Digital Commons Network^™

Re:Act A Three-Way Communication Interactive Design System For School-Family Partnerships, Yoon Jin Lee

Theses

Using interaction design to create conversation to help create a personalized learning environment in and out of elementary classrooms for achieving students’ academic and mental success from a three-way communication between teachers, students, and parents

Many elementary school teachers encounter problems interacting with each student individually. Also, many parents are losing chances to track their child’s development and achievement closely in both physical and mental perspectives because of their busy schedules. There are several web and mobile applications to assist with these issues, but most of those are too focused on grading students’ positive and negative behavior and two-way communication …

American Teenage Vision And The Value Of Cool, Elizabeth Stegner

Theses

One quarter of American youth have a vision problem that, left untreated, can impact personality and academic achievement. The vast majority of these cases could be remediated with a pair of eyeglasses. However, even when kids and teenagers are prescribed glasses, many do not wear them. This thesis questions why this problem - which has a seemingly straightforward solution and clear benefit - has not been resolved. First, it discusses current literature and qualitative research on the prevalence of eye correction issues. This paper also focuses on how American teenagers specifically are impacted by this problem. Finally, it suggests a …

How Should You Plan Your App’S Features? Selecting And Prioritizing A Mobile App’S Initial Features Based On User Reviews, Rebaz Saber Saleh

Theses

The app market is extremely competitive, with users typically having several alternative app possibilities. To attract and retain users, it is imperative for developers to consider the ratings and reviews their apps receive. App reviews frequently contain feature requests, sometimes hidden among complaints. Developers use these complaints and requests to improve their apps, thus increasing their rating which is incredibly important for attracting new users. Unfortunately, developers of new apps are at a severe disadvantage: They do not have the benefit of existing reviews, with only the reviews of similar apps to potentially rely upon. To address this problem, we …

A Power Efficient Server-To-Server Wireless Data Center Network Architecture Using 60 Ghz Links, Sree Gowrishankar Umamaheswaran

Theses

Data Centers have become the digital backbone of the modern society with the advent of cloud computing, social networking, big data analytics etc. They play a vital role in processing a large amount of information generated. The number of data centers and the servers present in them have been on the rise over the last decade. This has eventually led to the increase in the power consumption of the data center due to the power-hungry interconnect fabric which consists of switches, routers and switching fabric necessary for communication in the data center. Moreover, a major portion of the power consumed …

Experimental Study Of Low Salinity Water Flooding And Fracturing Effects In Low Permeability Carbonate Reservoir, Benny Arianto Harahap

Theses

In past decades, there were numerous research works demonstrated that salinity alteration of injected water could enhance the oil recovery. Low salinity water (LSW) injection is a type of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method, which attracts the industrial, and researchers because of its simplicity to use the implications,

Environment-friendly nature, and less cost. In addition to, hydraulic fracturing, also known as hydraulic stimulation, is another EOR method that improves hydrocarbon flow by creating fractures in the Low Permeability Formation (LPF) that connects the reservoir and wellbore. Fractures will increase the permeability of reservoir and give the flow path for hydrocarbon …

Evaluation Of Functionalized Magnetite Nanoparticles For The Removal Of Heavy Metal Ions From Aqueous Media, Khaula A. Ai Jahoushi

Theses

Sorption is one of the most efficient techniques for the removal of heavy metal ions from waste water. It involves the use of solid materials, known as sorbents, which can be natural of synthetic in origin. Recently, synthetic nanomaterials of various compositions have been used as sorbents. Among these materials, calcium phosphate; also known as hydroxyapatite (HAp), and magnetite were previously investigated as potential sorbents. In the current study, commercial HAp, and magnetite nanoparticles as well as their physical and chemical mixtures were investigated as potential sorbents for the removal of Cd²⁺ ions from simulated wastewater. A comparison is made …

Business-It Alignment In Higher Education Institutions: United Arab Emirates University Case Study, Nayla Salem Al Khateri

Theses

This thesis addresses the importance of Business-IT alignment in higher education institutions. Business-IT alignment is defined as applying IT in a suitable and timely manner, in harmony with business strategies, goals and needs. Business- IT alignment is an ultimate goal of governmental and non-governmental organizations that requires close attention and continuous monitoring. UAE university has a well-defined business strategy augmented with a well-defined IT strategy. So, to get the most benefits of acquiring and using IT in the university, the IT need to be aligned with the core business and the supporting services. The main objective of this thesis is …

A Field Study On Treating Wastewater Using Bioretention And Permeable Pavement Systems, Rubab Ammad

Theses

The wastewater treatment study was conducted as a part of the efforts initiated by the UAE government for combating water shortage in the country by adopting the strategy of water conservation and reuse. This study investigated the performance of two water sensitive urban design systems, the Permeable Pavement and the Bioretention System, in improving the wastewater quality from fish tanks. Conventionally, these systems are used for storm water treatment but as UAE is situated in an arid climatic zone and experiences minimal rainfall, the two systems in undertaken study have been used in treatment of wastewater to gage their performance …

Recent Works: Exploring Connections With Naturally Derived Materials Through The Context Of Art, Edmond Caputo

Theses

Recent Works is a body of art that arrived from my deep connection to the earth and nature. I was born and raised on a lake in upstate N.Y. and my childhood offered me a plethora of stimulation for my senses to receive and appreciate. It is a magical place to discover childhood, to experience as an adult, and one that remains my sanctum sanctorum. Growing up and bearing witness to a fluctuating and fragile ecosystem, where you can experience some of nature’s most triumphant moments and its transitional phases, has revealed itself in a way that has continuously informed …

Seek Another Land, Phillip Leteka

Theses

A family in a country village is tested and torn apart by their own religious fanaticism. A young shoemaker, Eynaud (Matty Oaks), has to stand up against conformity after his sick wife, Çyska (Caroline Duncan), is put through an extreme ordeal by her parents due to their religious beliefs.

The Effect Of Time Spent Using Social Networking Sites Through Smartphones On The Quality Of Undergraduate Students’ Mental Health, Maja Bracic

Theses

The majority of people has already adapted to the unpredictably fast advancements in smartphones’ (SPs) and social-networking sites’ (SNS) technologies by using them on everyday basis (Jena, 2015). Always at hand, SPs are the most preferred way of connecting to SNS and if we add up the addictive nature of both SPs and SNS, young people tend to use them noticeably more than other age groups (Babdi-Akashe, Zamani, Abedini, Akbari & Hedayati, 2014, p. 94). Yet, little is known about the long-term effects of this newborn symbiosis on the quality of mental health. Thus, this research study focuses on exploring …

The Nearness Of You, Tianyi Yin

Theses

The Nearness Of You is an animated 2D graduate thesis film. The entire film, including the credits, is 4 minutes 55 seconds long. The production phase went from September 2016 to May 2017.

This is a love story about two mannequins. The story takes place in a European looking city. The male mannequin meets the female mannequin under a romantic scenario.They fall in love as the time pass by. However, in the end, they don’t get to actually end up together. As a result, the male mannequin gets to have a symbolic figure as the female mannequin and they spend …

Rethinking Dalian New International Airport: The Exploration Of A Net-Zero Airport Powered By Tidal Power Energy On An Artificial Island., Xiaofan Jiang

Theses

Fossil fuel is still the number one energy resource in China, and among the fossil fuel, coal is the primary resource to generate electricity and heat during heating days. Fossil fuel will result in global warming, sea level rising, but we may not perceive these because of the relatively subtle changes. Nevertheless, China got the punishment from the natural in recent years, most of the mainland China is experiencing the terrible smog, which gets worse in the winter. The cause of the smog is same to London, a huge amount of coal has been consumed in last few decades. To …

Re-Envisioning Kindergarten Learning Spaces In The U.S Education System, Suhina Agarwal

Theses

The thesis work aims at improving the learning environments of the Kindergarten classrooms in the United States by taking inspiration from a very simple and popular play element namely the ‘blocks’. The classroom environments and learning methods have not seen a significant change since the time of the Industrial Revolution. The essence of school education remains the same, which is expected to be a closed classroom, conventional furniture and the teacher determining the learning activities. With the changing times, as new studies on multiple styles of learning and brain functions emerge, there is a need to customize education and cater …

A Hoard Of Unpaid Invoices: Dissecting Economies & Private Market Forces To Solve B2b Late Payments, Adam Walker

Theses

The average small-to-medium-size business in the United States keeps just enough of a cash buffer to last 27 days worth of normal operational costs, but in 2016 81% of all B2B invoices were delayed at least 30 days or more past the due date of payment.

Furthermore, in 2016, the average SMB held roughly $84,000 in unpaid accounts receivables, with that number also varying across industries. As an example, the average IT SMB held roughly $163k in unpaid accounts receivables, while the average transportation company held roughly $102k in the same. Yet we wonder why 50% of all SMBs close …

Trumpocracy: The Rise Of Populism In Europe And America, Michael F. Kickham Iii

Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine the root cause of the populist backlash that has been so prominent in recent western democracies. Populist backlashes have occurred with frequency over time, however since the turn of the 21st Century, they have occurred with increased frequency and effectiveness. This is largely due to a disconnect between political and media elites and the general public. I propose two models; the "fragment theory" and the "feedback loop" theory to help explain the increased effectiveness of populist movements. The "fragment theory" is the idea that fringe political parties are able to challenge mainstream …

Allrecovery – Mobile App For Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Education, Yao Jia Zhang

Theses

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a cancer of the bone marrow. Lymphoblasts are unable to mature due to errors in signaling leading to an accumulation of non-functioning lymphoblasts. ALL is one of the most common cancers found in children; with an estimated 6590 new cases in the United States in 2016 (seer.cancer.gov, 2016). When a family finds out that their child has been diagnosed with cancer, it could be a shocking and terrifying experience. Understanding and learning about the nature of the disease can be a helpful method to cope with the fear and anxiety. ALLRecovery is created to present …

Life Begins, Yuju Yen

Theses

My work reveals the world I see, the world I feel, and the world I imagine. The story I want to tell in my thesis is about every stunning moment when a life begins. While the sculptures and jewelry in my thesis body of work differ in scale, they are all singing the same theme: when a life starts to grow and when a flower blooms.

The forms of my thesis work are inspired from various natural lives, such as virus, fungi, jellyfish, bacteria, blooming flowers, and sea creatures. They are vividly waving, rotating, spinning their tentacles, antennas, and microfibers …

Industry And Academics, Dan Rucker

Theses

My thesis containts the story of the design management and programming of a major industry design manufacturer and a group of college students.

I was able to build a partnership with Herman Miller and RIT while I worked in R&D at the organization. The metaproject04 effort was what myself and my design team members at Herman Miller were involved in, allowing myself to model design management techniques and connecting two well-established entities in a way that felt like a natural fit for both. The stories of the process and challenges, including the end result work embodies my thesis submission.

Avant L’Appétit: An Augmented Reality Interactive Menu That Elevates The Gourmet Food Experience, Emili Koui

Theses

Restaurant businesses try to come up with ways to increase and maintain their clientele. In many restaurants, images of food often misrepresent the quality and quantity of the menu item. The results are a disappointment on the customer side, and a loss of clientele on the business side. Gourmet restaurants have the ability to provide consistency, which helps in maintaining their client numbers. However, new customers are hesitant in trying this experience due to reasons of portion size accuracy, ingredient identification, language barrier and dietary preferences.

This thesis investigated how the digitization of a traditional printed menu, can better enhance …

The Omnichannel Marketplace: A Look At Modern Consumers, Rosa Arnone

Theses

Since the advent of the digital marketplace, marketing techniques to reach consumers have shifted. Traditional media and demographic analysis are no longer the only means for brands reaching consumers. Marketing has now taken an omnichannel approach. This study examined the relationship between the omnichannel consumer, the consumer benefits sought online versus in brick and mortar, and the modern marketer’s approach to omnichannel marketing. It outlines a psychographic and demographic profile of today’s omnichannel consumer, which will ultimately create a more detailed profile for businesses to market across integrated channels ultimately delivering a hybrid consumer experience (HCE). Findings in this study …

What Is The Relationship Between Conflict Management And Employee Empowerment? A Message Design Logic Perspective And Its Importance For Managers And Supervisors, Michelle Maura Fernandez

Theses

This study focused on how conflict management between employees affects employee empowerment. Conflict naturally occurs between individuals, and its management in organizations can result in positive or negative consequences. Employee empowerment influences greater job satisfaction and commitment to organizations. Based on the theory of message design logic, it was hypothesized that employees who employ rhetorical design while managing conflict will experience greater levels of empowerment. The sample consisted of 196 employees at an educational institution who completed a short, online survey. Results showed no relationship between levels of perception of empowerment and message design logic, thus not supporting the hypothesis.

Searching For Color In Black & White: Epistemic Closure, The Rit Archives, And The Colonial Roots Of White Invisibility, Andrew James

Theses

When examining an image, a viewer often focuses on what they see and less often on what they are able to see. Nowhere is this as true, and as problematic, as it is with the visual representation of persons of African descent. This study describes how problematic photographic representation was used as a powerful semiotic tool in the Victorian age conquest of the other, was exported to early Hollywood (creating a lucrative hate-based industry), and was then pushed back into the cultural recesses, settling finally into systemic forms of modern oppression, empowered by the invisibility of whiteness. Images from the …

A Content Analysis Of News Source Characteristics Within Broadcast News Stories Concerning The Financial Crisis Between September 8, 2008 – December 31, 2008, Jennifer L. Freer

Theses

A content analysis was conducted to identify potential differences in the characteristics of sources appearing in stories shown on the three national evening news broadcasts of ABC World News, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News during the first four months of the 2008 Financial Crisis. The names, titles, affiliations, and societal sectors of each on-camera, named individual were identified and analyzed for their differences and frequencies of appearance. The study found the government sector was the most frequently appearing sector, and members of the House of Representatives appeared far more than any other government officials. Though the evening network …

Finding Practical Way To Minimize The Time And Space Needed At The Temporary Donation Places, Reema Aldossari

Theses

This study exploits and describes how to manage donations and send them to the affected people when natural disaster occurs. Throughout my experience in working with some organizations for collecting donations, I found out that there are many problems that harden the goods. Since affected people need the help and the goods immediately, it will take time to reach and be delivered to the people who need them. The process takes a long period of time due to the following reasons: first, the donor ships unsolicited donations and that will consequently waist time and money because no one need them. …

Using The Opposition Effect In Remotely Sensed Data To Assist In The Retrieval Of Bulk Density, Brittany L. Ambeau

Theses

Bulk density is an important geophysical property that impacts the mobility of military vehicles and personnel. Accurate retrieval of bulk density from remotely sensed data is, therefore, needed to estimate the mobility on "off-road" terrain. For a particulate surface, the functional form of the opposition effect can provide valuable information about composition and structure. In this research, we examine the relationship between bulk density and angular width of the opposition effect for a controlled set of laboratory experiments. Given a sample with a known bulk density, we collect reflectance measurements on a spherical grid for various illumination and view geometries …

Panorama, Ayuko Sakurai

Theses

The series of art forms “Panorama” was my visual representation of interpreting an individual’s world and invisible 360 degree space around him or her. By observing different scenes and people from above, I simplified them and their panoramic space into dots and spheres through my imaginary bird’s eye. The core idea of “Panorama” was a perception within or from this personal encompassing space.

With experiments and new techniques such as welding, the art forms turned out as a pentagon with five free-standing steel panels and four wearable pieces with aluminum structures. These wearable works were hung from the gallery ceiling …

Efficient Template-Based Nanomanufacturing Of Carbon Nanotube Arrays For Cell Applications, Adeel Ahmed

Theses

Carbon nanotube arrays have been found to be highly effective at carrying out intracellular delivery of cargo at high efficiencies while ensuring cell viability. Template based chemical vapor deposition is a commonly used process to fabricate these arrays. However, current etching methods used to expose carbon nanotubes from templates are expensive and time consuming. The high cost and time-consuming processes currently required to fabricate such arrays are factors which limit the commercialization of this technology and inhibit scope for larger research programs. In this thesis, alternative nanofabrication methods were explored with the aim of making the fabrication of CNT arrays …

The Effect Of Microstructure On Mechanical Properties Of Powder-Based Materials For 3-D Printing, Yuan Tian

Theses

The Thesis simulates the microstructure of powder-based materials for the Powder-bed Fusion 3D printing processes. The microstructure is created with the Random Ballistic Deposition methodology, which simulates the sedimentation of spherical particles under the influence of an external field. For the bulk of particles of the same size, the packing fraction depends on the inter-particle forces among them. In the Thesis, different contact areas between particles are created to simulate the sintering effects. The specimens of simulated microstructures of different contact areas are produced with a 3D stereolithographic printer. The printed specimens are then subjected to testing for their differences …

Beauty Or Love, Khorvash Khayati

Theses

Mia is a pretty girl who has attracted many men who present her with empty love only because of her beauty. The film starts with an interior of Mia’s room and then transforms into the past; her memories depict what is in an exterior, outside of her house. She’s dancing and surrounded by many guys. She meets a guy with a hat in the crowd and likes him because he doesn’t try to show off to get her attention. Men start fighting over her; during the fighting, they forget about her. She accidentally gets injured in the middle of the …