Digital Commons Network^™

White Trash, Heather Law

Theses

White Trash, is body of work that aims to reflect upon our personal role and contribution to the solid waste stream through routine consumption and waste disposal. From everything we eat and drink, to the refuse we flush down the drain, we all consume resources. Living in a materially saturated, mass-consumer society, we have evolved into an increasingly disposable culture. By identifying with our waste production, we then can better evaluate the pitfalls of our materialistic ways. Common consumer products stuffed inside a toilet creates a recognizable waste pattern found within the domestic household. Our trash is considered pollution. Once …

Studies Toward The Total Synthesis Of Trocheliophorolide A, Jennifer Swartzenberg

Theses

Soft sea corals generate a plethora of natural products including steroids and metabolites. As such, they have been of keen interest to biologists and synthetic organic chemists. Recently the soft corals Sarcophyton trocheliophorum and Lithophyton arboretum, which were isolated from the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea, have been found to produce six butenolide lipids and butenolides with unusual substitution and unsaturation patterns. The purpose of this research is to achieve the total synthesis of the gamma-lactone 1, Trocheliophorolide A, one of the six butenolide natural products. Trocheliophorolide A is composed of a lactone ring and a unique unsaturated …

Studies Toward The Total Synthesis Of Eletefine, Kyle Rugg

Theses

Eletefine is a natural product of the stephaoxocane family of alkaloids. It possesses an isoquinoline moiety functionalized with three methoxy groups forming an electron rich aromatic system. Eletefine also possesses a ten-membered ring with a novel bridged vinyl ether functionality, and a remote chiral alcohol, making it a conspicuous and desirable target for the synthetic organic chemist. The plant from which eletefine was first isolated (Cissampelos glaberrima) has been used in traditional medicine for the relief of symptoms from urinary tract infections and asthma. The proposed synthesis of eletefine is a convergent route which features a Sonogashira coupling and a …

Enhanced Pool Boiling Of Water With Open Microchannels Over Cylindrical Tubes, Jeet Mehta

Theses

Pool boiling is a stable and efficient method for transferring large quantities of heat. It is employed in a wide range of applications, including steam generation in boilers, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, cryogenic and many other industrial processes. The objective of this work was to investigate the augmentation in the boiling heat transfer rates with an array of open microchannels over a cylindrical tube. In order to develop high performance surfaces, rectangular and V-groove cross-sectional geometry microchannels were fabricated and tested over tubular test sections. These microchannels were manufactured in two configurations: circumferentially around the test section and axially along the length. …

Large-Scale Cloudscapes Using Noise, Mario Rosa

Theses

Clouds have been of particular interest in computer graphics due to the challenge they present. Clouds are considered fuzzy objects, and need specialized algorithms to model and render realistically. Many techniques exist to model and render clouds that have had much success. This research will take existing techniques in cloud modeling and rendering and create a new technique combining those with noise. The idea is that noise can be used to model large-scale repeatable 3D cloudscapes and to be able to model such cloudscapes much more quickly than current techniques. This would be beneficial to developers of virtual universes that …

Usage Of Demographical Population Trends And Statistics In Public Policy In Kosovo, Fitore Hyseni

Theses

Not provided.

Market Adapted Furniture, Casey Reeve

Theses

The furniture market as a whole can be broken into three discrete markets. These are the custom or one-off market, the limited or batch production market and the manufactured or mass production market. Each of these markets poses different design challenges based on many changing variables including cost, method of production and distribution. Normally these furniture sub markets exist with a certain amount of separation within the larger market of furniture. The clientele tend to be very different and the companies or people that make the furniture tend to be relatively specialized. Because of this significant separation, it is very …

A Haunting, Zachary Goetz

Theses

"A Haunting" explores the possible existence of supernatural entities and visually renders my personal encounters with spirit presences through poetry, sculpture, painting, performance, and video. My thesis work does not attempt to answer questions about these experiences, but instead provides visual impressions of them. I use the human figure to illustrate the dichotomy between presence and absence. The physicality of presence is referenced though the use of metals and the qualities of absence through the incorporation of gauzes and sheer fabrics. This body of work also explores the connotations and undertones attached to a figure or effigy when it is …

Kosovo’S Comparative Advantages: The Agriculture Sector [Presentation Given August 15, 2013], Arzana Myderrizi

Theses

Not provided.

Investigating English Teachers’ Views, Actual Practice And The Connection Between Them Regarding The Use Of Arabic During English Classes In The Uae High Schools, Ameirah Hassan Al Mohamed

Theses

This study investigated English Teachers’ views, actual practices and the connections among them regarding the use of Arabic during teaching English as foreign language in one of the Northern Emirates in the UAE high schools. The present study which took place in one Emiratis in UAE adopted Activity Theory (AT) to investigate English teachers’ views and their real practices on using Arabic while teaching English. The study employed a mixed method research design involving a survey, semi-structured interview and classroom observation. The study focused on the following research questions: 1) What are the English teachers’ views on using Arabic during …

A Case Study Of Edwin Howard Armstrong's Public Relations Campaign For Fm, Jessica Francis

Theses

Edwin Howard Armstrong is commonly remembered as the inventor of frequency modulation (FM). There are those, however, who dispute this claim and assert that Armstrong's legacy is a work of fiction rather than history. This study examines the extensive public relations campaign on behalf of both FM and Armstrong from 1940 until after his death. This thesis is a case study of this campaign for the purpose of understanding the narrative presented to the American public.

Mercy Rule And My Progress Through The Thesis Process, Andrew Kuhn

Theses

Mercy Rule and My Progress Through the Thesis Process is a feature-length script and dissertation analyzing, among other things, the challenges during the process, the criticisms voiced after the reading, and the overall experience. Mercy Rule is a comedy about a young baseball player named Kevin Jasper who takes up little league coaching after being kicked off his team for fighting. Through coaching Kevin finds joy and comes to grips with his athletic mortality. In 2010 the story proposal for Mercy Rule was a script about two outlaw umpires, an undeveloped idea my brother and I had been discussing during …

Block-Scoped Access Restriction Technique For Html Content In Web Browsers, Timothy Watt

Theses

Web sites, web browsers, web site authors, web component authors, and end users interact in a complicated environment with many recognized and unrecognized trust relationships. The web browser is the arena in which many important trust relationships interact, thus it bears a considerable burden in protecting the interests and security of web end users as well as web site authors. Existing proposals, draft standards, implemented features, and web application techniques go a long way towards allowing rich and compelling content interactions, but they do not provide for rich, mutually-distrusting content to be safely embedded in a single page. This proposal …

Asynchronous Ultrasonic Trilateration For Indoor Positioning Of Mobile Phones, Viacheslav Filonenko (Thesis)

Theses

Spatial awareness is fast becoming the key feature on today‟s mobile devices. While accurate outdoor navigation has been widely available for some time through Global Positioning Systems (GPS), accurate indoor positioning is still largely an unsolved problem. One major reason for this is that GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) systems offer accuracy of a scale far different to that required for effective indoor navigation. Indoor positioning is also hindered by poor GPS signal quality, a major issue when developing dedicated indoor locationing systems. In addition, many indoor systems use specialized hardware to calculate accurate device position, as …

Maddy The Mathasaurus: An Interactive Math Game That Introduces The Concept And Properties Of Multiplication And Designed With Consideration For Children With Adhd, Mansi Vora

Theses

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is one of the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder in kids, and is estimated to affect about 8-10% of school-aged children. Research shows that out of these children about 26% particularly have Math learning disabilities. The cognitive ability to understand and solve complex mathematical problems requires high level of concentration over a longer duration of time. This ability is disrupted in certain children due to ADHD. Therefore these students are likely to receive lower grades or even failure in standardized measures. However, if an educational environment is created that is specifically targeted towards reducing the …

Hadoop-Cc (Collaborative Caching) In Real Time Hdfs, Meenakshi Shrivastava

Theses

Data is being generated at an enormous rate, due to online activities and use of resources related to computing. To access and handle such enormous amount of data spread, dis- tributed systems is an efficient mechanism. One such widely used distributed filesystem is Hadoop distributed filesystem (HDFS). HDFS follows a cluster approach in order to store huge amounts of data, it is scalable and works on low commodity. It uses MapRe- duce framework to perform analysis and carry computations parallely on these large data sets. Hadoop follows the master/slave architecture decoupling system metadata and appli- cation data where metadata is …

Development Of Food Guide Pyramid For Individuals With Achondroplasia, Kathryn Elizabeth Lamb

Theses

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF KATHRYN E. LAMB, for the Master of Science degree in Food and Nutrition, presented on Tuesday, November 22, 2011, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale TITLE: DEVELOPMENT OF FOOD GUIDE PYRAMID FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH ACHONDROPLASIA MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Sara Long Roth Previous studies have developed food guide pyramids for different populations. However, no study has developed a food guide pyramid for individuals with achondroplasia. This study used the USDA's food guide pyramid, RDA/DRI, and 2010 Dietary Guidelines to develop a food guide pyramid for individuals with achondroplasia. Although food guide pyramids for different populations exist, …

Rhythmic Proportions, Ashley Billings

Theses

Rhythmic Proportions is a story about shifting the balance between logical structures and artistic freedoms. Manifested through paintings and found objects from a piano, my thesis negotiates a series of missions through an evolution of creative methodology in the interest of discovering new potentials. Propelled by the ideas of Mark Rothko, Michel Foucault and Immanuel Kant, I connect cognitive philosophies with my most forceful visual influences: the ancient works of Islamic architecture and the contemporary works of video artist Hiraki Sawa, painter Gopal Chowdhury, and sculptor Diana Al-Hadid. As my methods evolve, a more organic style gains momentum, however a …

Characterisation Of Pharmaceutical Grade Horse Chestnut Waste, Joanna Przyborska

Theses

Horse chestnut residue was made available by a local pharmaceutical company. The residue was subjected to compositional analysis and studied to determine potential for residual biological activity, including prebiotic, antimicrobial, anti-hyaluronidase and anti-elastase effects.

The residue had 52 % total solids, including 2.97% ash, 6.93% protein, 1.89% crude fat. Oleic acid (74.7%) was the main fatty acid components in the crude lipid component. The major ash components were potassium, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium.

Prebiotic potential of aqueous extract (HCE) from horse chestnut residue was confirmed. A new formula for calculation of prebiotic index (PI) was developed. PI for probiotics (Lactobacillus …

Genealogical Interpretation: Applications Of Genealogy At Historical Sites, Foresta L. Hanson

Theses

Historical sites protect and preserve sites of national importance and shared memories of its citizens (Lenz, 2011; Mackintosh, 2000). These sites document liberty, colonial history, slavery, wars, prominent figures, and more through museums, villages, homes, cemeteries, and battlefields (Utah Education Network, 2012). Interpreters tell the stories of the people who lived and died at the historic site connecting visitors to the resource. Genealogy answers the universal need people have to know who they are and where they come from (Bishop, 2008; Brough, 1995). Interpreters bring the ancestors to life and help the visitor understand what life was like in previous …

An Actor's Journey Into The Mind Of A Sociopath, Kelsey Amann

Theses

In order to complete the requirements for a Master of Fine Arts at Lindenwood University, I was required to perform a leading role as part of my thesis project. I chose to play Neil LaBute's character, Evelyn, in his play, The Shape of Things. Evelyn is an incredibly complex character; there are muJtiple layers to her and for each layer I did extensive research. This paper will take the reader on a journey through the process as J experienced it, including the decisions I made to create Evelyn.

A Study Of The Use Of Simd Instructions For Two Image Processing Algorithms, Eric Welch

Theses

Many media processing algorithms suffer from long execution times, which are most often not acceptable from an end user point of view. Recently, this problem has been exacerbated because media has higher resolution. One possible solution is through the use of Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) architectures, such as ARM's NEON. These architectures take advantage of the parallelism in media processing algorithms by operating on multiple pieces of data with just one instruction. SIMD instructions can significantly decrease the execution time of the algorithm, but require more time to implement. This thesis studies the use of SIMD instructions on a …

Breaking Free, Fatemah Alazmi

Theses

Written here is an account of my journey exploring and investigating a new artistic path. I showcase the ways in which my visual production is unique both within the field of art but also and more importantly is an imprint of my authorship and personality. As an abstract expressionist painter interested in formalism, my artwork suggests a universal language of color and form. Colors and distinctive shapes come to form a great energy and dynamism. Through the effect of the process, whereby all these elements are combined, I have attempted to transcend the norms of formalism and express the very …

Semi-Supervised Heterogeneous Evolutionary Co-Clustering, Pankaj Andhale

Theses

One of the challenges of the machine learning problem is the absence of sufficient number of labeled instances or training instances. At the same time generating labeled data is expensive and time consuming. The semi-supervised approach has shown promising results to solve the problem of insufficient or fewer labeled instance datasets. The key challenge is incorporating the semi-supervised knowledge into the heterogeneous data which is evolving in nature. Most of the prior work that uses semi-supervised knowledge has been performed on heterogeneous static data. The semi-supervised knowledge is incorporated into data which aid the clustering algorithm to obtain better clusters. …

How Parents Use Television To Enrich Their Children's Cultural Identity: The Case Study Of Shalom Sesame And Jewish Life, Elizabeth Michele Spezia

Theses

A small-scale ethnographic case study of young children's learning from television in southern Illinois provides understanding about the frameworks used for interpreting media use in family life. The research consisted of in-home interviews about patterns of using the media, observations, and family diaries of children's viewing behavior to examine family engagement with a prosocial television program, Shalom Sesame, depicting Jewish culture, Hebrew language, holidays, and the land of Israel. Family responses to the program are identified in terms of appeal, use, and overall fit with Jewish identity and tradition in the homes. Data analysis reveals that quality educational program features …

Logo Station: A Personal Logo Design Application On Multi-Touch Tablet Devices, Lan Shi

Theses

This decade has witnessed the rapid development of technology in the IT field. The importance of technology is undeniable. The increase of digital products in both quality and quantity is inevitable. As a result, numerous cutting-edge tablet applications have been developed. New applications have brought unprecedented convenience to the users in their daily lives. However, there is a lack of well-developed applications on tablet devices to allow people to design personal logos. It is common knowledge that professional design software is not consumer friendly for the non-designer. And for the average user, the professional design software might be easy to …

Morphological, Phylogenetic, And Ecological Analyses Of The New Model Grass Species Setaria Viridis (Poaceae) And Its Close Relative Setaria Faberi, Daniel J. Layton

Theses

Species limits as defined by herbarium taxonomists are nearly always based on intuitive morphological comparisons with little concrete data or statistical analysis. Setaria viridis (tribe Paniceae, subtribe Cenchrinae), an emerging model organism for the study of C4 photosynthesis, is one such inadequately defined species. In order to evaluate its relationship with the morphological intergrading Setaria faberi, a “total data” approach was taken. Statistical morphology, cytology, molecular phylogenetics, and growth experimentation were employed to examine the putative species boundary in this group. Principal components analysis of 70 morphological characters in 85 individuals revealed consistent separation between the two species in morphospace, …

An Analysis Of Various Web Tracking Methods, William Huba

Theses

The accurate tracking of web clients has historically been a difficult problem. Accurate tracking can be used to monitor the activity of attackers which would otherwise be anonymous. Since HTTP is a stateless protocol, there is no built-in method for tracking clients. Many methods have been developed for this purpose; however they primarily rely on the cooperation of the client and are limited to the current session and are not designed to track a client long-term or through different environments. This paper takes an in-depth look at the most popular methods of tracking web users and how well they preserve …

Web-­Based Single Sign-On: An Examination Of Security And Usability, Samuel Waters

Theses

Among system administrators, users are generally considered the weakest link in the security chain. One of the biggest concerns is how users create and remember passwords. To try and ensure the security of their systems, administrators will generally create policies regarding how complex a user's password must be, and will exhort the user to never write down, share, or reuse that password. On the surface, this seems like good security sense, and from an administrator's perspective, it is. However, to the user, who may have dozens of unique accounts, stringent policies create a significant cognitive burden. As such, users are …

Environmental Science In Middle School Curricula: A Pilot Project In The Dominican Republic, Laura Tejeda

Theses

The Dominican Republic's (DR) public investment in education by 2010 was 2% of the GNP; falling behind the 6% minimum established by UNESCO in 2010 as a requirement to achieve quality education. The DR has not developed an Environmental Education policy. The DR's Environment Law 64-00 dictates Environmental Education to be introduced as one of the cross-cutting themes called "transverse axis" into the general curricula of all schools. However; due to lack of time and teachers able to integrate these axes into lesson plans, they were seldom implemented. This pilot project took place at The Community for Learning School (TCFL). …