Digital Commons Network^™

Development Of An Automated Method For Csf Bilirubin Measurement., Helen Caverley

Theses

Subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) is a potentially fatal condition which can be difficult to accurately diagnose. Patients often present with a second bleed which can be more damaging than the initial bleed. Diagnosis of SAH centres on computed tomography (CT) scans. However, 2% of patients positive for SAH will present as negative on CT scans. It is recommended that these patients have lumbar puncture and the CSF is analysed for bilirubin. The presence of bilirubin is suggestive of SAH. Spectrophotometric scanning involves expensive equipment which is often not available in routine settings. A need exists for a robust, inexpensive, automated method …

Analysis Of Adenovirus And Bovine Coronavirus., Kevin Lane

Theses

This investigation involved the analysis of selected gastroenteritis viruses, adenovirus and bovine coronavirus, obtained from faecal samples, collected from hospital and diagnostic laboratories respectively in Cork city, Ireland. The viruses isolated from these samples were subjected to analysis using cell culture and nucleic acid extraction. In addition adenovirus was analysed using PCR and PCR followed by restriction endonuclease digest. Many samples contained more than one gastroenteritis virus, the virus of interest and a natural co-infection with rotavirus species. Rotavirus infections in Ireland have been extensively studied and we were interested in studying singly and doubly infect samples.

Bovine enteric coronavirus …

Design, Implementation And Evaluation Of A Networking Context Aware Policy Environment, Asanga Dhammika Udugama

Theses

Future mobile networks are anticipated to have support to access heterogeneous access technologies. An important question in such environments is the decisions on when to use what access network. These decisions must take the users and mobile network operators’ perspectives into consideration. The operators usually have a focus of always-best-managed networks while the users have an always-best-connected focus. A key enabler of such environments is the use of policies to perform these handover decisions. These policies, which must be dynamic in nature, should be configurable when the requirements change. Policy decisions are always made based on the current context of …

Elliptic Curve Cryptography Security On Restricted Mobile Devices, Debbie Mccann

Theses

Mobile technologies with limited resources, such as smart phones or PDAs, have increased dramatically in popularity. However, the level of security provided for these technologies has not kept pace with the value of the data that they contain or transmit.

Wireless networks usually provide some security, in the form of encryption. GSM and GPRS use different forms of the A5 algorithm, and Wi-Fi uses WEP or WPA. These encryption algorithms have proven weaknesses and in some cases have been efficiently cracked. To improve the security of wireless networks, stronger encryption algorithms need to be developed. One of the most attractive …

Gender Bias Of Cardiovascular Risk In Caucasian Type Ii Diabetics: A Haemostatic Explanation?, William Quirke

Theses

People with type II diabetes are disproportionately affected by cardiovascular disease compared to those without diabetes. The relative risk of cardiovascular disease caused by type II diabetes is higher in females than in males. This risk has not been fully explained by traditional risk factors and attention has turned to the possible role of haemostatic abnormalities in explaining the excess cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among diabetic females. We examined specific parameters of the coagulation (factor VII, factor VIII, von Willebrand factor, fibrinogen) and fibrinolytic (plasminogen activator inhibitor- 1, thrombin-activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor) system in 113 Irish Caucasian type II diabetics to …

Mesh Mac Enabling Mesh Networking Over Ieee 802.15.4 Mac Layer, Panneer Selvan Muthukumaran

Theses

Wireless sensor network is a network of sensor nodes that function in a cooperative manner to monitor the changes in the physical environment. Wireless sensor networks are used in environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, building automation, and traffic control to name a few. Typically, wireless sensor node is a low power embedded device which consists of a microcontroller, sensors, wireless transceiver and a battery. These devices are usually distributed in a physical environment which makes it difficult to maintain the network manually.

The IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee are considered as standard protocols for wireless sensor networks. The IEEE 802.15.4 …

Sttructure-Function Correlations Of The Antagonist Effects Of Flavonoids Present In Medicinal Plants On Oxidative Reactive Molecules, Deema Khalil Al Jayousi

Theses

Flavonoids are phenolic compounds with significant antioxidant properties. The propensity of a flavonoid to inhibit free-radical mediated events is governed by its chemical structure. Since these compounds are based on the flavan nucleus, the number, positions, and types of substitutions influence radical scavenging and chelating activity. The main objective of this thesis was to establish structure-activity relationships of flavonoids by means of experimental and computational techniques.

Initially, a series of dietary flavonoids belonging to the most representative families (flavonols; myricetin, quercetin, morin, kaempferol, and 3-hydrxoyflavone, flavones; flavone and flavanones; naringenin) were studied during the reaction with DPPH radical following addition …

Is Pain Really God’S Megaphone? Responding To C.S. Lewis, Lisa Moate

Theses

In this study I will defend C.S. Lewis’ claim that people can be morally improved through experiences of pain and suffering and that, as such, attempts to avoid painful experiences are inappropriate. In explaining the context within which Lewis treats pain, a discussion of the nature of pain itself is not necessary since the importance of Lewis’ work lies in its practical application and the role it has in people’s lives; that is, in contributing towards our moral growth. The nature of pain is examined insofar as clarifying the idea it that can only be understood individually due to the …

Too White To Be Regarded As Aborigines: An Historical Analysis Of Policies For The Protection Of Aborigines And The Assimilation Of Aborigines Of Mixed Descent, And The Role Of Chief Protectors Of Aborigines In The Formulation And Implementation Of Those Policies, In Western Australia From 1898 To 1940, Derrick Tomlinson

Theses

For much of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, public policies for Western Australia’s Indigenous peoples were guided by beliefs that they were remnants of a race in terminal decline and that a public duty existed to protect and preserve them. If their extinction was unavoidable, the public duty was to ease their passing. The Aborigines Act 1905 vested the Chief Protector of Aborigines (after 1936 the Commissioner for Native Affairs), with lawful responsibility for the pursuit of that duty. All Aborigines caught by the terms of the Act, in particular Aboriginal children under the age …

A Biologically Inspired Focus Of Attention Model, Daniel I. Harris

Theses

With high definition, high resolution, technology becoming ever more popular, the vast amount of input available to modern object recognition systems can become overwhelming. Given an image taken from a high resolution digital camera, a target object may be very small in comparison to the entire image. Additionally, any non-target objects in the input are considered unnecessary data, or clutter. While many modern object recognition systems have been created to be over 90% accurate in the recognition task, adding large amounts of clutter to an input quickly degrades both the speed and accuracy of many models. To reduce both the …

Evaluating The Usability And Security Of A Video Captcha, Kurt Alfred Kluever

Theses

A CAPTCHA is a variation of the Turing test, in which a challenge is used to distinguish humans from computers (`bots') on the internet. They are commonly used to prevent the abuse of online services. CAPTCHAs discriminate using hard articial intelligence problems: the most common type requires a user to transcribe distorted characters displayed within a noisy image. Unfortunately, many users and them frustrating and break rates as high as 60% have been reported (for Microsoft's Hotmail). We present a new CAPTCHA in which users provide three words (`tags') that describe a video. A challenge is passed if a user's …

Implementation Of Active Collections Framework Using .Net, Sushil Magdum

Theses

For many years, large distributed enterprises have faced a common problem of near real time sharing of enterprise data typically stored in databases. As these databases may be located globally, distributed nature of this data makes it difficult to access instantaneously. The Active Collections Framework (ACF) acts as a good foundation on which to build distributed applications. This framework requires distributed applications to view changes to data as events of interest. The ACF framework integrates access to data and data changes through active collections. ACF framework is based on two different research areas: event management in distributed computing and active …

Gender, And Other Variables, Affecting Graduation Outcomes And The Future Of Science. Male Vs. Female Students 1995-2003 Rochester Institute Of Technology’S College Of Science, Catherine Mahrt-Washington

Theses

This thesis focuses on the impact of retention of undergraduate students on the future of science. If there are insufficient numbers of science students pursuing and succeeding in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education and careers, it has been argued that the United States will lose its innovative, competitive, and technological edge. The focus is on the challenges of retaining students, both male and female, in the sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology from 1995-2003. This thesis will describe and analyze existing data in an effort to develop a case specific understanding of retention metrics, student retention dynamics, and consideration …

Email Overload In Academia, Jeffrey D. Hole

Theses

The emergence of email as a viable and inexpensive communication channel has led to its increased presence in the daily lives of professionals. Email has become a ubiquitous tool in a faster paced and more globally connected world. Besides simple notes, professionals now use email to communicate tasks, important personal and organizational announcements, meeting requests, and share documents. As the importance of email has grown, professionals have made the email client a work nerve center. The vast increase in the volume of email and the use of the email client as a multifunctional tool now threatens the productivity gains it …

The Development Of A Graduate Course On Identity Management For The Department Of Networking, Security, And Systems Administration, Marsha Mitchell

Theses

Digital identities are being utilized more than ever as a means to authenticate computer users in order to control access to systems, web services, and networks. To maintain these digital identities, administrators turn to Identity Management solutions to offer protection for users, business partners, and networks. This paper proposes an analysis of Identity Management to be accomplished in the form of a graduate level course of study for a ten-week period for the Networking, Security, and Systems Administration department at Rochester Institute of Technology. This course will be designed for this department because of its emphasis on securing, protecting, and …

Application Of Project Management Methodology From Idea Generation To New Bundle Development In Personal Care Packaging Projects, Fikri Bilir

Theses

The purpose of this study was to conduct an analysis of the current packaging development process used by Colgate-Palmolive sub-country teams and to provide suggestions for implementing an improved process. The analysis of the current approach to packaging development and project management in the personal care business category was done using a shampoo packaging change case study. A new Stage-Gate approach, which used project management methodologies, was proposed for packaging development projects. Additionally, a series of project management template documents (such as project charter, scope of work, work breakdown structure, responsibility matrix, and project timeline) applicable to other packaging development …

Minimization Of Halftone Noise In "Flat" Regions For Improved Print Quality, Harsha Narne

Theses

The work in this thesis proposes a novel algorithm for enhancing the quality of "flat" regions in printed color image documents. The algorithm is designed to identify the "flat" regions based on certain criteria and filter these regions to minimize the noise prior and post Halftoning so as to make the hard copy look visibly pleasing. Noise prior to halftone process is removed using a spatial Gaussian filter together with a Hamming window, concluded from results after implementing various filtering techniques. A clustered dithering is applied in each channel of the image as Halftoning process. Furthermore, to minimize the post …

Script: Handful Of Fate, Ali Vatansever

Theses

It's a special day in town. They are getting ready to welcome their first foreign teacher. However, Julia, an accidental tourist is mistaken for her. And a wind of change starts to blow in the town. Handful of Fate, tells three stories on this very day.

Young Ahmet plans to run away with his forbidden lover from the village. Everything falls apart as he is assigned to be Julia's English guide. But she doesn't speak English.

Pharmacist Zeynep's story is about her struggle with her lover Celal and the townspeople over leaving for the city. With Volkan's arrival at the …

Lithuanian Diaspora: An Interview Study On The Preservation Or Loss Of Pre-World War Two Traditional Culture Among Lithuanian Catholic Émigrés In Western Australia And Siberia, In Comparison With Lithuanians In Their Homeland, Milena Vico

Theses

This study is designed to ascertain the cultural changes which have taken place over a period of fifty years within three distinct Lithuanian communities. Of these three, two communities –one in Western Australia and the other in Siberia –were part of the post-World War Two (WWII) diaspora. The third is still living in Lithuania. I set out to determine the extent to which, during the period of fifty years covered by this study, cultural practices, values and beliefs have been maintained and lost by those who participated in the interviews carried out as part of the methodology of this thesis. …

Implementing A Forensic Educational Package For Registered Nurses In Two Emergency Departments In Western Australia, Christine M. Michel

Theses

The results of violence are a major public health problem that infiltrates hospital emergency departments (ED) daily. Often, ED nurses are the first healthcare professionals to see patients, speak with family members, handle personal property and collect laboratory specimens. Such actions can be of extreme importance to the 27 different categories of forensic patients. To adequately address forensic patient issues, ED nurses need exposure to forensic education. The aim of this research was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a clinical forensic education package on ED nurses’ perceptions, knowledge and care of forensic patients. To accomplish this aim, this …

Career Aspirations: Similarities And Differences Between Adolescence With Learning Disabilities And Adolescence Not Receiving Special Education Services, Cara A. Stromberg

Theses

The Self-Directed Search (SDS) and Career Advisement Questionnaire: Adolescent Form were administered to a group of high school students who were either classified with a learning disability (LD) or who were not receiving special education services. The SDS and Career Advisement Questionnaire: Parent Form were administered to a subset of parents of students with LD. Results indicate that students with LD differed in their work personalities compared to students not receiving special education services and compared to their parents’ estimates of their work personalities; specifically, students with LD held lower self-estimates about their own abilities compared to peers. Students with …

Assessment Of Favorable Conditions And Potentials Of Salinity Gradients In Solar Ponds (Sgsps) And The Production Of Solar Salt Along Abu Dhabi Coasts, Huda Ali Mohammed Saeed Al Mansouri

Theses

Coastal sabkha area of Abu Dhabi extends about 300km long and 15 km wide. It consist of a series of hypersaline (47%) lagoons surrounded by salt-entrusted flat sabkhas. Temperature there may reach 60° C in the summer. Moreover, the salinity of the lagoons is very high and may reach 70%.

The objective of this study was to assess the possibility of utilizing salinity gradient in solar ponds and/or production of solar salt along Abu Dhabi coasts. This study was conducted in sabkha area which extends from Al Mafraq-Al Sil’a Highway, near the Satellites Station (kilo 255, Dy 17 Street) until …

Electrical Imaging Hydro Chemical And Isotope Investigation Of Mubazarah Area In Uae (Al-Ain), Faris Mirghani Mahgoub

Theses

No abstract provided.

Laboratory-Scale Injector Instability Mode Assessment, Robert E. Byrd Jr.

Theses

No abstract provided.

Biological Control Of Fusarium Oxysporum Wilt Disease Of Tomato By Antagonistic And Plant Growth Promoting Actinomycetes, Nada Mohammed Ibrahim Al-Shugairan

Theses

Soil-borne fungal plant pathogens cause some of the most widespread and serious plant diseases. Root diseases caused by these pathogens such as wilt, root rot, collar rot, foot rot, seedling pre- and post-emergence damping-off are the foremost of problems which are gaining importance from day to day in the world and for which no direct control measures have been evolved so far. Fusarium spp. is a widespread soil-borne plant pathogen and is the causal agents of wilt disease of many economically important crops. Fusarium spp. is a limiting factor in the plant productivity in most agricultural soils. Wilt disease of …

Treatment Of Aqueous Waste Streams At Eli Lilly - Alternatives To Incineration, Barry Hennessy

Theses

The aim of this project was to investigate the potential to treat liquid waste (secondary) from production processes at Eli Lilly with the emphasis on minimising the volume of waste sent for thermal oxidation. In addition, the project aimed to investigate if the chosen technology was diverse and potentially capable of handling waste streams from different processes. Membrane technology was identified as one of the most suitable technologies and trials were carried out on secondary waste from three production processes. The literature review and practical thrials aswell as assessment of trial results ran from October 2003 to June 2005.

All …

' An Investigation Into The Impediments Of Rfid Adoption In Ireland, Emer O'Connor

Theses

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology increases the ability of organisations to acquire a vast array of data about the location and properties of any entity that can be physically tagged, and wirelessly scanned within certain technical limitations. Many companies can benefit from its adoption, companies such as Manufacturing, Logistics, FMCG/Retail, Libraries and Pharmaceutical. This Research investigates the impediments to RFID adoption in Ireland. Internationally the lack of standards, cost of the technology along with other factors are cited as major constraints to the adoption of RFID. In an Irish context these factors hold true. Following an extensive research process, this …

Xess: The Xml Expert System Shell, Robert J. St. Jacques

Theses

The XML Expert System Shell (XESS) was designed to alleviate some of the difficulties associated with translating a knowledge base from one expert system to another. The major goal of XESS is to allow programmers to model an expert system, complete with traditional facts and rules, in an XML-based language that leverages the universally understood terms used when teaching artificial intelligence to students. XML, the extensible markup language, is a text-based standard for information interchange between disparate systems1; it was originally designed to represent data in an easily parsable, human readable format2. While some extensions of the XML specification, particularly …

Differential Virtualization For Large-Scale System Modeling, Jason Koppe

Theses

Today’s computer networks become more complex than ever with a vast number of connected host systems running a variety of different operating systems and services. Academia and industry alike realize that education in managing such complex systems is extremely important for computer professionals because, with computers, there are many levels of detailed configuration. Configuration points can occur during all facets of computer systems including system design, implementation, and maintenance stages. In order to explore various hypotheses regarding configurations, system modeling is employed – computer professionals and researchers build test environments. Modeling environments require observable systems that are easily configurable at …

A Needs Assessment & Exploration For Incorporating Tablet Pc Technology To Improve Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Students Cooperative Learning Experiences In The Mainstream Classroom, Sarah B. Remelt

Theses

This project focuses on qualitative exploratory research that analyzes the possible inclusion of Tablet PC technology and teaching strategies to enhance cooperative learning in the mainstream classroom environment. After 3 observations, suggestions for use of Tablet PC technology and teaching strategies were shared and modeled for the classroom Teachers of the Deaf(TODs). Feedback via interview and survey were solicited from the TODs involved in the study and a final report written. The report showed the findings that the Tablet PC is perceived to have the ability to enhance deaf and hard of hearing student experiences, participation and communication during cooperative …