Tension, Dylan Peter Obser

Theses

In order to understand the world we live in, as it is mediated through technology, this process driven artwork Post Millennium Tension uses a machine I created specifically to visualize the inner workings of contemporary technology. The artwork is a large multi-paneled photograph and light-box display, that depicts the intimate everyday moments within a relationship. The relationship seen in the photographs is one that began on a phone where the individuals were matched by the Tinder algorithm. That relationship is documented and archived on a phone. The images act as proof and the artwork as a monument to a relationship …

Modeling Artist Networks At Artpark, 1974-1978, Angelina Konovitz-Davern

Theses

Located on the Niagara River Gorge in Lewiston, New York, Artpark—a summer venue for arts and entertainment—traces its origins to 1974 when it was established as a park and art venue that served as home to a visual arts program until 1991. The program annually invited a selection of artists to create experimental, site-specific art within the picturesque landscape north of the Niagara Falls. Providing an experimental alternative to traditional art museums and markets, Artpark has been promoted as a nontraditional institution for the participating artists. However, to what extent was Artpark an alternative institution? This thesis investigates the extent …

Piggy Pennies: An Interactive Piggy Bank To Help Children Learn Money Management, Yao Tong

Theses

Wealth management skill has turned out to be one of the most crucial skills for every young people. A good habit of wealth

management would bene­t people on a larger scale in wealth growth and life quality. In this case, it would be most bene­cial to educate people as early as when they are still children. Children usually do not understand where money comes from and how to spend it by nature. However, multiple challenges arise when parents realize the importance of the education of money management skills and teach their children. These challenges include but are not limited to, …

Social Media: On Tech-Caves, Virtual Panopticism, And The Science Fiction-Like State In Which We Unwittingly Find Ourselves, Michael Major

Theses

Making use of three historic philosophical thought experiments, this paper blends psychological perspectives with philosophical reasoning to show how social media is corrupting our perception of reality, the result of which is ultimately detrimental to society as a whole. This is accomplished by first using Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to analyze and discuss the ways in which social media is limiting humanity’s access to real knowledge. Next, Michel Foucault’s analysis of punishment in its social context, Discipline and Punish, is used to discuss the ways in which social media is adversely affecting our behavior. Finally, Robert Nozick’s “Experience …

In Sheep’S Clothing: Reflections On The Trickery Of Nature, Moneerah Alayar

Theses

In the realm of nature as well as in human society, things are often not what they seem. Animals, plants, and humans use endless tricks and stratagems to hide their vulnerable parts, camouflage their true strength, and survive despite hazards and predators at every turn. To exist in this world as a woman is to be a student of these protective devices, to learn and adopt the techniques and behaviors that best ensure her survival against the forces of patriarchy and institutionalized oppression. She must use whatever means she can to protect herself and secure her place in the world. …

Driving Forces In Disclosure: Self-Disclosure Goals And Intimacy At The Podium, Layne Paubel

Theses

This study examined six underlying motivations (expression, self-clarification, social validation, relationship development, social control, and information sharing) for self-disclosure in a public speaking setting and a dyadic relationship setting. Five of these goals come from Derlega and Grzelak’s (1979) functional approach to self-disclosure and one is an additional goal examined by Bazarova and Choi (2014). This study found that the relative salience of self-disclosure goals in the public speaking classroom was identity clarification, information sharing, self-expression/relief of distress, social validation, relationship development, and social control. Findings indicate that the relative salience of goals in the dyadic relationship setting was self-expression/relief …

Xaminer, Terry Artis

Theses

“Rocket” Rowan Bell is a young Black idealist who has an audacious notion to disseminate what he perceives as truth to his community through news publication. As an adolescent boy, he was a good kid and athlete with a good heart from a poor Black neighborhood. Rocket experienced what seemed to be an episode of sexual assault by a youth-minister/track-coach at his church. The ordeal may have shaped his young adult perspective and evolved into a philosophy through which Rocket contends:There are three Negro (P)s that perpetuate the pathetic plight of Black people — the Negro Preacher, the Negro …

At The Fire: An Investigation In The Transformation Of Matter, Darren T. Adair

Theses

My Thesis Work investigated the infinite possibilities in transformation of matter. I wanted to identify and suspend stages within natural cycles through the manipulation of glass and other mixed media. Furthermore, I looked to explore degradation and regeneration of components— at a microscopic and macroscopic level—to create sculptural pieces.

The body of work I produced for my Thesis Exhibition was a culmination of many components. Embracing process art making was the most successful outcome that resulted from making this collection; through experimentation, I was able to gather more information about the objects I was creating. Another useful aspect to my …

On Contact Line Region Heat Transfer, Bubble Dynamics And Substrate Effects During Boiling, Pruthvik A. Raghupathi

Theses

Rapid advancement of electronics used in domestic, commercial and military applications has necessitated the development of thermal management solutions capable of dissipating large amounts of heat in a reliable and efficient manner. Traditional methods of cooling, including air and liquid cooling, require large fluid flow rates and temperature differences to remove high heat fluxes and are therefore unsuited for many advanced applications. Phase change heat transfer, specifically boiling, is capable of dissipating large heat fluxes with low temperature gradients and hence is an attractive technique for cooling high heat flux applications. However, due to the complex interactions between the fluid …

A New Platform For Knee Surgery Patient Rehabilitation, Motivating Mirror: Providing An Interactive Experience To Knee Surgery Patients To Assist Them With A More Effective Rehabilitation., Yu He

Theses

There are many tools for knee injury patients to use for rehabilitation. Both Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists work with patients on rehabilitation to help them recover, bring them back from illness or injury. For knee surgery patients, they will go through rehabilitation including CPM (Continuous passive movement) and exercises assigned by PT (Physical Therapists) to improve recovery.

CPM is a passive motion that a machine forces patients to do, and along with and after that, patients need to be active to do other exercises themselves. Lots of patients run into trouble when rehabbing. Some of them refuse to do …

Think And Stop: Share Your Knowledge To Help Others, Unez Akbar

Theses

Often, individuals develop habits that do not seem to have an adverse effect initially. However, these habits may lead to critical problems in the long run. It is important to create awareness about these critical problems as unawareness would lead to major challenges in the future.

"Think and Stop” is a social responsibility campaign that focuses on creating awareness amongst people about everyday facts.

The campaign would share some existing facts on specific topics such as eating disorder, harmful effects of wearing heels every day and excessive use of mint.

This thesis investigated how big these problems could become if …

Determination Of The Ideal Plant Density Of Tomato Solanum Lycopersicum Under An Aquaponic Production System With Tilapia Oreochromis Aureus Under Uae Conditions, Mohamed Ahmed Al Dhanhani

Theses

Aquaponics is an agricultural system that saves water and fertilization and offers a way of growing plants without soil pest infestation or pesticide residues. This system ensures the production of hazardous chemical free food for humans. This system also ensures sustainability by creating a natural relationship between fish and plants and makes gardening more productive and economical.

Aquaponics system is a dynamic ecosystem that can be integrated to achieve food security through the production of fish and vegetables without the intervention of fertilizers.

The focus of this study is optimizing planting density of tomato in an aquaponics system; with assess …

Thermal And Structural Characterization Of Macro-Encapsulated Phase Change Material Integrated Into Concrete Cubes, Yasir Rashid

Theses

High-energy consumption in buildings is a research issue of great importance today, with solid-liquid phase change materials (PCMs) proving an excellent candidate for passive means to reduce energy consumption. In the current research, a novel protective coating was developed from geopolymer to encapsulate a PCM to prevent leakage in the liquidous phase. The PCM was characterized using a customized temperature history method (THM) and standard differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Two different porous materials, polyurethane foam and lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA), were selected to hold the PCM and act as a matrix in which to develop PCM capsules. Ingredients of …

Study Of Rheological, Chemical, And Microbiological Properties Of Chami, A Traditional Emirati Soft Cheese, Aysha Othman Abdullah Al Katheeri

Theses

In this work, ten Emirati Chami cheese samples were collected and analyzed to determine their chemical composition, texture, rheology, and microbiological properties. Chami cheeses showed large variations in moisture (60.9–84.1%), protein (7.5–14.6%), fat (0.5–7.8%), and ash (3.4–8.0%) contents as well as in pH (3.6–4.4), and water activity (0.977–0.999%). The variation in fat content of samples suggested that extra fat was added; this added fat was either butter or vegetable oil as indicated by the fatty acid composition. The different samples showed peaks of variable size for fat melting. The sodium content in the 10 cheese samples varied from 223–2410 mg/kg, …

The Design Of A Debugger Unit For A Risc Processor Core, Nikhil Velguenkar

Theses

Recently, there has been a significant increase in design complexity for Embedded Systems often referred to as Hardware Software Co-Design. Complexity in design is due to both hardware and firmware closely coupled together in-order to achieve features for low power, high performance and low area. Due to these demands, embedded systems consist of multiple interconnected hardware IPs with complex firmware algorithms running on the device. Often such designs are available in bare-metal form, i.e without an Operating System, which results in difficulty while debugging due to lack of insight into the system. As a result, development cycle and time to …

Vrent: A New Interactive & Immersive Rental Space Experience, Wenhan Lin

Theses

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, there are more than 18.2 million college students in the United States, including both out- of-state students and international students (Drew, 2013). While trying to find a space to live is a difficult process for anyone, it is especially painful for international students. Housing agencies are also tasked with providing accurate information to potential tenants coming from different cultural backgrounds, which can be challenging on their part. This project sought to not only solve this problem, but also enhance the experience of house- hunting for international students.

The overall purpose of this …

C H R O N O S P A C E Living In The Moment: Metaphorical Motion Design, Guan-Huei Wu

Theses

Live in the present. People often put too much emphasis on their past mistakes or planning for what their future may hold. We are living in the present and should focus on “The Now.” The present is the key to our future. Everything that happened in the past has shaped where people are now in the present.

People try to erase all the bad experiences and save only the good ones. However, everything that has happened, both positive and negative, provides some intrinsic value to people. The past is unchangeable. The future is untouchable. The present is what you can …

3d Printing Of Transparent Materials For Optical Applications, Shaunak B. Gandhi

Theses

Additive manufacturing processes have been used to print a variety of polymer, metal, ceramic and composite materials for a rapidly growing range of functional applications involving printed electronics, embedded optical components and sensors. Additive manufacturing (or 3D Printing) techniques such as Stereolithography (SLA) and Inkjet Printing have been used to print stand-alone optical components and interactive optical devices respectively. To date, however, there has been relatively little focus on multi-material printing of components with embedded optical functionality.

This research focuses on printing embedded light-transmitting “pipes” within 3D structures using Fused Filament Extrusion (FFE) and inkjet 3D printing. With FFE, relatively …

Automating The Crowd-Mapping Workflow With Deep Learning, Lasith Niroshan

Theses

Maintaining updated maps in an ever-changing built environment is important for supporting modern society in many ways. The usage of online crowdsourced maps in particular has gained importance in a wide range of recent location-based applications (route planning/navigation, urban planning, real estate, tourism, etc). However, both traditional map production methods and updating today’s online maps suffer from early obsolescence due to their largely manual map production/update workflows. Significant research efforts have focused on refining techniques to identify changes in raster satellite images, aiming to improve and streamline map production processes. Concurrently, the surge in Internet usage has led to a …

An Investigation Into Teleworking As A Flexible Working Arrangement In The Irish Private Sector, Elaine Galvin

Theses

This study is based on teleworking in the Irish private sector. The aim of the research study was to assess the impact teleworking has on work-life balance, motivation and performance levels of employees working within the private sector of Ireland. The researcher had a keen interest in the research topic due to two major storms that hit Ireland during late 2017 and early 2018. Storm Ophelia was one of the worst Atlantic hurricanes on record to hit Ireland in 50 years (Siggins, 2017). Storm Emma hit Ireland at the end of February and start of March 2018, this storm was …

Fourier Transform Infrared Imaging Of Populus Tremuloides Rhizosphere Nutrient Exchange Interactions With Laccaria Bicolor And Pseudomonas Fluorescens, Carli S. Salvador

Theses

Plants form interactions with other symbiotic organisms such as mycorrhizal fungus and bacteria in the rhizosphere; therefore, it is pivotal to understand the nutrient exchange that takes place. In this experiment, Populus tremuloides seedlings were grown on a thin, nutrient dense media for the control as well a limited-nitrogen media. Fourier Transform Infrared Imaging is used in this study to analyze nitrate and ammonium concentrations in the rhizosphere of P. tremuloides with Laccaria bicolor and Pseudomonas fluorescens after 7 weeks of growth. Plants were grown on low-emission slides in the first experiment; however, due to media thickness issues, Polyethylene and …

Effect Of A Nurse-Led Lymphoma Survivorship Model Of Care: A Pragmatic Phase Ii Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial, Karen Taylor

Theses

Background: Cancer survivorship is recognised as an integral component of the cancer continuum. Robust evidence on how best to deliver tailored survivorship care is limited, particularly for individuals affected by rarer cancers such as lymphoma, a potentially curable haematological cancer. These survivors may face long-term and late effects affecting quality of life due to the aggressiveness of the disease and treatment that may not be adequately addressed in current follow-up models of care.

Aim: To develop and pilot test a nurse-led model of survivorship care intervention that utilises an individualised survivorship care plan and treatment summary (SCPTS), motivational interviewing, tailored …

Because He Has Spoken To Us Joseph Ratzinger, The Revelation Of The Logos In Jesus Christ, And A Fundamental Pattern For Evangelization, Bradley Bursa

Theses

In a 1983 lecture, Joseph Ratzinger noted that one need not demonstrate at great length the apparent difficulties within the epoch’s catechetical efforts, even going so far as to declare the situation a state of crisis. He argues that the reversal of roles between content and method – with content now serving method – served as a significant source of the purported crisis.1 The bulk of Ratzinger’s expansive theological work is a response to various crises within the understanding of the contents themselves, with a willing admission on his part that he did not have responsibility for catechetical methods.2 However, …

Picasso's Guernica: The Imaginative Treatment Of History, Riley Buchanan

Theses

What does it mean to reinterpret a violent event on a motionless, silent, two-dimensional canvas; where that event is compressed as an instantaneous flash that belongs not to the documentary, but to the imagination? In this thesis, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937), the artists’ searing response to the Francoist bombing of the Basque town of Gernika during the Spanish Civil War, is treated as a case study through which the efficacy of imagination for historical interpretation is tested. Guernica offers a way of understanding a past reality not through the literal, but through abstraction and creative invention: incongruous lines, deformed shapes, …

Promoting Student Belongingness: The Development, Implementation And Evaluation Of A Toolkit For Nurses, Christine King

Theses

The literature suggests that the need to belong to a community influences health and wellbeing, which in turn affects behavioural, and cognitive responses. However, student nurses are often in a vulnerable position of being excluded intentionally or otherwise from ward/unit activities. This can lead to feelings of isolation and poor achievement.

The aim of this project was to design and develop a toolkit for nurses in an e-learning format using reflective learning to promote a sense of belonging and inclusion of student nurses in the clinical team. Upon completion of the development of the e-learning program, distribution commenced to selected …

The Who.I.Am Study : Identity Formation And Motor Competence In Adolescents, Amanda Timler

Theses

Our sense of identity is an emergent concept that develops over the lifespan in response to many factors, however the adolescent phase is the most critical. During adolescence, some factors that influence identity are level of parent and peer support, environmental stresses and the ability to form personal interests and goals. These factors influence the health of one’s identity in both positive and negative ways, which may differ between males and females. Therefore, identity health refers to an individual’s capacity to develop a positive sense of self and to integrate their self within a number of valuable social settings. One …

The Factors Influencing Nurse Graduates Use Of Mobile Technology In Clinical Settings In Perth Western Australia: A Mixed Method Study, Benjamin Hay

Theses

The ubiquitous use of mobile technology in today’s society extends to the learning and teaching environment. Most academics in universities encourage its use, aided by libraries offering online resources. Whilst the literature highlights benefits of using mobile technology in learning, particularly for nurses to keep up-to-date, there is limited evidence on such use in clinical settings by graduate nurses in Western Australia (WA). Additionally, there is a lack of information and clarification on the use of such technology in WA hospitals. The purpose of this study was to identify and explore factors influencing the use of mobile technology by newly …

"No Sir, It’S Not Discrimination, You’Re Just Too Old". An Auto-Ethnography Of The Effects Of Perceived Age Discrimination Among Older Australian Male Professionals., Colin Brown

Theses

This thesis investigates the effects of perceived age discrimination in employment practices on Australian professional men. It commences by outlining the global setting of the age discrimination phenomenon, and then draws attention to the myths and stereotypes that have engendered this unsavoury, often hidden, form of discrimination by focusing on the attitudes of recruitment agencies, private and government employers and older workers themselves. The thesis examines the literature on the multiple negative effects of discrimination, and then presents the method used, the personal interviews, the analysis and findings, and finally, the conclusion.

There is limited ethnographic research into the psychological …

Open Versus Endovascular Thoracic Aneurysm Repairs In Australia, Timothy Shiraev

Theses

Objectives: Thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAAs) affect 10 per 100,000 people, and are responsible for significant mortality. Open surgical repair carries substantial risks of both morbidity and mortality. Endovascular TAA repair is a relatively new technology, with numerous proposed benefits over open repair. However, data is yet to demonstrate whether endovascular TAA repairs outperform open repair. We sought to observe trends and outcomes of TAA repairs over the previous decade in order to identify the optimal method of management of thoracic and thoracoabdominal aneurysm repairs, as well as predictors of poor outcome.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of all patients …