Digital Commons Network^™

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.

The Effects Of Motor Carrier Deregulation, Michael J. Scannell

Theses

The Motor Carrier Deregulation Act was brought about by consumer groups that created pressure on Congress to deregulate several protected industries. The airline, telephone, and motor carrier industries that were regulated or governed by Federal Departments were deregulated approximately at the sane time due to the national consumerism of the late 1970's.

The Motor Carrier Deregulation Act appears to have been successful on the surface by lowering the price of transportation; however, in reality it has had a negative impact in certain smaller communities where the lack of service and higher cost has deterred future growth of the community. Smaller …

A Faster Way: A Recommendation To Machinery And Equipment Appraisers, Gerald L. Huether

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.

Building Knowledge Systems For The Manufacturing Support Environment: A User's Approach, Vernon Joseph Tracy Jr.

Theses

Knowledge systems provide a largely untapped resource for accomplishing productivity gains in the manufacturing support disciplines. Major corporations, usually under the guidance of newly formed Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) departments, are rushing to develop large knowledge systems. These large systems offer the promise of a considerable payback and therefore deserve their current attention. There also exists a wealth of smaller projects that if identified and developed, could contribute to improved corporate performance. The shortage of knowledge engineers has been the major reason why small knowledge system applications in the manufacturing support areas are not being vigorously pursued. This paper presents an …

Management Stress And Its Impact On Marital Dysfunction, Thomas J. Kemper

Theses

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the occupational and life stressors suffered by managers and the relationship between this stress and the marital dysfunction of these managers.

The relationship between employee's work lives and their nonwork lives has undergone a number of investigations over the years . One area that has received particular attention is the area of occupational stress, its causes and effects. Occupational stress is something that is no longer suffered by air traffic controllers and top executives Lower level managers are becoming distressed because of the pressures placed on them by corporations to perform, and …

A Synthesized Approach For Data Base Life Cycle Design, Philip J. Morales

Theses

This thesis examines the human and technological issues that are often encountered during the application-driven system design and recommends a synthesized life cycle approach to data base design. The aerospace industry is emphasized due to the highly competitive and regulatory operating environment. Special attention is given to the strategic business planning and end-user involvement in the requirements definition phase of system development. The research consists of reviewing of current literature concerning tools, techniques, and available Information Engineering (IE) methodologies that are the basis for managing data as a resource. The benefits offered by these methodologies along with the experience gained …

My Thesis, Kandice L. Kelley

Theses

Unavailable.

Research And Development Of An Abc Book Of Thinking Skills With Caldecott Books For Primary Students, Edythe Bernhardt

Theses

The goal of A1erican education today is to develop the thinking ability of children to enable them to learn even after leaving school. Because of an increasingly complex, ever-changing, problem-ridden world, creative thinkers and problem solvers are needed today more than ever before.

The purpose of the project was to research and prepare appropriate materials to develop thinking skills in primary aged children, kindergarten through grade three. The thinking skills were combined with quality children's literature, the Caldecott Award winning books, in activities which teach children to think and motivate them to read excellent children's literature . These activities were …

Adaptive Arithmetic Data Compression: An Implementation Suitable For Noiseless Communication Channel Use, James E. Robinson

Theses

Noiseless data compression can provide important benefits in speed improvements and cost savings to computer communication. To be most effective, the compression process should be off-loaded from any processing CPU and be placed into a communication device. To operate transparently, It also should be adaptable to the data, operate in a single pass, and be able to perform at the communication link's speed. Compression methods are surveyed with emphasis given to how well they meet these criteria. In this thesis, a string matching statistical unit paired with arithmetic coding, is investigated in detail. It is implemented and optimized so that …

Importance And Implementation Of Explanation In Expert Systems, Kurt R. Heilbronn

Theses

Explanation is crucial in persuading others of the correctness of our beliefs to gain acceptance of our conclusion. Early research into expert systems focused on methods for reasoning. However it became apparent that the ultimate success lay in the ability to gain user acceptance by explaining the reasoning behind the conclusion. This study examines explanation from a social and an implementation standpoint. The social aspects of explanation provide insight into the role of naturally occurring explanations and listener expectations. Examination of research expert systems with explanation facilities and modifications of a simple Prolog expert system shell demonstrate the techniques required …

The Effect Of Laser Beam Cuts On The Strength Of Paper Edges, Bernard Pineaux

Theses

Some paper-mill rewinders use infra-red carbon dioxide laser heads to slit the web into rolls of given widths. However, despite certain advantages, laser slitters are not widely used mainly because of installation and operation costs.

Web breaks on a printing press cause both time and paper waste. Breakings occur because of defects in the edges of the web, such as notches or extra fibers, which offer less resitance to the high tensions existing during the printing of a web at high speed. Since paper edges are much cleaner when cut with an infra-red carbon dioxide laser than when cut with …

Measurement Of The Thermal Conductivity Of Thin Solid Films With A Thermal Comparator, Charles A. Amsden

Theses

A direct-reading thermal comparator was used to measure the thermal conductivities of several thin solid films. This new application of the thermal comparator was based on heat flow modelling using the thermal constriction resistance, generalized here for the case of a film on the surface of an infinite half-space.

Four dielectric optical coating materials were tested, and found to have thermal conductivities significantly lower than those for the same material in bulk form.

The finite element method was used to estimate the minimum sample dimensions required for accurate results, and the variation of the thermal constriction resistance with the assumed …

Variable Size Block Truncation Coding With Adaptive Bit Plane Omission For Image Compression, Hieu T. Pham

Theses

A modified version of the Block Truncation Coding (BTC), which is a non-information preserving image compression technique, is studied. The first modification is the introduction of variable block sizes to the standard BTC technique. The second modification is the adaptive omission of bit planes. Threshold selections for this modified BTC technique are analyzed in the context of the human visual system. Modified BTC techniques are compared against the standard technique from the point of view of visual image quality and compresion efficiency.

Computer Graphics And The Harvard Interactive Videodisc Project, David B. Marshall

Theses

Not Included

Graphical Programming System For Dataflow Language, Jyun-Jier Roland Jehng

Theses

Dataflow languages are languages that support the notion of data flowing from one operation to another. The flow concept gives dataflow languages the advantage of representing dataflow programs in graphical forms. This thesis presents a graphical programming system that supports the editing and simulating of dataflow programs. The system is implemented on an AT&T Unix^TM PC.

A high level graphical dataflow language, GDF language, is defined in this thesis. In GDF language, all the operators are represented in graphical forms. A graphical dataflow program is formed by drawing the operators and connecting the arcs in the Graphical Editor which …

Colorpalette: A Knowledge-Based System To Select Colors For A Palette, Penny Bauersfeld

Theses

This paper describes ColorPalette, a knowledge-based system to advise users in selecting colors for a palette used for computer screen design applications. Color selections and advice are based on principles of human computer interface design and color theory, gathered through both research and knowledge acquisition from a human expert. The user may put together various color combinations to form acceptable and successful palettes. The system consists of a color data-base of facts formulated from an HSV color model, a knowledge base that can reason about these colors and their relations to each other, and a set of rules based on …

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 …

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.

My Life's Contrasts, Doreen A. Long

Theses

Not Included

Database Machines In Support Of Very Large Databases, Mary Ann Kuntz

Theses

Software database management systems were developed in response to the needs of early data processing applications. Database machine research developed as a result of certain performance deficiencies of these software systems. This thesis discusses the history of database machines designed to improve the performance of database processing and focuses primarily on the Teradata DBC/1012, the only successfully marketed database machine that supports very large databases today. Also reviewed is the response of IBM to the performance needs of its database customers; this response has been in terms of improvements in both software and hardware support for database processing. In conclusion, …

Photographic Work 1986-87, Peter Ainsworth Carter

Theses

Not listed.

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …