Digital Commons Network^™

Use, But Pay? Factors Affecting The Adoption Of News Websites Among Young Adults, Julian Koegel

Theses

This study explored young people's consumption of and willingness to pay for traditional news websites with both uses and gratifications and diffusion of innovation theory as theoretical frames. Based on a survey sample of U.S. college students, it revealed similarities and differences among certain groups of adopters. Regression analyses found when aiming for new young readers and potential payers, news producers should focus on addressing needs for surveillance, understanding, and entertainment, give as many people the opportunity to try out the website, and target particularly e-book readers, but avoid those playing a lot of online games. Social media features, expressed …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Iii-V Tunnel Field-Effect Transistors For Low Voltage Logic Applications, Brian Romanczyk

Theses

With voltage scaling to reduce power consumption in scaled transistors the subthreshold swing is becoming a critical factor influencing the minimum voltage margin between the transistor on and off-states. Conventional metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) are fundamentally limited to a 60 mV/dec swing due to the thermionic emission current transport mechanism at room temperature. Tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) utilize band-to-band tunneling as the current transport mechanism resulting in the potential for sub-60 mV/dec subthreshold swings and have been identified as a possible replacement to the MOSFET for low-voltage logic applications. The TFET operates as a gated p-i-n diode under reverse bias …

Effects Of Reputation And Aesthetics On The Credibility Of Search Engine Results, Bryan Christiansen

Theses

Search engines are the primary gatekeepers of online information, but are judged differently than traditional gatekeepers due to the interactive and impersonal nature of the online search process. The researcher distributed an online survey with 141 respondents and conducted 22 observational interviews. Information credibility was tested through measures of expertise, goodwill, and trustworthiness, which were each correlated with perceived reputation and perceived aesthetics. Search engine reputation was found to have moderate correlations with expertise and trustworthiness, and a lesser, but still moderate correlation with goodwill. Aesthetics was related to the credibility measures in similar but lesser proportions. Interviews indicated search …

Trends In Soft Proofing Utilized As Contract Proofs In Commercial Lithographic Printing, Xi Yang

Theses

The proofing market has changed dramatically in recent decades. The introduction of Soft Proofing Systems--with the ability to quickly produce proofs at each step in the color reproduction process for a lower cost than conventional proofs--has been cited as a factor in changing the economies of this market. According to a research project conducted by Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization (PRIMIR, 2005) titled Dynamics and Trends in Color Proofing 2005-2010, only 1% of the final contract proofs made by respondents were color-managed monitor proofs. This percentage was expected to increase 8% by 2010. A pertinent question as to …

Monitoring The Natural Processing Of Organic Carbon And Phenols In Selective Wetlands Within Monroe County, Ny, Muhammad Rubaiyat

Theses

Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) is one of the largest active organic carbon reservoirs formed from processes that break down terrestrial/aquatic matter and released from plant roots as exudates. In watersheds, DOC is continuously transported and processed through rivers, streams and lakes. DOC is present in wetlands around Monroe County, New York; in areas that function as groundwater recharge, stormwater retention, nutrient retention and habitats for wildlife. The conducted research was an initial step towards a more thorough understanding of DOC's processing, especially in regard to its phenolic content, in small urban/sub-urban wetlands in Monroe County, NY. DOC and phenol concentrations …

Effectiveness Of Text-Messaging In Spanish Vocabulary Teaching / Learning, Flavia Melisa Velasquez

Theses

Mobile learning is the attainment of any knowledge or skill through using mobile technology, anywhere, anytime (Hashemi et al. 2477). Hashemi and Ghasemi also state that mobile phones are one of the most successful technologies in the past two decades (2947). More and more educators are using mobile phones as an educational tool. Second Language Acquisition has also been redefined due to the advent of Mobile learning and text-messaging. Khazaie and Ketabi explain that "the value of deploying technology at the service of learning and teaching seems to be both self-evident and unavoidable" (174). There are many studies of using …

Stability Analysis Of Switched Dc-Dc Boost Converters For Integrated Circuits, Kevin Fronczak

Theses

Boost converters are very important circuits for modern devices, especially battery- operated integrated circuits. This type of converter allows for small voltages, such as those provided by a battery, to be converted into larger voltage more suitable for driving integrated circuits. Two regions of operation are explored known as Continuous Conduction Mode and Discontinuous Conduction Mode. Each region is analyzed in terms of DC and small-signal performance. Control issues with each are compared and various error amplifier architectures explored. A method to optimize these amplifier architectures is also explored by means of Genetic Algorithms and Particle Swarm Optimization. Finally, stability …

Large Substitution Boxes With Efficient Combinational Implementations, Christopher A. Wood

Theses

At a fundamental level, the security of symmetric key cryptosystems ties back to Claude Shannon's properties of confusion and diffusion. Confusion can be defined as the complexity of the relationship between the secret key and ciphertext, and diffusion can be defined as the degree to which the influence of a single input plaintext bit is spread throughout the resulting ciphertext. In constructions of symmetric key cryptographic primitives, confusion and diffusion are commonly realized with the application of nonlinear and linear operations, respectively. The Substitution-Permutation Network design is one such popular construction adopted by the Advanced Encryption Standard, among other block …

Under Construction: Viewing Manipulated Space, Michael David Farrell Jr.

Theses

North America, the United States in particular, has established an unique and distinct connection to the the wildspaces outside of urban environments. The two spaces, urban and wilderness, are placed in opposition to one another in a sliding valuation scale that is based on the degradation experienced in these urban areas, due to industrialized capitalist means of production, by the inhabitants. These effects are the source of both literary and visual art protests that originate in the 19th century in both generations of the Hudson River School painters, American pastoral writing, philosophy, and photographs. These romanticized views of natural space …

Simulation And Implementation Of Moth-Eye Structures As A Broadband Anti-Reflective Layer, Ketan Deshpande

Theses

Conventional single layer thin anti-reflective coatings (ARCs) are only suitable for narrowband applications. A multilayer film stack is often employed for broadband applications. A coating of multiple layers with alternating low and high refractive index materials increases the overall cost of the system. This makes multilayer ARCs unsuitable for low-cost broadband applications. Since the discovery of moth-eye corneal nipple patterns and their potential applicability in the field of broadband ARCs, many studies have been carried out to fabricate these bio-inspired nanostructures with available manufacturing processes. Plasma etching processes used in microelectronic manufacturing are applied for creating these nanostructures at the …

Relationship Of Childhood Activity To Leisure Time Activities And Recreation Specialization Among College Students, Alexandra Sandoval

Theses

Leisure time and outdoor recreation are participated in during childhood, which allows for children to being able to learn about different recreation activities, whether they may be indoor or outdoor oriented. Children begin to learn about the world around them, having significant life experiences and beginning to understand the concept of recreation specialization. As a child moves into adulthood, specifically as college students, their leisure time activities being to change; this may be due to the fact that their time is limited for both indoor and outdoor recreation, but could also be due to the fact that technological advances have …

Effect Of Celebrity Endorsements On Treatment Choices Made By Professionals And Parents With Children Diagnosed With Asd, Jenika Karnik

Theses

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that one in 50 children are diagnosed with Autism in the U.S. Now, parents out there not only have to face a doctor's diagnosis, but also a flood of confusing promises for recoveries and miracle cures. Parents have to sift through recommendations made by media, celebrities, professionals, and many, many more. The purpose of this study is to examine what influences the choices parents make involving treatment for their children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Timeflies: Push-Pull Signal-Function Functional Reactive Programming, Edward Amsden

Theses

Functional Reactive Programming (FRP) is a promising class of abstractions for interactive programs. FRP systems provide values defined at all points in time (behaviors or signals) and values defined at countably many points in time (events) as abstractions. Signal-function FRP is a subclass of FRP which does not provide direct access to time-varying values to the programmer, but instead provides signal functions, which are reactive transformers of signals and events, as first-class objects in the program. All signal-function implementations of FRP to date have utilized demand-driven or "pull-based" evaluation for both events and signals, producing output from the FRP system …

Workforce Planning And Facility Utilization Using A Two-Stage Stochastic Recourse Approach, Anirudha Kulkarni

Theses

Hi-tech manufacturing uses sophisticated and capital intensive processes that require a highly skilled workforce. Fluctuating demand leads to either a shortage of skilled workers that causes unmet demand or an excess of skilled labor that causes worker idleness. This mismatch in the available and required skillsets is a source of potential loss for the organization. This thesis formulates an industry-motivated workforce planning and facility utilization problem as a two-stage stochastic recourse program that considers fluctuating demand over a long planning horizon and includes business and labor rules, e.g., hiring, firing, overtime, cross-training, and shift swapping, that govern the structure of …

Dynamics And Control Of A Single-Line Maneuverable Kite, Christopher Donnelly

Theses

Through simulation, an automated control system for a single-line maneuverable kite is developed for application in kite wind energy production. The kite used in this study is a small, tension-controlled, single-line kite, commonly known as a fighter kite. These kites have a simple design, but flying them requires complex control of line tension and visual input. At low tether tension, the kite is unstable; spinning about the tether. Increasing tension in the tether causes the kite to deform and fly in the direction it was facing. Experienced fliers can produce intricate maneuvers and often participate in competitions with other fliers. …

Analyzing Android Applications For Specifications And Bugs, Danilo Dominguez

Theses

Android has become one of the leader operating systems for smartphones. Moreover, Android has a big community of developers with over 696500 applications on its market. However, given the complexity of the system, bugs are very common on Android applications--such as security vulnerabilities and energy bugs. Normally Android applications are written using the Java programming language. In contrast to most Java applications, Android applications does not have a single entry point (main function). In addition, these applications can use some system calls and receive events from external entities (such as the user) that affect how their control flows. Therefore, a …

Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment Of Low, Mid And High-Rise Multi-Family Dwellings With Development Of Knowledge-Based Uncertainty Bounds, Kimberly Bawden

Theses

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used for decades to study the environmental impacts of the built environment. This study extends work in this area by completing an LCA of the cumulative energy demand (CED) and global warming potential (GWP) of low, mid and high-rise multi-family dwellings. Using a hybrid LCA, this study finds that the CED and GWP for low, mid and high-rise multi-family residences increases from 37, 39, to 42 GJ/m2, and 3.6, 3.8, and 4 tCO2eq/m2 on average, respectively. As with previous studies, the operation phase dominates total life cycle energy, but with smaller share of 77% …

Modern Arabic Calligraphic-Based Logos: The Influence Of Traditional Arabic Calligraphy On Modern Arabic Calligraphic-Based Logo Designs, Amer Alkharoubi

Theses

Calligraphy in the Arabic language is an ancient form of communication and a method of documenting history. The Arabic script started in a very simple form with characters similar to each other. However, through the years, many developments have occurred within this form of communication. These developments were created by several artists and calligraphers, which resulted in generating a variety of styles of scripts with unique treatments.

Since the twentieth century, these traditional calligraphic styles have started to lose their importance, and the use of modern Arabic calligraphy is becoming more dominant, especially in the fields of modern design such …

Math Expression Retrieval Using Symbol Pairs In Layout Trees, David Stalnaker

Theses

We have developed a layout-based math retrieval system by indexing on pairs of symbols in mathematical expressions. Existing approaches to layout-based retrieval include tree edit distance-based matching on MathML trees (Kamali and Tompa, 2013) and longest common subsequence matching in LATEX strings (Kumar et al., 2012). In our work, we compare our new layout-based retrieval method with a math retrieval system built using the conventional text-based retrieval system Lucene (Zanibbi and Yuan, 2011), as such systems are commonly used for math search. We show that the search results returned by our system are scored by participants in a study as …

"Oh, You Are An Exception!" Academic Success And Black Male Students Resistance To Systemic Racism, Lacharles Travell Ward

Theses

This study theorizes how Black male students narrate their experiences at a traditionally White institution (TWI). To date, research focusing on Black men in higher education highlights the continual struggles of Black men against racism (Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996; Harper, 2006, 2009, 2012; Smith, Yosso, & Solórzano, 2007); however, what remains to be extensively theorized is Black male academic excellence. Thus, I argue that it is vital to progressively broaden what we know about Black male students as intellectuals. In this study I forefront how Black male students articulate their intellectual identities and educational experiences on a traditionally White …

Facebook As Social Support For A One-Time Weight Loss Intervention Among College Students, Erica Seely

Theses

Approximately 32% of college-aged individuals are overweight or obese, yet few weight loss programs have effectively motivated this population to adopt a healthier lifestyle. A majority of this population frequently uses the social networking site Facebook. This study examined the impact of a Facebook social support group on weight loss efforts of college students. A total of 24 students were randomly assigned to either the intervention group, which consisted of a Facebook support group, or control group after attending a one-time weight loss class. Assessments were taken at baseline and four weeks. Of participants in this study, 83.3% were Facebook …

Effect Of Substrate Composition On Microbial Diversity And Efficiency Of In Situ Pilot-Scale Passive Sulfate-Reducing Bioreactors Treating Acid Mine Drainage, Charles Wayne Pugh

Theses

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is an environmental problem of a global scale. Passive remediation strategies utilizing the metabolism of sulfate-reducing bacteria have emerged as promising options for the mitigation of impacted AMD sites. In order to test the effect of varying complex and simple carbon sources on AMD remediation efficiency, pilot-scale bioreactors were constructed and exposed to AMD in situ over a ten-month period. Geochemical analyses suggested that the efficiency of AMD remediation depended more on the seasonal weather patterns of Southern Illinois, USA than the substrate composition of each bioreactor. Enrichment cultures targeting sulfate-reducing organisms yielded several isolates most …

Discourse Of Defection: Political Representation Of North Koreans, Bethany Ann Stallings

Theses

This paper uses theoretical frameworks from Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze articles from a South Korean English-print newspaper (the Korea Times), one humanitarian group's website (Liberty in North Korea), and an article in The Economist as examples of the two major discursive styles of representation(s) of North Korea and its people. In mapping the two major representations of North Korea and its people: 1) as "defectors" and 2) as "refugees," I examine the discursive themes employed in each of the three texts. I conclude by describing some of the implications of a discourse of defection and suggest that for future …

Movement Of Juvenile Coho Salmon (Onchorynchus Kisutch) And Dolly Varden Char (Salvelinus Malma) In Headwater Rearing Habitat In The Kenai Lowlands Of South-Central Alaska, Kristin Berger

Theses

Patterns of juvenile salmonid movement in natal streams provide insight into factors driving movement and ways to develop proactive conservation practices for wild salmon populations. This work expands on years of ongoing investigations for a comprehensive understanding of landscape and habitat characteristics important for salmon success. This study ties into an existing model for headwater streams in the Kenai Lowlands which predicts the presence of juvenile coho salmon and Dolly Varden by age-class based on catchment topography, wetland geomorphology, water chemistry, substrate composition, channel morphology, and macroinvertebrate and fish communities (King et al. 2012). We tagged nearly 1,000 juvenile coho …

Spatial Heterodyne Spectroscopy: Modeling And Interferogram Processing, Cara Perkins

Theses

This work presents a radiometric model of a spatial heterodyne spectrometer (SHS) and a corresponding interferogram-processing algorithm for the calculation of calibrated spectral radiance measurements. The SHS relies on Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (FTS) principles, and shares design similarities with the Michelson Interferometer. The advantages of the SHS design, including the lack of moving parts, high throughput, and instantaneous spectral measurements, make it suitable as a field-deployable instrument. Operating in the long-wave infrared (LWIR), the imaging SHS design example included provides the capability of performing chemical detection based on reflectance and emissivity properties of surfaces of organic compounds. This LWIR SHS …

My Art, My World, My Piano, Wen-Hua Chen

Theses

The topic for this thesis is how Taiwanese and Western cultures have influenced me both as an artist and an individual. In my thesis, I paint Taiwanese floral patterns. Along with a number of paintings and prints, the most complex work involves painting on a piano. The watercolor paintings are in grid format to demonstrate the concept of pattern, and the piano has a single large peony on top and other decorations on the sides. My research focuses upon the art of Taiwanese culture. I choose Taiwanese floral patterns as my subject matter because of their variety of elements, and …

The Abundance And Biodiversity Of Arthropods In Biofuel Crops: Insects And Arachnids In Corn, Switchgrass And Native Mixed Grass Prairie Fields, Caitlin Kempski

Theses

Concerns about fossil fuel prices and harmful effects have prompted research and investment in biofuel development. Biofuels have the potential to provide a stable fuel source that reduces carbon emissions. However, the ecological impacts of different crop choices should be examined. Arthropod communities in corn and switchgrass monocultures and mixed grass prairie polycultures were examined to determine the impact of the crop choice on the arthropod communities. Results show that, when compared to corn and switchgrass fields, mixed grass prairie fields had higher values for arthropod biomass, number, size, the number of orders present, the number of individuals in each …

A Quantitative Analysis Of The Mental Workload Demands Of Mrap Vehicle Drivers Using Physiological, Subjective, And Performance Assessments, Elizabeth Khol

Theses

United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Operators and vehicle Commanders are specially trained United States military Warfighters that have the demanding task of operating or working onboard Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) All Terrain Vehicles (M-ATVs). Their missions encounter significant mental demands resulting from fatigue, highly stressful situations, and interactions with Government Furnished Equipment (GFE). Excessive mental demands can be the primary factor leading to compromised vehicle communication, missed improvised explosive device (IED) detection, and increased incidents of vehicle roll-over. Research has demonstrated the consequences of mental overloading including increased errors, performance decrements, distraction, cognitive tunneling and inadequate time to …

Improved Economic Feasibility Of Green Energy And Fuel Production Through Wastewater Based Microalgae Growth, Cole Adams

Theses

A growing concern of the impacts from carbon emitting fuels has lead to the development of potentially carbon natural biofuels in the form of biodiesel, bioethanol, and biogas. Unfortunately, first generation sources such as corn, palm, and soy, have not been able to meet the needs of an environmental friendly fuel. In response, microalgae have been proposed by many as an alternative, with the potential to overcome many of the limitations of the first generation sources. Biofuel production from microalgae, however, has not been economically competitive with other petroleum based fuel, and has environmental issues of its own. The viability …

A Framework For Realistic Modeling And Display Of Object Surface Appearance, Benjamin Darling

Theses

With advances in screen and video hardware technology, the type of content presented on computers has progressed from text and simple shapes to high-resolution photographs, photorealistic renderings, and high-definition video. At the same time, there have been significant advances in the area of content capture, with the development of devices and methods for creating rich digital representations of real-world objects. Unlike photo or video capture, which provide a fixed record of the light in a scene, these new technologies provide information on the underlying properties of the objects, allowing their appearance to be simulated for novel lighting and viewing conditions. …