Digital Commons Network^™

Opportunities In Television: A Guidebook For Black Women, Katherine Naomi Lucas-Johnson

Theses

Unavailable.

Where Have All The Nurses Gone? The Continuing Saga Of The Nursing Shortage, Deborah R. Mcfarland

Theses

This paper examines the issues which have encompassed the nursing profession for many years, thus making it a difficult career in which to attract and retain members. The nursing shortage, many say, has returned, but did it really go away? The shortage experienced in the 1970's was coupled with high admission rates and high employee turnover causing a shortage of nurses, particularly experienced ones. Then, hospitals faced the emergence of the federal government making major changes in reimbursement to hospitals. This caused a major shift in the cash flow system of hospitals. Also, costs were no longer reimbursed on a …

The Need For Audio-Visual Curriculum, Barbara Arnold

Theses

The purpose of this project was to study the effectiveness of audio-visual aids in the cla9sroom. To justify the use of audio-visual aids in the classrooms, an attempt was made to test the hypothesis that for audio-visual aids to be used effectively to teach details and comprehension of story and lesson content, they must be properly introduced with a study guide and followed by related activities and e valuation . Three heterogeneously grouped classes were regrouped for this project. Three units of literature, science and social studies were planned with three lessons for each unit. This allowed the teachers to …

Legacy Of Honor, Jame R. Cox

Theses

Unavailable.

Development Of Thinking Skills Through Historical Fiction With Intermediate And Middle School Students: A Book Manuscript, Rebecca Hicks

Theses

The purpose of this study was to develop a book manuscript incorporating higher-order thinking skill development with the reading of American historical fiction . Current literature showed the necessity for promoting higher-order thinking skills among today's students. It was found that current textbooks did not sufficiently address higher-order thinking questioning. It was also found that many thinking skill materials did not integrate those skills with academic content. The information gathered was then used to formulate a book integrating higher-order thinking skills with read- aloud American historical fiction. The book manuscript was to be utilized by intermediate and middle school teachers.

Cview, A Graphical Program Generator For The C Programming Language, Walter E. Martin

Theses

The electronics industry has long been a user of graphical design aids. Graphical design tools for VLSI circuits are used to lay out the design, generate data structures for the simulation of the circuit and eventually produce the photomasks for the production of the chip. As such these tools form a working environment that allows an engineer to design, debug and produce a final product. Software design, in general, is still done by writing individual lines of code. At best a macro language or a meta-language will be available to ease the pain of detail coding. While these tools are …

A Visual Aide For Designing Regular Expression Parsers, Norman C. Crowfoot

Theses

This paper describes a thesis project in which a visually-oriented design utility is constructed in Interlisp-D for the Xerox 1108 Artificial Intelligence Workstation. This utility aids in the design of Regular Expression Parsers by visually simulating the operation of a parser. A textual program, suitable for utilization in the construction of a compiler scanner or other similar processor may be produced by the utility.

The Controlled Shutdown Of A Hydraulic Servo-System Using Acceleration Feedback, Mark Jolly

Theses

Hydraulic servoactuators have long been used in industry where high performance precision motion control is required. Because of their precision and ability to generate large forces, applications are numerous in industry. One such application provides cockpit motion for flight simulation. This thesis investigates a new emergency shutdown (abort) scheme for such high performance servo-systems. Because flight simulation involves the motion control of both man and machinery (a mock cockpit in motion), it will be used as the standard by which a safe and effective abort is modeled. The justification for motion abort during actuator operation is unsafe actuator accelerations. In …

B-Spline Surface Techniques For Solid Modeling An Application To Computer-Aided Geometric Design, Chi-Ming Tang

Theses

One important area of Computer-Aided Geometric Design (CAGD) is concerned with the approximation and representation of the surfaces of solid objects. Accurately describing the shape of an object so that the description is useful to designers who must decide how to manipulate it is an important problem. B-spline techniques promise greater versatility in describing complex surfaces than other techniques, thus the B-spline surface is highlighted in the field of constructive solid geometric modeling. A method for drawing complex surfaces by using B-spline techniques is presented. The tensor product surface scheme is developed for constructing sculptured surfaces. Also, the basic principle …

A Timing Simulator, Kathryn D. Heintz

Theses

A timing simulator, called TIMSIM, has been developed which performs gate level simulation of simple digital logic circuits. TIMSIM has a library of twelve standard TTL gate elements and memory elements. These elements incorporate various features including single outputs, multiple outputs, non-symmetric inputs, and memory states. TIMSIM uses a rise-fall delay model and three values to represent a signal's logic level.

Computer Aided Design Of Multiple Pulley Timing Belt Drives, Gary Matson

Theses

The design of timing belt drive systems involves determining the belt width and belt length. The length of the belt is a geometry problem which requires summing the tangent lines and the arcs comprising the pitch line. The width of the belt is determined by the required loads. A computer program is developed in this project to automate the timing belt design process. The program comes in three versions. Each version chooses a target belt length, moves a specified pulley to achieve that length, then calculates the minimum belt width. The three versions of the program are the batch version, …

Modal Analysis Of A Computer Disk Drive, Michael G. Thurston

Theses

The normal (real) modes of a Winchester type hard disk drive were determined in the frequency range 0-2200hz. Two methods of analysis were used in order to allow cross-correlation of the results. Experimental modal analysis was performed using Structural Measurement Systems' (SMS) Modal 3.0 analysis system and the requisite experimental hardware. A finite element analysis was also performed using MSC/NASTRAN; the NASTRAN model was created using the PATRAN pre-processing program. In order to alleviate the complications associated with matching the structural mounting conditions, a free-free analysis was performed using NASTRAN, and a light string was used to free mount the …

Developing A Procedure To Reduce Thermal Shock Influence In A Steam Turbine Due To Cold Start, Ching-Po Liu

Theses

An improved procedure is developed to reduce the thermal shock influence in a steam turbine due to a cold start operation. Thermal shock, a term used to describe the sudden imposition of a large heat flux and temperature gradient on a material surface, is a potential damage mechanism if its intensity is sufficiently high. For the case of a turbine cold start, the thermal shock intensity depends on the film coefficient and the initial temperature difference between the steam and the rotor surface. Reduction of thermal shock intensity can be achieved in several ways, such as lengthening the transit time. …

An 8085 Microprocessor Based Monitor System For A 750 Cc Honda Motorcycle, Robert H. Leet

Theses

This system replaces the analog speedometer and tachometer gauge cluster of a 750 cc Honda motorcycle with a computerized monitor system based on the INTEL 8085A microprocessor and family of peripherals. The system adds the enhanced functionality of engine temperature, battery charging, fuel level, turn signal, and kick stand monitoring and status display. A security function is also employed as a guard against unauthorized use or theft. The speedometer and tachometer functions utilize phototransistor sensors generating pulses derived from stock cable connections to the engine block and front wheel. The engine temperature, fuel level, and battery charging functions are implemented …

Namer: A Distributed Name Server For A Connected Unix Environment, Thomas Tatakis

Theses

A naming or identification scheme is crucial to the design of any computer system. One must be able to access and perform operations on resources and data in order to complete a given task. In a distributed system the problem is compounded by the geographical separation of resources. Moreover, the underlying network of computers should be transparent to the users. A user should simply be able to request that an operation be performed and the system should locate the necessary resources. This function of locating a named resource is performed by a special service called a name service. This thesis …

Class - A Study Of Methods For Coarse Phonetic Classification, James Delmege

Theses

The objective of this thesis was to examine computer techniques for classifying speech signals into four coarse phonetic classes: vowel-like, strong fricative, weak fricative and silence. The study compared classification results from the K-means clustering algorithm using Euclidian distance measurements with classification using a multivariate maximum likelihood distance measure. In addition to the comparison of statistical methods, this study compared classification using several tree-structured decision making processes. The system was trained on ten speakers using 98 utterances with both known and unknown speakers. Results showed very little difference between the Euclidian distance and maximum likelihood; however, the introduction of the …

A Knowledge Acquisition Assistant For The Expert System Shell Nexpert-Object, Florence Perot

Theses

This study addresses the problems of knowledge acquisition in expert system development examines programs whose goal is to solve part of these problems. Among them are knowledge acquisition tools, which provide the knowledge engineer with a set of Artificial Intelligence primitives, knowledge acquisition aids, which offer to the knowledge engineer a guidance in knowledge elicitation, and finally, automated systems, which try to replace the human interviewer with a machine interface. We propose an alternative technique to these approaches: an interactive syntactic analyzer of an emerging knowledge base written with the expert system shell called Nexpert Object. This program intends to …

Binary Image Compression Using Run Length Encoding And Multiple Scanning Techniques, Frank J. Merkl

Theses

While run length encoding is a popular technique for binary image compression, a raster (line by line) scanning technique is almost always assumed and scant attention has been given to the possibilities of using other techniques to scan an image as it is encoded. This thesis looks at five different image scanning techniques and how their relation ship to image features and scanning density (resolution) affects the overall compression that can be achieved with run length encoding. This thesis also compares the performance of run length encoding with an application of Huffman coding for binary image compression. To realize these …

An Expert System In School Psychology For Pmhp, Jacqueline K. Joslyn

Theses

Primary Mental Health Project (PMHP) is a program for early detection and prevention of problems with school adjustment. PMHP identifies young children that have the potential for school problems early in their school careers, and uses trained paraprof essionals as child associates to work preventively with these children. To implement this program, several evaluation forms must be filled out for each student, to determine which children should, or should not, be referred to the program. Unfortunately, a limited number of PMHP professionals are available to evaluate students. Due to this limitation, it was the desire of the author to create …

The Relationship Between Computer Interaction And Individual User Characteristics, Kathleen Lambert

Theses

Development of effective human computer interaction is being approached independently by two disciplines -- user interface design and computer aided instruction. The lack of communication between the two fields has left each separately pursuing different paths toward the same goals. This thesis attempts to bridge the gap between these two disciplines. An exploratory study was conducted to analyze whether user choices in a computer aided instruction environment and personality types as defined by the Myers-Briggs type indicator are related strongly enough to provide the basis for future user models. The results demonstrated that no single instructional strategy was preferred, implying …

Aids And The Foodservice Industry: Operators, Employees, Patrons, And ... Problems, Cheri Ann Young

Theses

Not Included

A User Interface Management System For Voice I/O Applications, Brian A. Nadworny

Theses

With the use of voice technology increasing, a need for proper end-user interfacing is necessary. To deal with voice I/O applications, a user interface management system (UIMS) is suggested. This will alleviate the frustrations of poorly designed interfacing. It will also remove the burden from the systems designer of implementing the end-user interface and allow him/her to concentrate on the application. The end-user interface will then be designed by an expert in dialogue design with the assistance from the UIMS. This thesis presents a UIMS model to be used with voice applications.

Laser Printer's Image Quality Using Paper Substrates, Irene L. Lobo

Theses

This thesis reports the results of an investigation into the quality of an image produced by a laser printer. The laser printer used was the Kodak Ektaprint Electronic Publishing System, 300 dots per inch, resolution. It was found that certain aspects of the image quality vary with the paper substrate. Papers used in this experiment varied in basis weights and qualities of smoothness, brightness, gloss, opacity, porosity and caliper.

The papers chosen were of three basis weights, two of each weight. six papers in all were tested.

Quantitfication and subjective judgement were used for evaluation of image quality. Image quality …

Implementation Of A Module Implementor For An Activity Based Distributed System, Stewart W. Mayott

Theses

This thesis investigates process environment within a distributed computational network, in particular, an activity-based distributed system. An activity-based distributed system is an object-oriented programming system. Objects are grouped together into logical arrangements called activities as the programmer desires . All program code is contained within objects, and some objects are implementors of object types. Objects in an activity receive activity information related to other objects in the activity and have virtual communication capability with other objects in the same activity. To investigate the feasibility of this environment, a fully functional module implementor was created. Further, other components with limited functionality …

The Representation Of Symmetric Patterns Using The Quadtree Data Structure, Lucia Lodolini

Theses

Hierarchical data structures for image representation have been widely explored in recent years. These data structures are based on the principle of "recursive decomposition" of an image region. The most commonly mentioned picture data structure for two-dimensional data is referred to as a "quadtree". The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the use of a general quadtree scheme as a means of representing symmetric images. Specifically, images are generated according to the rules of selected two-dimensional plane symmetry groups.

Dataflow: Overview And Simulation, Steven I. Benjamin

Theses

The thesis project is a software simulation of the dataflow machine prototyped at the University of Manchester. It uses a dynamic token matching scheme based on the U-interpreter, and supports I-structures, an array-like data structure. An assembly language is provided for programming the simulator.

An Alternative Language Interface For The Mistress Relational Database Patterned After Ibm's Query-By-Example, Susan C. Vogel

Theses

This thesis effort developed a user-oriented query language interface, patterned after IBM's Query-by-Example, for the Mistress relational database. The interface, Mistress/QBE, is written entirely in C and uses the UNIX curses library of subroutines to allow full screen input and output. Mistress /QBE allows the user to issue commands to draw pictorial representations of tables which exist in the database. The user then enters values and operators into the tables to specify a query by indicating attributes to be used in conditional selections, sort and grouping orders, and output formats. Mistress /QBE decodes the information entered on the screen and …

An Experimental Characterization Of The Tensile Behavior Of Polystyrene, Louis T. Loggi

Theses

The characterization of polymeric materials involves many different tests which often depend upon the ultimate environment for the end product. One important area for many engineering applications is that of mechanical testing. Although the evaluation of tensile properties ranks as the most common mechanical test, standard test methods can have serious shortcomings when applied to plastics. This work seeks to study test method variability by evaluating experimental data from uni -axial tension tests conducted on a typical high-impact polystyrene at room temperature. Two common methods will be used to obtain the strain data: extensometer transducer and foil strain gage. These …

Performance Analysis Of Text-Oriented Printing Using Postscript, Thomas Kowalczyk

Theses

POSTSCRIPT is a page description language which is used to transmit printing information from a host computer (i.e. Apple Macintosh) to a printer (i.e. Apple LaserWriter Plus). It has the ability to describe pages consisting of text, vector graphics, and scanned bit-map images. Printing text is the area of concentration for this thesis. Specifically several variables that affect the printing speed of a common POSTSCRIPT printer, the Apple LaserWriter Plus, are looked at when printing text in a variety of fonts, sizes, and orientations. The variables that affect printer performance include: - use of outline vs. bit-map fonts; - the …

Ada As A Design Specification Language, Barbara Brunner Gibson

Theses

The primary thesis objective is research into current approaches to design specification languages, emphasizing Ada. Requirements specification is touched upon. Design specification is explored and related to requirements and implementation. The role of language in design is discussed, as well as objectives of the design specification and features that a specification language should provide in order to meet those objectives. Formal language is contrasted with natural language. Some formal specification languages are described, both Ada related and not Ada related. The secondary objective, the thesis project, is to illustrate a design specification in a formal language, Ada. The purpose of …