Digital Commons Network^™

My Father’S Secret, Yumeng Zhang

Theses

My thesis My Father’s Secret is a 20-minute short fiction film. It tells the story of a 17- year-old schoolboy Ying and his single father Hua, who live in a small town in China. Ying’s life is very peaceful until one day he finds out his father’s secret, that Hua had a gay lover Uncle Feng, the man who claimed to be Hua’s friend. Ying’s life changes and to make it worse, he learns that his father is dying. Ying has to accept the truth and, at the same time, begins to learn how to get along with Uncle Feng. …

Investigating Cycle Two English Language Teachers' Perceptions About Reading Strategies And Limitation Factors Hindering The Use Of Strategies, Muna Salem Abdulla Saleh

Theses

This study investigated the perceptions of the English teachers concerning their use of various reading strategies and identified the possible factors that limit them in applying the concerned strategies in the UAE Cycle 2 Grades (6-9). The study focused also on obtaining any significant conflict that may be appreciable between English non-native teachers (i.e., Arab) and English native teachers view with respect to their usage of reading strategies. The participants were drawn from Cycle 2 EFL English teachers (n=211). Two questionnaires were incorporated in collecting the required data; the first questionnaire aimed at gleaning the perceptions of the English teachers …

Accounting For The Language Variance In Executive Function, Jessica Contreras

Theses

Language is considered an important precursor for executive function (EF) development, with advantages shown for bilinguals. The current study explored the impact of early bilingual language experience (spoken and sign language) on executive functions. Participants were deaf college students with cochlear implants. Participants language experiences were diverse. They varied in American Sign Language (ASL) and English proficiency, reported various ages for sign language acquisition, and reported different ages of implantation. Results indicate that age of acquisition, age of implantation, and English and ASL proficiency have no effect on these participants’ performance on the Color Trails Test, a measure of EF. …

A Zebra In The Infield, Nelson R. Robinson Iv

Theses

“A Zebra in the Infield” is a dark comedy about a young African American man named Rotavious from the inner-city. Rotavious is a recent college graduate and he is venturing into the suburbs to purchase a car. After catching a bus to the predominantly Caucasian side of town, he is profiled and harassed by police officer Colescott. Officer Colescott searches Rotavious and finds the money that Rotavious has allocated for his new car, he seizes it as drug money. During a struggle for the money Officer Colescott is shot and Rotavious flees in fear. In his haste to flee he …

Death With Dignity: The Legislative Wave Of The Future, Justin M. Downey

Theses

The objective of this paper is to determine whether the United States will experience a significant increase in the passage of Death with Dignity legislation. The methods used to predict future legislation was a comparative examination of the history of the legislation politically and socially within the United States. The historical trends of the legislation were compared with global trends as well as current societal factors that may influence legislation. The results will indicate that societal factors such as global influence, social media and the Baby Boom generation will have a dramatic affect in the rapid increase in Death with …

The Opportunity: A 3d Animation About Karma, Mark J. Reisch

Theses

The Opportunity is a three dimensional animation that illustrates the idea that by helping others you can inadvertently help yourself. The story is told using an animated sunflower, bees, tulip, and farmer. In a sunflower garden, a sunflower tries to entice a bee to pollinate it, but a tulip (that is not supposed to be in the sunflower garden) attracts all of the bees. The tulip sees the farmer coming to weed out any unwanted plants. Seeing the fear in the tulip’s eyes, the sunflower helps disguise the tulip. The farmer is tricked and the tulip is saved. With the …

An Empirical Study On Code Comprehension: Dci Compared To Oo, Hector A. Valdecantos

Theses

Comprehension of source code affects software development, especially its maintenance where reading code is the most time consuming performed activity. A programming paradigm imposes a style of arranging the source code that is aligned with a way of thinking toward a computable solution. Then, a programming paradigm with a programming language represents an important factor for source code comprehension. Object-Oriented (OO) is the dominant paradigm today. Although, it was criticized from its beginning and recently an alternative has been proposed. In an OO source code, system functions cannot escape outside the definition of classes and their descriptions live inside multiple …

Close Your Legs, Dear, Narin Shech

Theses

close your legs, dear examines the notion of an internal gaze, or self-regulation, through the subjective experience of the pursuit of a feminine ideal and the underlying emotional disquietude that accompanies that pursuit. This body of work primarily utilizes self-portraiture through time-based moving images to examine the a-priori fragmentation of the body in the subject. This fragmentation of the body is also a metaphorical fragmentation of the ego, which becomes a host to obsessive, self-observation and self-regulation vis-à-vis the feminine ideal.

Each moving image exhibits varying degrees of subtle motion, primarily gestures that the female subject performs in repetition, which …

The Case Of Villa Benfica: Retrofitting A Multifamily Building In A Hot And Humid Climate For Energy Efficiency, Carolina Kuhner Camara Dos Santos

Theses

Buildings and constructions occupy 50% or more of a city's land area and impact the environment with their elevated energy consumption. The current debates involving alternatives to limit the impacts of climate change have informed decision makers, architects, and engineers on design alternatives addressing energy efficiency in new constructions, but the existing building stock requires adaptation. Existing buildings are locked in an inefficient typology. In this context, this work presents energy efficient strategies to retrofit a typical residential building in Recife, Brazil. The study involves the application of three retrofit strategies concerning the building envelope to a baseline building, and …

The Effect Of Directing Attention Externally Toward A Visible Or Imagined Object, Masahiro Yamada

Theses

Utilization of an external focus of attention has been proved to be beneficial in the motor learning literature. When people focus on the effects of the movement (i.e., external focus of attention), the motor skill is enhanced compared to directing attention to the body movements (i.e., internal focus of attention). Previous studies that have examined the effect of focus of attention on learning a motor skill often used visible or imagined objects to elicit an external focus of attention. However, the effects of these different types of external focus instruction have not been investigated thoroughly. It was unclear prior to …

Moovy: Sensorial Communication Device, Mariana Pinheiro

Theses

Over time humans evolved and perfected their communication tools. The world today is more connected than ever, and we are able to reach people all over the world using handheld technology such as smartphones, computers, and tablets. Society is living in a digital era and many negative side effects are being identified. The excess of digital immersion can lead to physical harm, such as neck injuries caused by poor postural habits, as well as psychological and social consequences.

Inspired by the historical evolution of communication and concerned about the impacts in social behaviors, this thesis proposes a new language of …

Memory Emphasizing Digital Camera, Jae Ho Seo

Theses

The thesis is focused on how users can realize the value of personal memories when they use cameras.

The design of a camera has barely changed over the hundreds of years of its history. In the current market, most companies emphasize functionalities, such as better quality images, faster processors, and safer storage. However, the basic rectangular form factor, the round lens, and the layout of control knobs and buttons are essentially the same amongst many different companies. Similar to the auto design, the camera design has changed minimally in its outer shape with slightly advanced inner components.

It is important …

Gaze Guidance, Task-Based Eye Movement Prediction, And Real-World Task Inference Using Eye Tracking, Srinivas Sridharan

Theses

The ability to predict and guide viewer attention has important applications in computer graphics, image understanding, object detection, visual search and training. Human eye movements provide insight into the cognitive processes involved in task performance and there has been extensive research on what factors guide viewer attention in a scene. It has been shown, for example, that saliency in the image, scene context, and task at hand play significant roles in guiding attention.

This dissertation presents and discusses research on visual attention with specific focus on the use of subtle visual cues to guide viewer gaze and the development of …

Examining The Differences In After-Sale Service Quality Perceptions Between Managers And Customers In The Automobile Industry And Their Impact On Customer Satisfaction, Mohamed Al Hammadi

Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore how service managers and their customers perceive the after-sale service quality provided by automobile service centers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with a goal to identify the existence of gaps, if any, between their perceptions and how they can impact customer satisfaction level. A qualitative phenomenological method was implemented to gather a description of the participants’ actual experiences, and data were collected using semi-structured interviews with seven service mangers and 20 customers. The structure of the managers’ interview questions was designed to go beyond identifying the most important factors that customers …

Remote Access And Computerized User Control Of Robotic Micromanipulators, Ryan M. Dunn

Theses

Nano- and micromanipulators are critical research tools in numerous fields including micro-manufacturing and disease study. Despite their importance, nano- and micromanipulation systems remain inaccessible to many groups due to price and lack of portability. An intuitive and remotely accessible manipulation system helps mitigate this access problem. Previously, optimal control hardware for single-probe manipulation and the effect of latency on user performance were not well understood. Remote access demands full computerization; graphical user interfaces with networking capabilities were developed to fulfill this requirement and allow the use of numerous hardware controllers. Virtual environments were created to simulate the use of a …

An Analysis Of Saudis International Pleasure And Leisure Travel Behavior, Fawaz Alreshaidan

Theses

The past decade has seen the rapid increase of tourist flows from Middle East countries (World Tourism Organization, 2015). One of these countries is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. According to Tourism Information and Research Centre (2006-2012), the number of Saudi outbound tourists has been increasing continually in the last ten years. The Tourism Information and Research Centre reported 2 million outbound trips in 2006, while 21 million trips were reported in 2015. However, little is known about Saudi tourists and it is not clear what factors motivate them to travel abroad and what activities they participate in. This research …

Exploring Tripadvisor Online Reviews: The Case Of George Eastman Museum, Mussab Aljahdali

Theses

Different studies have looked at visitor related motivations and experiences under different contexts in the tourism industry. The museum-related experiences remain one of the important elements which are sought by visitors to the museums. Therefore, this study purposes to investigate and determine personal context, social context and physical contexts of George Eastman museum visitors. More importantly, the study utilised a content analysis approach in its research. The specific data about visitors to George Eastman House was obtained from the social media website TripAdvisor. The findings of the study were based on three important elements: personal context, social context and physical …

Snakes In The Nest, Shane Durgee

Theses

This document accompanies my thesis titled, Snakes in the Nest, which was exhibited in the Bevier Gallery for two weeks in April 2016, and consisted of five paintings and one sculpture. In this essay I outline both the artistic influences and theoretical research that shaped the creation of my work. I argue that the construction of my identity has been largely manipulated by a culture of escapist consumerism as well as social conditioning performed by my society to maintain a gender binary. The making of my thesis exhibition sparked an investigation into my ongoing involvement with art. This called for …

Sense Of Place In Urban Transformation, Gentrification And Preventing Displacement: A Case Study Of The Marketview Heights, Aya Alfonso

Theses

This thesis is a case study of the Marketview Heights neighborhood in the city of Rochester, NY, the main target of the City’s Urban Renewal District Plan (2014). Citizens of Marketview provided input for this plan that used participatory strategies in its creation. The citizens of this neighborhood are primarily people of color who experience relatively high rates of poverty. The Marketview Heights Collective Action Project (CAP) is a community-based organization that has organized and empowered the community with initiatives and programs, like the creation of community gardens and participation in planning of policies that affect their community. CAP is …

Influence Of Flexibility On Work Life Balance, Nikolina Birimisa

Theses

Generation Y is entering into workforce and one of their needs in workplace is work life balance (Schulte, 2015). If employers want to retain them, they need to recognize it (Ingham, 2015). Different studies show, that flexibility has strong correlation with work life balance (Clark, 2000). Furthermore, literature review indicated that there is no sufficient data about Generation Y in Croatia. These indications showed the need for further research.

The purpose of this quantitative, survey method, study was to test whether work place flexibility, including factors of job content, time schedule and location, positively influences work life balance for Generation …

Patient History Elicitation And Diagnostic Decision Making, Nicholas Iuliucci

Theses

Technology has changed the way people communicate, and communication between patients and medical professionals has not been exempt from these developments. Clinicians are now text messaging, emailing, and video conferencing patient. Understanding the impact of the new modalities on communication patterns is imperative to ensure quality care. Thirty-two medical professionals of varying experience conducted a patient interview with two confederate patients over an instant messaging system. The first interview was 15 minutes and the second 7 minutes, the latter condition inducing time pressure. The results demonstrated that time pressure has an adverse impact on the medical professionals’ communication patterns. The …

Pen+: An Emotional Expression Device And A Mobile Application For Emotional Health, Mi-Hee Hong

Theses

Emotional health is an essential element in advancing towards one's life goals and is inextricably connected with physical and social well-being. Since emotions involve physiological, behavioral, and cognitive changes, emotional problems can cause serious problems throughout one's life.

Understanding one's emotional states precisely and suitably expressing emotions are the most salient methods for maintaining emotional health. However, managing and comprehending complicated changes in emotions can be personally challenging and demanding.

This thesis not only concentrates on the process of design thinking to determine how to enhance personal emotional intelligence but also proposes the use of both a digital device for …

Drivers Of Hotel Employee Motivation, Satisfaction And Engagement In Riyadh, The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Alqusayer

Theses

A large and growing body of literature has investigated job satisfaction among hotel employees. However, far too little attention has been paid to the level of job satisfaction among hotel employees in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This research obtained data which may help to address this research gap. The research therefore explored and provided a review of the literature on job satisfaction, motivational factors, and engagement among hotel employees. Specifically, the research investigated the motivational factors, level of job satisfaction and engagement among hotel employees in Riyadh. The research employed a quantitative approach in the form of a survey, …

Perception Of Software Employees Towards Human Resource Development Roles, Functions, And Professionals, Bhagyashree Barhate

Theses

The purpose of this research was to explore the perception of employees working in the software industry towards Human Resource Development (HRD) roles, functions, and professionals. This research adopted a quantitative methodology and administered a survey to understand how the employees perceive the different HRD roles and their importance in the organization. The research also studied the different perceptions employees may have towards the HRD professionals and their competencies. The participants in this study belonged to the software industry and have been working in their current technical job roles for atleast a year. A survey was used to collect data …

Helios, Minh D. Le

Theses

“Helios” is an advertisement for a futuristic electric vehicle that utilizes revolutionary materials and upcoming technologies to address some of the current shortcomings of electric vehicles both aesthetically and technologically. This project explores how to create an effective advertisement for an automobile. Factors affecting consumer behavior, barriers and motivations for purchase, brand strategy, and aesthetics as well as the design of the car itself were all considered. The process for creating and assessing the advertisement will be summarized and evaluated

Residual Affect, Beth A. Gilbert

Theses

Using a personal experience of surviving a sexual assault as a starting point, Residual Affect is a multimedia series incorporating still photographs and video to visually portray the aftermath of psychological trauma on a daily basis; a trauma that has long-lasting psychological ramifications; turmoil that doesn’t end with the completion of the traumatic event itself. Hinting at the original traumatic event, the imagery depicts life from the moment after tumult, exploring themes of perception, disorientation and restriction to create a larger dialog about the enduring psychological effects of a perceived life-threatening event; effects that bleed through into everyday life.

Prime Movers, Garvin Sealy

Theses

Prime Movers, exhibited from April 1-15 2016, at Bevier Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology (R.I.T), explores the motivations behind human actions, and the inner workings of the self, through introspection, metacognition, research and experimentation. Inspiration for this work comes from a desire to gain better self-awareness and understanding. Social and personal mythologies are employed to investigate the contemporary human condition. Glass, porcelain, metal, wood, acrylic, soap, light and sound are the elements used to translate the concepts into tangible forms.

Heteronormativity And The Ideal Family, Ashton R. Snider

Theses

Abstract: In this work I argue that the heteronormative nuclear family (HNF) should not be considered the ideal family form as it has been in the past. The HNF assumes that the ideal family should include a monogamous heterosexual couple and their offspring. I argue that the HNF should not be used as an ideal by which to judge family health as there are many different family arrangements outside of the heteronuclear. The HNF should not be confused with particular heteronuclear households as the HNF as an ideal does not refer to any specific family. As some ideal by which …

Karma: Design For Social Impact Toolkit, Vineet Mishra

Theses

My thesis explores the eld of Social Impact Design and determines a methodology that designers can leverage to design with better impact.

Addressing highly complex issues requires a multidisciplinary approach. When design is incorporated into the problem-solving process, its human-centered principles and methodologies lead to stronger solutions. Social issues such as poverty, unemployment, homelessness, caste system, sexual harassment, and gender inequality are associated with Wicked Problems. These Wicked Problems–like economic, environmental, political, and bureaucratic issues–create even more intricate global dilemmas. Understanding these extremely complex issues and applying design thought process, allows for even greater strides toward making an impact.

Design …

Third Eye, Nadine Longmore

Theses

The artwork completed as a part of my thesis exhibition is grounded in an investigation into perception, vision, intuitive art making, and the bond experienced between twins. The work comes from a personal place because art making, for me, has always been about self-understanding. For that comprehension to be holistic and far-reaching, I seek to recognize the sentimental, phenomenal, and physical ties created by being a twin.

This thesis exploration also creates an opportunity for the viewer to experience my visual inquiries into being a twin and my loss of eyesight. Seven years ago, I had a traumatic eye injury, …