Digital Commons Network^™

New Developments Or More Of The Same? A Historical, Sociological, And Political Look At Missouri's Sex Offender Laws From 1995 To 2013, Robert Mackenzie

Theses

The Republican controlled Missouri General Assembly passed HB 301 in 2013 only to have it vetoed by Democratic Governor Jay Nixon. The bill would have eliminated certain juvenile offenders from the sex offender registry allowing for the removal of first time juvenile offenders. Questions: What are the general trends of sex offender laws and how does HB 301 fit with these trends? How do current political and sociological theories of policy creation explain the actions surrounding Missouri’s HB 301? Methods: This transcript used historical analysis of bills passed by the Missouri General Assembly, Missouri newspaper articles, the political makeup of …

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 …

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 …

A Different Sort Of Normal: Critical Analysis Of Five Lesbian Characters’ Coming-Out Narratives On Contemporary Television Shows, Amanda M. Carlino

Theses

The spiral of silence and cultivation theories both support the importance of positive lesbian portrayals on television, both for lesbian and heterosexual viewers. Throughout the history of lesbian representation in media, lesbian characters have been both under and misrepresented. This study examined five lesbian characters on recent and current television shows to demonstrate how their portrayals subvert the traditional lesbian representations in media. It is concluded that while Emily Fields, Santana Lopez, Sophie Webster, Emily Fitch, and Naomi Campbell's narratives fall victim to some negative tropes in representation, they are generally revolutionary and powerful storylines, thus increasing positive visibility, providing …

Printing Standards: A 2010 Survey Report, Søren Tapdrup Jensen

Theses

Print buyers are asking printers to have their printing processes certified in order to become preferred suppliers. Comprehensive process certification is something new to printers in the US. A successful certification program requires that the certification body is independent and is technically capable, as well as a market that demands the certification.

A number of printing industry influencers approached RIT in December 2008 and asked RIT to offer a process certification program to the U.S. printing industry. In 2009, a committee was formed of faculty and staff from the School of Print Media and the Printing Applications Laboratory to investigate …

The Sages And Philosophers: Reevaluating The Interaction Between Ancient Israel And Greece, Mike Tolliver

Theses

The previously assumed late development of the Jewish sacred writings led many to conclude that the Hellenistic world greatly influenced both the content and worldview of the Hebrew authors. Though the evidence for the historical reconstruction that required the Jewish texts to develop late has been called into question, scholars have yet to reconsider the implications this has for the antiquity of the ideas contained within the Jewish writings and their influence on surrounding cultures. Whereas it was once taken for granted that the Jews borrowed form and content from their Greek neighbors, it is now possible, even probable, that …

High Efficiency Silicon Photonic Interconnects, Liang Cao

Theses

Silicon photonic has provided an opportunity to enhance future processor speed by replacing copper interconnects with an on chip optical network. Although photonics are supposed to be efficient in terms of power consumption, speed, and bandwidth, the existing silicon photonic technologies involve problems limiting their efficiency. Examples of limitations to efficiency are transmission loss, coupling loss, modulation speed limited by electro-optical effect, large amount of energy required for thermal control of devices, and the bandwidth limit of existing optical routers. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate novel materials and methods to enhance the efficiency of silicon photonic devices. …

Perception And Mitigation Of Artifacts In A Flat Panel Tiled Display System, Stephen Dolph

Theses

Flat panel displays continue to dominate the display market. Larger, higher resolution flat panel displays are now in demand for scientific, business, and entertainment purposes. Manufacturing such large displays is currently difficult and expensive. Alternately, larger displays can be constructed by tiling smaller flat panel displays. While this approach may prove to be more cost effective, appropriate measures must be taken to achieve visual seamlessness and uniformity.

In this project we conducted a set of experiments to study the perception and mitigation of image artifacts in tiled display systems. In the first experiment we used a prototype tiled display to …

Inter-Vehicular Communication For Collision Avoidance Using Wi-Fi Direct, Chaitra Satish

Theses

Inter vehicular collision avoidance systems warn vehicle drivers of potential collisions. The U.S Department of Transportation (USDOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in February 2014 has decided to enable vehicular communication among lightweight vehicles to exchange warning messages to prevent accidents.

Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) is a communication standard that allows short-range communication between vehicles and infrastructure, exchanging critical safety information to avoid collision. DSRC safety applications include forward collision warning, sudden brake warning and blind spot warning among many other warnings. It is also important to exchange location information between vehicles and pedestrians to avoid accidents. To exchange …

Wing Chun: Introducing Basic Wing Chun Kung Fu Using Instructional Multimedia, Li Han Huang

Theses

"Wing Chun Kung Fu 3D" is a conceptual website that offers people a new experience to learn and play Wing Chun Kung Fu via instructional multimedia.

In the website, instead of showing the video or static images in a conventional way, users can learn basic Wing Chun with elements such as three dimensional visuals, animations, and interactivity.

By having a TV-game interactive style to create a pleasant learning environment, I will demonstrate how to use instructional multimedia to teach martial arts through non-traditional methods.

Website link:

wk3d.com

Wonderland, Meng-Han Yu

Theses

"I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear" Oprah Winfrey .

My thesis "Wonderland" derives its knowledge from my life experiences, re-used to narrate how people can change or improve their attitude towards their life. Let us begin with how the title was born.

My parents were divorced when I was ten years old. My mother, a registered nurse, sometimes had to stay on duty overnight. Her boyfriend, who used to stay home, very often stirred up trouble between my mother and me. My mother always scolded me without considering the …

A Portrayal Of Biomechanics In Avian Flight, Kelly M. Kage

Theses

The art of avian flight is incredibly complex and sophisticated. It is one of the most energy-intensive modes of animal locomotion, and requires specific anatomical and physiological adaptations. I believe that in order to truly comprehend the beauty and complexity of avian flight, it is necessary to clearly visualize the anatomical adaptations found in birds. To aid in the visualization process, I set out to produce a series of educational animations that focus on the biomechanical requirements for flight. These requirements are numerous and complex, often making the flight process difficult to visualize and understand. The artwork and animations that …

Plasmonic Materials For Use In Alternative Approaches To Duv Nanolithography, Andrew Charles Estroff

Theses

Degradation in image contrast becomes a concern at higher numerical apertures (NA) due to mask induced polarization effects. Rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) was used to simulate the polarization of radiation by the photomask. The results show that higher NA leads to greater polarization effects in all cases. In general, materials with higher refractive indices and lower extinction coefficients tend to pass more of the TM polarization state, whereas materials with lower refractive indices and a relatively wider range of extinction coefficients pass more TE polarized radiation. These properties can provide new design considerations for the development of next generation masking …

Multimodal Imaging And Characterization Of Biofilms, Kunal Vaidya

Theses

Bacterial infection is a rampant problem faced by the medical community. The bacteria gene pool is capable of adapting itself to changing conditions building biofilms to ensure the survival of progeny. This ability reduces the efficiency of antibiotics and protects the bacteria from immune system eradication, prompting the need for a technology capable of early detection of biofilms. The ability to non-invasively image and characterize bacterial biofilms in children during nasopharyngeal (NP) colonization with potential otopathogens and during acute otitis media, (AOM) would represent a significant advance. Identifying the properties of biofilms is a crucial step towards establishing a viable …

Understanding The Relationship Between Social Media, Fanship, And Behaviors In Collegiate Athletics, Kurt A. Wirth

Theses

This study is a survey-based examination of social media's relationship with identity and behavioral intentions in the area of collegiate athletics. Based on social identity and organizational identity theories, this study focuses on the role that social media can play in the development of individuals' attitudes and the behaviors that result from them. In doing so, the study becomes one of the first to analyze this relationship and provides a benchmark with which to help develop future studies. Findings show significant correlations between the consumption of an athletic program's social media campaign, level of self-identity with that program, and likeliness …

Novel Metamaterials And Their Applications In Subwavelength Waveguides, Imaging And Modulation, Wangshi Zhao

Theses

The development of metamaterials has opened the door for engineering electromagnetic properties by subwavelength artificial "atoms", and hence accessing new properties and functionalities which cannot be found among naturally occurring materials. In particular, metamaterials enable the flexibility of independently controlling the permittivity and permeability to be almost any arbitrary value, which promises to achieve deep subwavelength confinement and focusing of electromagnetic waves in different spectrum regimes. The next stage of this technological revolution will be focused on the development of active and controllable metamaterials, where the properties of the metamaterials are expected to be tuned by external stimuli. In this …

Dictionary Attacks And Password Selection, Tarun Madiraju

Theses

Passwords, particularly text-based, are the most common authentication mechanisms across all platforms and services like computers, mobiles, web and network services. Existing password strength evaluators and online service providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Paypal, Twitter, etc) password strength estimators determine the effectiveness of passwords chosen by user based on entropy techniques or a similar function of the parameters: length, complexity and predictability. Such implementations often ignore passwords part of publicly available password dictionaries and password leaks which are often the primary choice for malicious adversaries and particularly script kiddies. This paper presents an application that would help in preventing the use of …

More Than A Library: An Outline For An Integrated Marketing Communications Campaign, Erica Macarthur

Theses

The evolution of the academic library occurred amidst disruptive changes in the information landscape and has resulted in changing definitions of the role of libraries on academic campuses. The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Libraries are an example of the library enterprise "in transition;" however, communicating value through this transformation requires strategic communication. The present project discusses trends in communications and applies it to RIT Libraries by creating a suggested outline for the strategic and tactical components of a marketing communications campaign. Based on a review of the literature, this thesis posits that the forward-thinking library will use the changing …

From Apologia To Benoit: An Empirical Test Of Image Restoration Strategies, Joseph D. Blosenhauer

Theses

This study looked at the effectiveness of William Benoit's image restoration strategies by using a post-test only experiment which featured four treatments. It compared consumers' feelings following responses made by a company after an image threat. Each response consisted of a combination of image restoration strategies, and while not all of Benoit's strategies were tested, the ones which seemed to be most commonly used were chosen. The present study showed two strategies, mortification and corrective action, were more effective than others tested. In addition, there were outside factors, such as perceived sincerity, which also had a role in the effectiveness …

Reproducing The Chinese Ancient Heroic Figure “Xiang Yu” Using 3d Graphics Technology, Ke Xiang

Theses

The ancient country of China has a long history. It has many fascinating historical stories, historical figures, and an elaborate history. For people who want to learn about Chinese history it can often seem overwhelming.

I am planning to find an easy and interesting approach for people who are interested in learning about Chinese history. The effective approach to communicate to people could be enhanced visuals depicting the rich his€tory of China.

Out of this long history, I decided to reproduce a Chinese ancient heroic figure with 3D graphics tech€nology. I will achieve this by using 3D modeling technology, using …

Use Of Nanoparticles In Disinfection Of Desalinated Water In United Arab Emirates, Laila Masoud Rashid Al-Issai

Theses

United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as most Gulf Countries depends mostly on desalinated sea water as the main source of drinking water. The drinking water disinfection process has been routinely carried out since the turn of the century to destroy pathogenic organisms and prevent waterborne diseases. When chemical disinfection is applied before or after desalination, a number of harmful compounds are formed posing potential risks to the health of human or aesthetic quality of drinking water. As such, a tremendous number of studies have been conducted to identify new alternative methods of disinfecting water without formation of harmful Disinfection …

Compensation Of Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Image Field Edge Effects Through Optical Proximity Correction, Chris Maloney

Theses

For EUVL to be enabled for HVM, the printing of densely spaced die must be allowed. To achieve this requirement, a mitigation strategy to compensate for field edge effects is vital. This study has two goals. First, we will show that field edge effects can be modeled for reticles with an absorber border and for those with an etched ML border. The second is to investigate the limitations that exist when compensating for field edge effects with OPC, including image quality, REMA blade stability and OoB variability. This thesis shows that for different reticles different mitigation strategies are required in …

Believe: A Motion Graphic Animation Brings Positive Power To Life, Yu-Hsin Chang

Theses

Life is an adventure, and growing up is not always enjoyable. When Life is filled mainly with struggles, sometimes people lose their confidence. They lack faith in themselves. Believe is a short motion graphic that comes directly from my own personal experience. This animation expresses my views on progress through life.

The motion graphics animation has had a significant impact on audiences. The story encourages people to build up their faith and self-confidence, because Life is full of opportunity.

The project was made by using motion graphics design concepts and experimenting with current computer graphics integration technologies. The final delivery …

The Winds Of Change: The Political Ecology Of Renewable Energy Transition In Vermont, Jill Mcnulty Clegg

Theses

This research presents a case study of renewable energy transition (RET) in Vermont, illustrated by a recently completed commercial wind project in the Lowell Mountains. Preliminary analysis maps out the current political landscape of Vermont’s RET – its stakeholders, political climate, and important policy advances. Subsequent analysis focuses on the relationship between RET and the unique aspects of Vermont’s institutions, culture, and communities. Important elements of this analysis include the ways that community groups form a vital link between citizens and the State, the unique opportunities and challenges presented by Vermont’s pastoral land perception and activist heritage, and the way …

Mapping Ms-Ptc Programmatic Core Competencies To Emerging Professionalization Standards: Are Our Students Fully Prepared?, Faye Newsham

Theses

This paper explores evaluation of graduate student preparedness for work in technical communication and emerging professionalization standards by way of an alumni survey. This paper argues that these core competencies can be evaluated and aligned and provides an example confirming both the New Jersey Institute of Technology Masters of Science in Professional and Technical Communication (NJIT MS-PTC) and the Society of Technical Communication (STC) Body of Knowledge (BOK) and core competencies used in STC certification. The study was conducted through the month of October 2013 and queried alumni of the NJIT MS-PTC program. This paper seeks to suggest a method …

Developing A Labview Based Thermally Stimulated Current (Tsc) Controller To Measure Residual Charge In Electrospinning, Jai Abhishekh Veezhinathan

Theses

Electrospinning is an electrohydrodynamic process for the fabrication of nanofibers which are widely used in therapeutical tissue engineering approaches. It utilizes the potential difference of an electrostatic field to overcome the surface tension of the polymer solution to extrude a fine jet of fluid which deposits on the grounded collector as a nanofiber mat. Using this process, nanofibers with diameters less than a micron can be produced.

Previous studies have shown the presence of residual charge in electrospun nanofibers. The presence and decay of residual charge during cell culture media is still unknown. In an attempt to clarify the presence …

Using The Piezoelectric Backscatter Signal For Remote Sensing Of Neural Signals, Eren Alay

Theses

In recent studies, various methods to sense neural signals are used and new methods for remote sensing of neural signals are being developed. However, there are still major difficulties in building long-term implantable neural interface systems that can reliably record neural activity and serve as the basis of brain-machine interfaces (BMI). Therefore, this research is conducted to design a remote neural sensing system that is based on modulation of the backscatter signal from a piezoelectric element by the neural signals. The hypothesis is that if the neural signal is detected with a simple amplifier and the output of this amplifier …

Using Latent Semantic Analysis To Detect Non-Cognitive Variables Of Academic Performance, Daniel Richard Aalderks

Theses

This thesis explores the possibilities of using latent semantic analysis to detect evidence of intrapersonal personality variables in post-secondary student essays. Determining student achievement based on non-cognitive variables is a complex process. Automated essay scoring tools are already in use today in grading and evaluating student texts based on cognitive domain traits, but at this time are not utilized to analyze non-cognitive domains such as personality. Could such tools be configured to detect non-cognitive variables in student essays? Key concepts in this proposal—personality traits, latent semantic analysis, automated essay evaluation, and online cinema reviews—are explored followed by a literature review …

Comparison Of Different Differential Expression Analysis Tools For Rna-Seq Data, Junfei Zhu

Theses

In molecular biology research, RNA-seq is a relatively new method for transcriptome profiling. It utilizes the next generation sequencing technology to provide huge amount information about the variety and abundance of RNA present in an organism of interest at a specific state and a given time. One of the most important tasks of RNA-seq analysis is finding genes that are expressed differently in different subject groups. A lot of differential expression analysis tools for RNA-seq have been developed, but there is no golden standard in this field. In this research, four commonly used tools (DESeq, edgeR, limma, and cuffdiff) are …

Promised Versus Actual College Experience: The Role Of Social Media In Pre And Post-Enrollment Experiences, Casey Lynne Conklin

Theses

Scholarly research has identified a disparity between the public, print-only messages a college disseminates about itself and what current students claim their experience at a particular institution to be. The present study examined if this disparity or disconnect still exists. Students' self-reported college experience using a survey design was measured in order to discover if current students' exposure to recruitment-driven social media websites and subsequent social media tools altered students' self-reported experience and ultimately created this disparity between "promised" versus "actual" experience. The key findings included that exposure to recruitment-driven social media sites does not influence students' self-report of experience …