Digital Commons Network^™

Forword: A Study On An Interactive Learning Environment In Foreign Language, Christina A. Curtis

Theses

With constant advances in technology, the world becomes a smaller community each day. In line with its reputation as a cultural melting pot, children of immigrants are the fastest growing student population in the United States today. It's clear that the U.S. needs a strong approach in language education; one that can keep pace with our potential and our lives. Technology can be used to foster student collaboration and shared learning experiences, thereby increasing learner interest, motivation and learning outcomes. ForWord aims to use interaction design in foreign language education to meet this need. ForWord has four main goals: provide …

The Effect Of Optical Brightening Agent (Oba) In Paper And Illumination Intensity On Perceptibility Of Printed Colors, Changlong Yu

Theses

Widely utilized sanctioned color aims for commercial printing are based on paper substrates without optical brightening agents, also known as OBAs. However, in today's market, more and more paper is manufactured with OBAs. This could be problematic for commercial printers as OBAs influence not only paper conformity, but also the accuracy printed colors. This can lead to color mismatch between proofs and the final prints. Recognizing this condition, the objectives of this research were two-fold: first, to verify the perceived color difference between prints due to the presence of OBAs, and second, to study the perceptibility of color differences caused …

Exploring Cultural Identity: Learning Culture Through Effective Interactive Design, Augie Park

Theses

Culture defines groups of individuals by language, religion, art, or tools. In today's ever growing sector of computers, smart phones, and tablets, mobile technology is used as a means to discover a sense of individuality through wireless devices and essentially the Internet. This is a case study on how to design a better educational app designed to teach culture through visual exploration and user testing. This thesis also explores how design affects behavior through usability. Through an analysis of interdisciplinary subjects, Exploring Cultural Identity aims to provide a visual prototype to teach culture, specifically focusing on Korean art. The goal …

The Effect Of Repeated Reading Strategy On Oral Reading Fluency Of A Fourth Grade Student With Reading Difficulties, Fatmeh Mahmud Al Jaffal

Theses

This study aims at examining the effects of repeated reading strategy on the oral reading fluency of a 9-year-old Fourth Grader with reading difficulties in a private school in the United Arab Emirates. The research employed a quantitative means by using a SingleSubject Design. A pre-post-test design was used. The results of this study indicate that repeated reading strategy is found to be overall effective on oral reading speed and oral reading accuracy. This study has some recommendations for teaching instructions and research. For example, teachers can use it as an instructional approach for improving the oral reading 11w1fluency not …

The New Relevance: Motives Behind Youtube Use, Xinchen Xu

Theses

This study applies the uses and gratifications theory (UGT) to discover how people are motivated to use YouTube, an example of Internet based technologies, similarly and differently to watch traditional broadcast television. The new features such as commenting, liking and uploading that YouTube offers can be seen as new affordances that might offer ne gratifications to users, which were not found salient to television viewing. A convenience sample of 127 students was recruited to participate in an online survey that included measures of traditional media motives (Rubin, 1983) as well as new media motives adapted from Sundar and Limperos (2013). …

Cyberdemocracy: Assessing The European Parliament, Maria Cataldo

Theses

New information technologies have been widely predicted to change the nature of governance. The Internet has made the ideal of cyberdemocracy more attainable as the world grows smaller and more connected. Although the ideal no longer seems so distant a destination, nagging questions remain: Where is this place? Are we there yet? How much longer? This paper evaluates the website of one of the most powerful legislatures in the world, the European Parliament, to determine where we are, how far we have come, and what remains to be done to achieve the ideal of cyberdemocracy. Five criteria are used in …

Mood Watcher: Interactive Visual Guide To Increasing Awareness Of Mood Disorders, Ziyan Han

Theses

Mood disorders are the extremely negative situations of mood that cause dysfunction in people's lives. There are a number of guides currently on the market (E.g., mood disorder self-help books, websites...) to help people with this problem, but their content is usually not customized enough to deal with each user's particular situation. In addition, the formats include content that is often text-dense and overwhelming. While there are great resources of personal mood disorder tests, suggested actions, and information about professional help, there is an opportunity to create a guide that connects these resources with a better designed format so that …

Toy Library: Nurturing Talent-Learning Through Play, Prachi Kapadia

Theses

The concept of the Toy Library originated during the Great Depression, when it was noticed that children were stealing toys, as they could not afford to buy them. Due to the concern of rising theft, a library was started where children could borrow a wide variety of toys. It also helped to encourage the values of honesty, responsibility and good citizenship. Since then, many toy libraries have sprouted across the United States. The concept, however, is not prevalent in other countries around the world. Hence, many people are, as yet unaware of its benefits, which include, providing an environment of …

The Effects Of Cannabidiol On The Electrical And Contractile Properties Of Cardiomyocytes, Ramez Ali Mansour

Theses

In earlier studies, cannabidiol (CBD), a major nonpsychotropic cannabinoid found in cannabis plant, has been shown to influence cardiovascular functions under various physiological and pathological conditions. In the present study, the effects of CBD on contractility and electrical properties of rat ventricular myocytes were investigated. Video edge detection was used to measure myocyte shortening. Intracellular Ca2+ was measured in cells loaded with the fluorescent indicator fura-2 AM. CBD (1 μM) caused a significant decrease in the amplitudes of electrically-evoked myocyte shortening and Ca2+ transients. However, the amplitudes of caffeine-evoked Ca2+ transients and the rate of recovery of electrically-evoked Ca2+ transients …

Metacognition And Decision-Making Style In Clinical Narratives, Limor Hochberg

Theses

Clinical decision-making has high-stakes outcomes for both physicians and patients, yet little research has attempted to model and automatically annotate such decision-making. The dual process model (Evans, 2008) posits two types of decision-making, which may be ordered on a continuum from intuitive to analytical (Hammond, 1981). Training clinicians to recognize decision-making style and select the most appropriate mode of reasoning for a

particular context may help reduce diagnostic error (Norman, 2009).

This study makes preliminary steps towards detection of decision style, based on an annotated dataset of image-based clinical reasoning in which speech data were collected from physicians as they …

Museum Visitors’ Perceptions Of Mobile Games: A Case Study, Sarah Exley Ozimek

Theses

Previous research in mobile gaming focused on use among grade school students and heavy gamers (e.g., Groff, Howells, & Cranmer, 2010; Poels, Kort, & Ijsselsteijn, 2012), but little is known about museum visitor usage. This study examined museum visitors' mobile technology habits and perceived uses of mobile games in museums. A survey of individuals on a local museum's mailing list found a positive relationship between visitors' familiarity with mobile devices and their perceptions of enjoyment and learning experiences with mobile games. This indicates that mobile games may be a welcome addition to the museum experience for heavy users of mobile …

Processing Trauma: Reading Art In 9/11 Novels, Karen Kruse Heinemann

Theses

While the negative effects of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 are still permeating throughout the United States, a few novelists have taken on the extreme task of writing about this historic event. Richard Gray describes the failure of language after the attack took place, yet novelists wanted to write about this tragedy anyway. Reading trauma in 9/11 is inevitable as it is important. In looking at three novels that deal with the events during and the aftermath of 9/11, I hope to consider the way art is used in these texts. In doing so, my thesis will look …

Does Race Matter?: Examining Differences In Intracultural And Intercultural Relationships, Megan Marie Morrison

Theses

The current study examined differences in intracultural and intercultural relationships. In this study, data were collected from 139 individuals currently in intracultural romantic relationships (same ethnicity and country of origin) and 120 individuals currently in intercultural romantic relationships (different ethnicity or country of origin) through MTurk. Participants completed measures for personality (20-item Mini-IPIP), individualism and collectivism (Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism Scale), ethnic identity (Multi-group Ethnic Identity Measure), implicit relationship theory (Relationship Theory Questionnaire), relationship satisfaction (DAS: Dyadic Adjustment Scale and RAS: Relationship Assessment Scale), relationship commitment (Commitment Level Items of the Investment Model Scale), one question to address …

Teachers' Attitude Toward Behavior Management In Residential Schools For Students With Visual Impairment In Thailand, Manisara Palawat

Theses

Behavior management is arguably the cornerstone of good teaching and this is particularly so in traditional educational school settings. In Thailand, the most common strategy for managing problem behavior is the use of the Ministry of Education's Code of Conduct for all children. However, reactive strategies produce negative side effects in terms of student prognosis, inclusion, and also teacher stress. There is currently no data regarding the types of problem behaviors experienced by teachers working in special residential schools for students with visual impairments. Therefore, the goals of this thesis are to examine teacher perceptions regarding the types of problems …

Telicity And The Developmental Acquisition Of The English Present Perfect By L1 Spanish Speakers, Virginia Teran

Theses

The Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; 1996) proposes that the inherent lexical aspect of verbs plays a major role in the acquisition of tense-aspect (TA) morphology in both first and second language. This has been attested in most studies on TA morphology conducted with past and present TA markers. The present study examined the acquisition of Present Perfect, a rather insufficiently studied TA form from a Prototype Account, in two of its four functions, Experiential Past and Persistent Situation. The subjects were 85 L1-Spanish English language learners at intermediate and advanced levels. All participants had received formal instruction in …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Role Of Geography In Sustainability Education, Makayla Jane Bonney

Theses

Many within and outside of the discipline of geography see it as a highly appropriate home for sustainability studies. Despite a history of human-environment education within geography and support from professional research or education organizations, some studies show that geography has not developed a lead role in sustainability education. This study examines the role of geography in offering "Sustainability Focused" courses as reported by AASHE STARS institutions with geography programs. The results show that although geography departments are highly utilized when available at an institution -offering the highest proportion of sustainability courses, averaging 14% of "Sustainability Focused" curriculum- there is …

A Scale To Measure The Complexity And Perceptual-Cognitive Skills In Soccer, Maurici Abraham Lopez Felip

Theses

The complexity of dynamical systems (spanning brain, body and environment) can yield complex adaptive behaviors from non-linear interactions of individuals in space and time. A lack of reliable instruments to assess these varying behaviors results in inferences of how changes in behavior occurred over an extended period of time rather than being based on direct scientific measures. The aim of this study was to develop a scale of complexity and perceptual-cognitive skills' assessment in the sport soccer and to evaluate structural and criterion reliability. Based on the embodied cognition literature, the construct of this scale was identified with three dimensions …

Putting Men Back In The Menstrual Cycle: A Qualitative Analysis Of Men's Perceptions Of Menstruation, Katherine Fishman

Theses

Although menstruation is typically regarded as an indication of health (Kissling, 1996), strong cultural messages about menstruation perpetuate the belief that it is dirty, disgusting and a state that must be managed (Ussher, 2006). Many women internalize this belief and go to great lengths to hide their menstrual status (Chrisler, 2007). Negative attitudes toward menstruation have been linked to decreased body satisfaction (Schooler, Ward, Meriwether, & Caruthers, 2005), perceptions of decreased competence and likability (Roberts, Goldenberg, Power, & Pyszynski, 2002), and the belief that menstruating women are more emotional, less attractive, and more irritable than non-menstruating women (Forbes, Adams-Curtis, White, …

A Multivariate Analysis Of The Human Factors And Preferences Towards Digital Publishing Platforms For The Ipad, Anton Ninkov

Theses

Tablet computers have been widely adopted in America today, with 34% of American adults ages 18+ owning this type of digital device (PEW, 2013). With the emergence of new portable computer technology, reading on digital devices has become more popular than ever before. In particular, tablet computers have enabled users to read enhanced e-book material that, while still text-driven, incorporates all facets of multimedia and technology. With many different digital publishing solutions available for publishers to deploy their content, the goal of this research study was to determine whether there are significant differences in user preferences and comprehension for a …

Impact Of An Academic Success Class On Probationary Students, Nathan Hendrickson

Theses

One of the primary the missions of colleges and universities is dedicated to student success. Traditionally, helping academically probationary students has been challenging for all educational institutions, because there are a multitude of factors involved for the schools and the students including, for example, demographics, socioeconomic issues, student motivation, and student time-management skills. The complexity introduced by these various factors creates obstacles in developing effective programs to aid and assist these students. At the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), there exists a course entitled Insights on Success that is designed as an intervention step to improve individual academic performance through …

The Treachery Of Imaging, Charlie C. Campbell

Theses

"The Treachery of Imaging" is a conceptual exploration of digital media's translational nature, a recognition of its ubiquity in our visual culture, and its fallibility. This work is an experiment in process; the dissection of a workflow for the purposeful obfuscation and destruction of digital imaging technology in opposition to its commonly held status as a scientifically accurate measurement tool; or as Paul Gsell referred to it, "an unimpeachable mechanical witness."

Through reflection, reference, reiteration, repetition, and the construction of algorithms "Treachery" is a process-oriented body of visual work, a documentation of this process, presentation, and context created in the …

The Role And Responsibility Of The Environmental, Health & Safety Manager In Establishing An Organization’S Commitment Towards Environmental Stewardship And Workplace Safety [As Elements Of Social Responsibility], Arthur Nagy

Theses

Background: Effective and leading Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Management is a topic of interest and necessity for many organizations and EHS professionals. The role and responsibility of the EHS Manager in establishing an organization's commitment towards environmental stewardship and workplace safety [as elements of social responsibility] evolves continuously. Objective: The purpose of this thesis is to identify the roles and responsibilities of an effective EHS Manager, and those roles and responsibilities that support an organization achieving environmental stewardship and workplace safety. Method: Salient elements, actions, and characteristics identified as a role or responsibility of the EHS manager within the …

Containing The Facade, Tatara Anne Siegel

Theses

What do we choose to see? Do we see what others tell us to see? If I were to tell you that something is what it isn't, would you believe me? Would your level of belief be based on our level of acquaintance? It appears that we, human beings, have developed a highly acute set of skills, which enable us to believe what we choose, whether based on fact or fiction. Our perception is dictated by what we learn and what we experience. When what we learn is controlled or influenced by others around us, and we loose sight of …

Investigating The Interaction Between Positions And Signals Of Height-Channel Loudspeakers In Reproducing Immersive 3d Sound, Antonios Karampourniotis

Theses

Since transmission capacities have significantly increased over the past few years, researchers are now able to transmit a larger amount of data, namely multichannel audio content, in the consumer applications. What has not been investigated in a systematic way yet is how to deliver the multichannel content. Specifically, researchers' attention is focused on the quest of a standardized immersive reproduction format that incorporates height loudspeakers coupled with the new high-resolution and three-dimensional (3D) media content for a comprehensive 3D experience. To better understand and utilize the immersive audio reproduction, this research focused on the (1) interaction between the positioning of …

Adinkra, Claudia Owusu-Sampah

Theses

Watson (n.d) describes Symbols as a representation of something other than what they actually are. Generally, they are based on conventionally agreed upon meanings, but unlike signs, which usually stand for something concrete, symbols usually stand for something less visible or tangible than the symbol itself.

The civilization of Egypt was symbolically oriented to a degree rarely equaled by other cultures. It was through symbols (hieroglyphics) that the Egyptians represented and affirmed many of their ideas, beliefs and attitudes regarding the nature of life, death, the supernatural and reality. (Watson n.d)

Symbols often depict aspects of reality or ideas that …

Digital Chaos: Exploring Relationships Between Technological Advancement And Visual Experience, Kevin Giaquinto

Theses

More so than any other time in history, humans are being exposed to an enormity of digital images every day. The internet, combined with accompanying technological advancements in cellular communication has created an exceptionally chaotic visual experience within the daily lives of millions of people. Through the use of digital photomontage, my artwork attempts to quantify and evaluate the impact that thousands of digital images may have on the emotional and psychological state of human beings. Concurrently, I am in interested exploring the mental repercussions of visual overload, specifically, how chaotic digital experiences may impact the quality of the human …

Transitions, Krista Rose Frohling

Theses

Transitions developed after experiencing one of the largest transitions of my life from an autonomous being and business owner to a pregnant woman to a mother, all during my three year Masters of Fine Art program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The first section of the show follows my emotional progression throughout pregnancy, as well as physical form, highlighting inner conflict. An emotional conflict and progression is illustrated through the use of emotional landscapes on the exterior walls of the space. Each emotional landscape is created from 25 canvas prints that I photographed on my mobile devices. The interior walls …

Alive, Heran Hao

Theses

My thesis film, "Alive", is a 30-minute short action fiction film. It's about a former police sketch artist who got engaged to his girlfriend just before they were involved in a sudden auto accident. During his search for the driver, the police artist discovers that the accident was actually a deliberate act. The film deals with is the issues of forgiveness and guilt.

The film was shot with a Canon C300 and a Steadicam, sound-mixed with 5.1 surrounding stereo sound technology.

In this essay, I will describe my experience with the entire process, from production at the very beginning, when …

Samantha’S Dilemma: A Look Into A Life With Ai, Thomas Bojarski

Theses

In this paper, I propose a thought experiment, “Samantha’s Dilemma,” which captures the complexity of determining whether moral considerations can be attributed to artificial intelligence (AI). Deciding whether or not we attribute autonomous freedom to artificial beings lays the foundation, not only for our relationships with AI, but with any ‘intelligent’ species we encounter in the future. By analyzing several core arguments regarding the treatment of artificial beings, I will show that abandoning our predominant self-serving tendencies and choosing not to limit the potentiality of autonomous AI is not only the safest course of action, but also the morally correct …

Predicting The Adoption Of Digital Printing In The Label Printing Industry: A Reasoned Action Study, Trevor S. Schroeder

Theses

The package printing industry is a vibrant and growing industry and digital printing technology is improving quickly--yet the adoption of digital printing has not fully penetrated the label printing market, a subset of packaging, and digital printing has seen slower adoption in its decade-long history in labels than expected. This research attempts to explain why this may be the case by understanding the factors affecting the intention to adopt digital printing. This study utilizes Fishbein and Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in a cross-sectional survey of individuals in a decision-making role in label printing companies. The study was intended …