Digital Commons Network^™

Professional Development Workshop: "Infusing Technology Into The Language Arts Curriculum" – Gateway To The 21st Century, Joy D. Carey

Theses and Dissertations

This technology action research project provided teachers with the opportunity to learn how to navigate the Internet and to enhance the Language Arts curriculum. This project was conducted in a Camden, NJ elementary, urban, Abbott school setting. This sample population was chosen from responses to a cross-sectional self-report pre-workshop interest questionnaire. Thirty-six staff members agreed to participate in the training sessions. The intern scored the results of the Likert surveys using Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint computer software. Seventy percent of the respondents to the pre-workshop interest questionnaire indicated they had inadequate knowledge of the Internet.

The post-workshop Likert questionnaire results …

The Implications Of The Financial Services Modernization Act On Life Insurance Industry Communications, Michael A. Weinberg

Theses and Dissertations

This study's purpose was to assess the effects of legislation known as The Financial Services Modernization Act on life insurance industry communicators. The November, 1999 legislation effectively broke down the barriers separating the major financial services industries in the U.S. - life insurance, banking, and securities.

An email survey of a random sample of the Life Communicators Association (LCA) U.S. membership was conducted. The LCA is a professional organization of marketing communications, advertising, and public relations professionals working for life insurance and other financial services firms. 242 surveys were emailed.

The results indicated that most of the LCA members were …

Development Of A Course Of Study For An Undergraduate Course In Global Communication, Kim Lynn Mullikin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the components of successful undergraduate global communication courses. The thesis examines curriculum of American and European colleges and universities' global communication courses and programs. The author analyzed syllabi and course textbooks and surveyed Rowan University College of Communication staff members to develop a course of study for an undergraduate course in global communication.

The study determined that the top 10 topics to be included in a global communication course are: culture, globalization, politics, adaptation, race, television and film, business, conflict and culture shock.

Culture and globalization were covered in more than 50% of the syllabi studied. Adaptation, …

Branding For Nonprofit Organizations, Shannon Cogan

Theses and Dissertations

In the world, 546,000 nonprofit organizations all compete for the same thing: time and money. With the ease of Internet philanthropic giving, traditional nonprofit organizations must change with the times or be left in the wake. In an age of constant message bombardment, nonprofits must continually reinvent themselves to avoid getting lost in the crowd. Today, many nonprofits have found branding is the answer.

To determine the importance of nonprofit branding, the author reviewed all available literature and interviewed a senior-level manager at United Way of America. In addition, the author performed a literature review of all materials obtained from …

Iasc: A Structure To Achieve A Unified Global Accounting System, Mike Waite

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this paper is to analyze the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) and the structure it has in place to develop a unified global accounting system. A unified global system implies a single accounting system that is implemented around the world creating readily comparable and accurate accounting information for the global community. The extent to which a single system is all encompassing is an important factor in this analysis because the levels of support for various international accounting systems are likely to vary according to the level of harmonization sought. For example, a proposal to require a certain …

Characterization Of Fatigue Crack Propagation In Aa 7075-T651, Robert Blandford

Theses and Dissertations

To better design structures and machines, understanding of flaws and failures is essential. The body of this work has addressed numerous facets of fatigue crack propagation. The affect of crack closure, testing errors, and data scatter are a few important components of crack growth developed and investigated. It was found that the widely accepted compliance-offset technique for closure measurement may be sensitive to increases in load ratio. Opening load uncertainty was calculated to be on the order of 5%. The application of practical regression techniques and the use of DKeff were used to characterize closureree crack growth data to develop …

A Numerical Study Of The Conjugate Conduction-Convection Heat Transfer Problem, Robert Samuel Webster

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates some of the basic aspects of conjugate, or coupled, heat transfer problems. The ultimate interest is in the improvement of an existing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code by the inclusion of such a coupling capability. Many CFD codes in the past have treated the thermal boundary conditions of a bounding solid as the simple cases of either a surface across which there is no heat flux, or as a surface along which the temperature is a constant with respect to both space and time. These conditions are acceptable for some applications, but many real-world problems require a …

Microbiotic Assessment Of An Upflow Anaerobic/Aerobic Swine Treatment Process, Robert Earl Mcclain

Theses and Dissertations

Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) relating to swine and their resulting odors continues to be an issue of concern. The primary sources of odors from a CAFO include general ventilation of the confinement house, the anaerobic lagoon, and the land application of lagoon sludge. This paper focuses on lagoon wastewaters, but the results therein could have influence on the other two aforementioned areas. An advanced upflow anaerobic/aerobic reactor system was developed to determine its impact on microbial activities that ultimately result in offensive odors. The microbial activity of SRB (sulfate-reducing bacteria) and hydrogen-sulfide production was monitored closely in each ?zone?, …

School-Family-Community Partnership, Cynthia E. Kates

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project was to investigate the attitudes and perceptions of the school, family members, and local community agencies and organizations concerning the development of a school-family-community partnership. The project centered on a needs assessment for the West Avenue School in reference to parental and community involvement. The views of 15 teachers, 79 parents, and 3 community agencies were studied through questionnaires. Teachers expressed a desire for more parental involvement in their child's education, but would like no interference in the area of classroom management. Parents expressed an interest in taking a more active role in the overall …

The Affective Effects Of A Newly Created Advisory Program On Middle School Students, Jacqueline Seidman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of a newly created advisory program on a population of middle school students at a Suburban middle school. Three different instruments were used to assess the subjective affective responses of thirty middle school students ages ranging from 11 to 13. These instruments were a student Quarterly Self-Report Scale, administered twice, an Advisory Assessment scale, and a formal interview.

The results reflected no difference between male and female students regarding their attitudes toward the advisory process. There was also no statistical difference between student evaluation of the advisory process over time. …

What's On Page One? How Minorities Are Depicted In The National Print Press, Susan Guthrie Chang Saridakis

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose was to identify how positively minority groups and non minority groups are depicted in the American print media. Fifty-two editions each of USA Today and The Wall Street Journal published during 2000 were rated for how positively and negatively minority and non-minority groups were portrayed. Two raters completed a questionnaire, identifying 1,144 newspaper stories and providing 1,626 ratings of minority and/or non-minority groups. Descriptive data and correlational results were calculated. No relationship between socioeconomic status of readership and positive presentation of group or minority/non-minority group membership and positive presentation of group were found. However, it was found that …

A Study Of The Effectiveness Of An After-School Peer Tutoring/Homework Help Program, Karen S. Symanski

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if the students in the after-school peer tutoring/homework help club made greater academic gains when compared to students who did not participate in the after-school program as measured by their grade point average.

The subjects of this study were 30 fifth, sixth, and seventh grade students from a one school district in a rural southern New Jersey town. Fifteen students were enrolled in the after-school program. Fifteen students did not attend the after-school program. Grade point averages were calculated for both groups at the end of marking periods one and two. A …

A Case Study In Augmentative And Alternative Communication: Usage By An Eight Year Old Male With Developmental Apraxia Of Speech, Marie E. Maine

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of using a sophisticated electronic voice output augmentative communication device with an eight-year-old male who has been diagnosed with Developmental Apraxia of Speech. The design of this research was a case study. Data collection measured the subject's academic, language, and social status before and after implementation of the augmentative communication device. Measures included standardized and criterion-referenced tests, adaptive behavior rating scales, structured observations, anecdotal data, interviews, and review of school records. Findings indicated the subject was able to participate in several assessments during the post-treatment condition that could not be …

The Potential For Support Of Gardner's Theory Of The Naturalist Intelligence In Selected Elementary School Library Media Centers, Traci L. Haines

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of teaching to the ability of the child is complex. Each child absorbs, analyzes and processes information differently. Howard Gardner developed a series of eight intelligences describing the variety of ways in which children learn. This study focused on the Naturalist Intelligence, an ability to recognize and discriminate different concepts in nature. A naturalist learner has strong observational skills and is good at sorting and classifying (Checkley, 1997). This evaluation compares randomly selected samples of the collections of two elementary school library media centers in order to determine whether the books in the 500s support Gardner's Theory of …

Characteristics Of Christian High School Libraries, Wayne Earl Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

For Christian high school libraries the study identified Christian aspects of their philosophy and goals, Internet use and selection policies, criteria for choosing librarians, and materials and services available. The sample was all the high school libraries with a librarian in a school with an enrollment of 300 or more students as of December, 1999. All the schools were members of the Association of Christian Schools International for the 1999-2000 school year. Four hundred thirty-three questionnaires were mailed to the high school librarians. One hundred sixty-eight usable questionnaires were returned. The study concluded that Christian high school librarians recognized Jesus …

A Survey Of Public Librarians' Attitudes Toward The Marketing Of Library Services, Jon C. Parker

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify attitudes of public librarians toward the marketing of library services, and relate these attitudes to selected independent variables. A questionnaire was developed and mailed to 1198 individual members of the New Jersey Library Association. Usable responses were received from 415 public librarians. The results were analyzed using various statistical techniques, including correlations and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Although most of the respondents had generally positive attitudes toward library marketing, there were some statistically significant differences between subgroups. For example, more positive attitudes toward marketing were expressed by library administrators, librarians who had …

Integrated Thematic Instruction And The Elementary School Library Media Center, Janeen C. Yacovelli

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to: 1.) determine the readiness of the three elementary school library media centers in the Egg Harbor Township public school system for implementation of integrated thematic instruction; 2.) determine the role the school library media specialist will play once integrated thematic instruction was adopted; and 3.) present these findings for other elementary schools where the integrated thematic instruction approaches might be adopted.

The population was made up of the staff of three elementary schools in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. This produced samples of three principals, three school library media specialists and 140 teachers. …

An All-To-All Multicast Routing Protocol In A Wireless Ad-Hoc Network To Improve Channel Utilization, Zhong Hua Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Ad-hoc network has become more and more popular. Several different multicasting schemes for this type of network have been developed. But most of them are targeting a situation where the total number of senders is much less than the total number of receivers. This thesis analyzes different wireless communication patterns in ad hoc network, the trend for wireless communication and presents a new multicast scheme. It targets an ad-hoc network where all mobile hosts act as both senders and receivers. The proposed scheme in this thesis will reduce overheads by combining data packets that are destined for the same …

Involvement Of The School Library Media Specialist In Critical Thinking Skills And Web Site Evaluation At The Middle School Level, Michele L. Burton

Theses and Dissertations

In the twenty-first century, the World Wide Web is being utilized more at home and in our school systems. The use of the WWW is transforming our learning institutions. Students must be information literate in order to critically evaluate the information they read on the WWW. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree to which School Library Media (SLM) specialists in Camden County, New Jersey were teaching middle school students the appropriate skills needed to become critical thinkers when using Web sites on the Internet, and what methods/search strategies these SLM specialists used in teaching. Questionnaires were …

Changes In Attitudes Towards Reading Using The Accelerated Reader Program, Diana A. Heil

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this experimental study was to determine if attitudes towards reading changed when the Accelerated Reader program was implemented. The study involved six classes of sixth and seventh graders in a six-week period and used a pretest/posttest design to measure changes in attitudes towards reading. A total of 128 students were given permission slips, however only 50 students returned them. These fifty participants completed a reading attitudes survey at the beginning and conclusion of the study. The participants also answered a worksheet with questions about the book that they chose to read. Finally, the students completed reading comprehension …

Char Reaction Kinetics In A Transport Gasifier, Jason P. Jacobsen

Theses and Dissertations

In the field of energy generation, coal gasification is one of the burgeoning technologies that are becoming an attractive alternative to conventional coal conversion. This study will provide valuable data to aid in optimizing and understanding this type of technology, in particular the char reactions of a transport coal gasifier that utilizes the M. W. Kellogg process. It has been very difficult to develop an accurate model for this process due to the lack of kinetic/equilibrium data of the coal char re-bum reaction and its effects on the gasification process.

Char reaction data on carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide …

The Effects Of Perceived Competence And Autonomy Support On Exercise Adherence: A Test Of Self-Determination Theory, Dennis E. Eickhoff

Theses and Dissertations

!t is well known that participation in physical activity has important health benefits for most people. However, despite the widespread knowledge of the potential benefits, a large segment of the population remains inactive and for those who do exercise, adherence is a problem. Thus, the study of factors that may improve adherence to physical activity has important implications for public health and wellness. Social psychological influences that have motivational potential arc of obvious interest. One theory of human motivation, self-determination theory (SDT) has shown excellent utility in many applications, including industry, education, and health care. However, review of the literature …

Middle School Advisories: An Evaluation Of Effectiveness In Creating Greater Affiliation And Self-Concept, Kimberly A. Quigley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a first year middle school advisory program in the areas of school affiliation and early adolescent self-concept. A total of 300 sixth grade students participated in the study, with 100 students from each of three different middle schools in a New Jersey suburban district. The sample consisted of 140 females and 160 males. A combination of different scales was used to create the test packet that was distributed to the participants in order to examine the hypotheses regarding school affiliation and self-concept. Three scales were utilized to measure school …

Study On The Prevalence Of Gastrointestinal Symptoms In Young Children With Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Jennifer Gelsinger

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to gather information on the prevalence of the occurrence of gastrointestinal problems in a selected group of young children with pervasive developmental disorder. The purpose of this study was to learn more about the eating, sleeping, and toileting habits of the selected group of children with PDD; and identify how these habits may or may not relate to the behavior exhibited by the children.

The sample for the study consisted of 50 children with pervasive developmental disorder, ages 2.5 to 12 years of age. All of the children had a post-diagnosis of PDD for …

Hidden Markov Models For Visual Speech Synthesis In Limited Data, Harold A. Arb

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a new approach for estimating control points (facial locations that control movement) to allow the artificial generation of video with apparent mouth movement (visual speech) time-synced with recorded audio. First, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are estimated for each visual speech category (viseme) present in stored video data, where a category is defined as the mouth movement corresponding to a given sound and where the visemes are further categorized as trisemes (a viseme in the context of previous and following visemes). Next, a decision tree is used to cluster and relate states in the HMMs that are similar …

The Use Of Systems Engineering Processes And Tools To Develop A System Dynamic Simulation Model Of Engineering Support During The Development Phase Of An Acquisition Program, Jason E. Bartolomei

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the increase of system complexity and the existing draw down of manpower allocations, today's acquisitions environment desperately needs a systems approach to decision making. Many studies have been performed to model the entire government acquisition environment. Due to the high degree of aggregation, front line decision-makers have had no use for the information these models provide. This research focuses on the Air Force's largest functional support element in aircraft systems development, engineering. I will only consider one phase of the government acquisition cycle the Engineering, Manufacturing, and Development (EMD). This is the development cycle, which begins with initial …

Factors Influencing Air Force Members' Tolerance Of Fraternization, Amanda G. Brandau

Theses and Dissertations

AFI 36-2909, provides the current policy on acceptable and unacceptable social interactions between Air Force members. The intent of distinguishing relationships as professional or unprofessional is to preserve proper respect for authority and maintain focus on the mission through professional relationships while avoiding the negative effects of unprofessional relationships. Fraternization is one unacceptable type, which governs relationships between officers and enlisted members. There have long been differences between official policy and actual practice in the area of fraternization. These differences likely influence the acceptance of existing policy, and the amount of tolerance toward behaviors that Air Force policy would consider …

Optical And Etching Studies Of Native Aluminum Oxide Layers For Use In Microcavity Photonic Devices, William L. Bernhard

Theses and Dissertations

Optical communication and computing systems are required to meet future information transfer and processing needs. Microcavity devices serve as an enabling technology to implement and integrate optoelectronic systems. It is important to understand the optical and mechanical properties of materials utilize within microcavity devices. Only then is it possible to accurately model and analyze structures. Microcavity structures incorporating a high aluminum content AlGaAs layers are designed, grown, processed, and measured. The processing of these devices includes the conversion of high aluminum-content AlGaAs layers to native aluminum oxide (AlO) layers through the process of thermal oxidation. This selective conversion of microcavity …

The Effect Of External Safeguards On Human-Information System Trust In An Information Warfare Environment, Gregory S. Fields

Theses and Dissertations

This research looks at how human trust in an information system is influenced by external safeguards in an Information Warfare (1W) domain. Information systems are relied upon in command and control environments to provide fast and reliable information to the decision-makers. The degree of reliance placed in these systems by the decision-makers suggests a significant level of trust. Understanding this trust relationship and what effects it is the focus of this study. A model is proposed that predicts behavior associated with human trust in information systems. It is hypothesized that a decision-maker's belief in the effectiveness of external safeguards will …

A Flexible Framework For Collaborative Visualization Applications Using Java Spaces, Sean C. Butler

Theses and Dissertations

The complexity of modern tasks is rising along with the level of technology. Two techniques commonly used to deal with complexity are collaboration and information visualization. Recently, computer networks have arisen as a powerful means of collaboration, and many new technologies are being developed to better utilize them. Among the newer, more promising of these technologies is Sun Microsystems' JavaSpaces ™, a high-level network programming API. This thesis describes a tool for developing collaborative visualization software using JavaSpaces-an application framework and accompanying toolkit. In addition to a detailed description of the framework, the thesis also describes an application implemented using …