Digital Commons Network^™

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Selection Procedures And Training Programs Used In A Vocational Training Organization, Matthew J. Coumbe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a private vocational training organization's selection procedures and training programs. Specifically, the selection and training process was analyzed by employing qualitative and quantitative approaches that determined the relevant contribution the process had on employee selection and preparation. As part of this evaluative research, plant managers and supervisors from three machine manufacturing organizations, the program director and faculty of the training organization, and former trainees perceptions were used to compliment the quantitative analysis. Statistical analysis was conducted by assessing the predictive power of interview ratings, aptitude tests, and training tests. …

Public School Principals’ Perceptions In Accredited And Non-Accredited Elementary Schools Regarding Strategies To Improve Student Performance On The Michigan Education Assessment Program, Mattie P. Hampton

Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to investigate whether principals of summary accredited elementary schools and principals of non-accredited elementary schools significantly differ in their perceptions in regards to selected strategies used to prepare students for the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP). More specifically, this study attempted to address three focused interrelated questions: (I) Will principals of summary accredited elementary schools and principals of nonaccredited elementary schools significantly differ in their perceptions in regards to selected curriculum strategies used to prepare students for the MEAP? (2) Will principals of summary accredited elementary schools and principals of non-accredited elementary schools …

Estimating Budget Relationships With A Leontief Input-Output Model, Guenever L. R. Shariff

Theses and Dissertations

Forty years ago, the Office of the Secretary of Defense proposed using the Leontief input-output model to assess tradeoffs in the Department of Defense's (DoD) budget. We demonstrate that the Leontief input-output model can assess tradeoffs in the Air Force's budget. To increase one part of the Air Force's budget, we need to know the interrelationships between that budget area and the other areas. In this research, we look at different methods of how the functional areas might interact. We demonstrate our methodology on two data sets - DoD and the Air Force aggregate budget data. By looking at how …

An Account Of Novice Phylogenetic Tree Construction From The Problem-Solving Research Tradition, Terrance E. Brisbin

Dissertations

Both the content and strategic knowledge used in phylogenetic tree construction are described to account for novice performance. A review of the literature is used to place this research with respect to studies in: problem solving studies (both expert, and novice), the history and practice of evolutionary systematics, and the teaching of evolution. The computer-based problem-solving environment is discussed along with model problems used for the research.

Each of the five research problems consists of an encoded matrix containing phylogenetic data organized by taxa and characters. Twelve participants (high school students) volunteered to solve the research problems, on their own …

Developmental, Psychosocial, And Economic Predictors Of Healthy Newborns In Michigan’S Teenage Pregnancies, Cheryl Lauber

Dissertations

Teenage pregnancy is a critical health indicator. Using a risk reduction model, this study examined the relationship between the characteristics o f the teenage mother i and her newborn. The research questions were: ( I) what risk factors are associated with poor birth outcomes, (2) is addressing each factor the best way to reduce the risk, and (3) has the overall risk changed as the birth rate has declined? Developmental, psychosocial and economic risks were identified as independent variables, while age and race were mediators.

Combining the birth certificate records of women under age 20 from 1990 through 1997 resulted …

Washington University Record, December 1, 2000

Washington University Record

No abstract provided.

Commuting Self-Adjoint Extensions Of Symmetric Operators Defined From The Partial Derivatives, Palle Jorgensen, Steen Pedersen

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

We consider the problem of finding commuting self-adjoint extensions of the partial derivatives {(1/i)(∂/∂x_j):j=1,...,d} with domain C^∞_c(Ω) where the self-adjointness is defined relative to L²(Ω), and Ω is a given open subset of R^d.

Estauarine And Coastal Marine Waters: Bioassessment And Biocriteria Technical Guidance, George R. Gibson, Michael L. Bowman, Jeroen Gerritsen, Blaine D. Snyder

Miscellaneous Articles, Papers, and Reports

(First paragraph) This technical guidance document is based on the concept that bioassessment and biocriteria programs for estuaries and near coastal waters are interrelated and critical components of comprehensive water resource protection and management. Understanding how estuarine ecosystems function and respond to human activity requires a holistic approach to protection and management that integrates biological assessments into the more traditional chemical and physical evaluations. Section 101 of the Clean Water Act requires federal and state agencies to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.”

Disinfection Of Dentin By Intracanal Laser Irradiation: An In Vitro Model, Silvia Cristina Mafra Cecchini

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

A possible cause for root canal failure is the persistence of bacteria that have colonized dentinal tubules. To reduce this risk and, if possible, to also shorten the time consuming endodontic therapy, new equipment and materials are constantly being introduced. The aim of the present investigation was to study the effect of disinfection of dentinal tubules by intracanal laser irradiation using an in vitro model. The groups irradiated by various lasers were compared with calcium hydroxide, a material frequently used as intracanal medication between appointments. Freshly extracted, intact bovine incisors were used. The root cementum was removed and the teeth …

Teachers’ Use Of Instructional Alignment In Michigan Fifth Grade Classrooms And The Relationship Of Use To Student Meap Scores In Writing, John Rasmussen

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which Michigan fifth grade teachers use components of instructional alignment in writing instruction, and then to compare the writing MEAP scores from a sample of fifth grade elementary buildings in Michigan to determine if there was a relationship between writing test scores and (a) teachers’ years of experience; (b) the degree to which fifth grade teachers use the Michigan Model Core Curriculum in writing, the Michigan Curriculum Framework, or local curriculum documents containing this curricula, to plan their lessons; (c) the degree to which teachers perceive they are implementing …

New Kinematic Models For Pacific‐North America Motion From 3 Ma To Present, Ii: Evidence For A “Baja California Shear Zone”, Timothy Dixon, Fred Farina, Charles Demets, Francisco Suarez-Vidal, John Fletcher, Bertha Marquez-Azua, M. Meghan Miller, Osvaldo Sanchez, Paul Umhoefer

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

We use new models for present‐day Pacific‐North America motion to evaluate the tectonics of offshore regions west of the Californias. Vandenburg in coastal Alta California moves at the Pacific plate velocity within uncertainties (∼1 mm/yr) after correcting for strain accumulation on the San Andreas and San Gregorio‐Hosgri faults with a model that includes a viscoelastic lower crust. Modeled and measured velocities at coastal sites in Baja California south of the Agua Blanca fault, a region that most previous models consider Pacific plate, differ by 3–8 mm/yr, with coastal sites moving slower that the Pacific plate. We interpret these discrepancies in …

Computational Geometry Column 40, Joseph O'Rourke

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

It has recently been established by Below, De Loera, and Richter-Gebert that finding a minimum size (or even just a small) triangulation of a convex polyhedron is NP-complete. Their 3SAT-reduction proof is discussed.

Natural Law As Professional Ethics: A Reading Of Fuller, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Plato's Laws, the Athenian Stranger claims that the gods will smile only on a city where the law "is despot over the rulers and the rulers are slaves of the law." This passage is the origin of the slogan "the rule of law not of men," an abbreviation of which forms our phrase "the rule of law." From Plato and Aristotle, through John Adams and John Marshall, down to us, no idea has proven more central to Western political and legal culture. Yet the slogan turns on a very dubious metaphor. Laws do not rule, and the "rule of …

Essential Oil Treatments To Control Varroa Destructor Anderson And Trueman 2000 (Formerly Varroa Jacobsoni Oudemans 1904) (Mesostigmata: Varroidae), Maria Mercedes Vargas-Sarmiento

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Varroa destructor Anderson and Trueman is the most serious pest of the honey bee Apis mellifera L. Varroa mites transmit several viruses, bacteria and fungi to the bees, which results in a condition called parasitic mite syndrome. There are no completely reliable treatments available to control the mite. Fifty-one beehives were artificially infested with varroa mites by using three different methods. Observations on mite population growth during three infestation attempts were made. All colonies were inspected for the presence of the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida Murray, no beetles were found. Thirty-five colonies were used to establish the efficacy of …

Mapping Appalachia, Jennifer Hall Boggess

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The complexities of natural and human events that make up the history of a place also create components of its image. Images, even those that are meant to describe limited, specific information, often reveal more than that which they were designed to tell. The maps that have been used in conjunction with traditional notions of landscape painting suggest that there is no single way to understand a place. They also hint of something ineffable but true emerging from their forms. The history of movement of people and natural forces, the arriving and leaving of individuals and cultures change the landscape. …

Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

This Article begins with the puzzle of why law does not embrace the "product rule"; a mathematically-inclined judge or jury that thought a defendant .6 likely to have been negligent and .7 likely to have caused plaintiff's harm might conclude that plaintiff had failed to satisfy the preponderance of the evidence standard. Following some discussion of a number of reactions to this puzzle, the Article advances the idea that the process of aggregating multiple jurors' assessments overlooks valuable information. First, following the Condorcet Jury Theorem, agreement among jurors might raise our level of confidence beyond what the jurors themselves report. …

Application Of Operations Research Techniques To Finance, Kamlesh Kosare

IIMB Management Review

There is a pressing need to find solutions to vari ous problems in finance with the help of operations research techniques, which can be conveniently used, for decision making.

Improved Sample Complexity Estimates For Statistical Learning Control Of Uncertain Systems, Chaouki T. Abdallah, V. Koltchinskii, M. Ariola, P. Dorato, D. Panchenko

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Probabilistic methods and statistical learning theory have been shown to provide approximate solutions to “difficult” control problems. Unfortunately, the number of samples required in order to guarantee stringent performance levels may be prohibitively large. This paper introduces bootstrap learning methods and the concept of stopping times to drastically reduce the bound on the number of samples required to achieve a performance level. We then apply these results to obtain more efficient algorithms which probabilistically guarantee stability and robustness levels when designing controllers for uncertain systems.

University Reporter - Vol. 05, No. 04 - December 2000, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

Gated Communities As Public Entities, Dennis W. Stransky

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Gated Communities as Public Entities identifies these organizations as phenomena of recent land development practices. The topics discussed include the history of private dwelling associations, the makeup of these organizations, and the parallels between them and their larger, public counterparts. Specific areas such as taxes, infrastructure, codes covenants and restrictions, and law enforcement are discussed in detail. Gated Communities have become a large part of the available housing choices for many homebuyers. Approximately one-third of the homes constructed today are part of private associations created as various forms of private corporations. The laws related to the creation of private corporations …

Theoretical Structure Of Dynamic Gtap, Elena Ianchovichina, Robert Mcdougall

GTAP Technical Papers Archive

This paper documents the foreign asset ownership and investment theory of the dynamic GTAP model (GTAP-Dyn). The new investment theory offers a disequilibrium approach to modeling endogenously international capital mobility. It permits a recursive solution procedure, a feature that allows easy implementation of dynamics into any static AGE model without imposing limitations on the model's size. The method involves treating time as a variable, not as an index. Having time as a variable allows the construction of dynamic GTAP with minimum modifications to the existing structure of GTAP, by separating the theory of static GTAP from the length of run.

Simulation Of Instability Onset In A Gas Turbine, S. Fleeter, Elias N. Houstis, John R. Rice, C. Zhou

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

A Proactive Approach To Distributed Dos Prevention Using Route-Based Packet Filtering, Kihong Park, Heejo Lee

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Tile-Size Selection For Skewed Tiling, Yonghong Song, Zhiyuan Li

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Combinatorial Approach To Planar Non-Colliding Robot Arm Motion Planning, Ileana Streinu

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

We propose a combinatorial approach to plan non-colliding motions for a polygonal bar-and-joint framework. Our approach yields very efficient deterministic algorithms for a category of robot arm motion planning problems with many degrees of freedom, where the known general roadmap techniques would give exponential complexity. It is based on a novel class of one-degree-of-freedom mechanisms induced by pseudo triangulations of planar point sets, for which we provide several equivalent characterization and exhibit rich combinatorial and rigidity theoretic properties. The main application is an efficient algorithm for the Carpenter's Rule Problem: convexify a simple bar-and-joint planar polygonal linkage using only non …

Rogue River Watershed Project / Rogue River Watershed Management Plan, Annis Water Resources Institute

Watershed Management Plans and Reports

The Rogue River is located in west central lower Michigan and is a major tributary of the Grand River. The Rogue River Watershed refers to all the land that is drained by the Rogue River. This area is 167,625 acres and includes portions of Kent, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo, and Ottawa counties. The City of Rockford and Cedar Springs, and the villages of Sparta, Kent City, Sand Lake, and Casnovia are within the Rogue River Watershed boundaries. The Rogue River is fed by wetlands, county drains, lakes, and both warm and cool-cold water tributaries. The cool-cold water tributaries help to sustain …

Restimulation Candidate Selection Using Virtual Intelligence, Khalid Y. Mohamad

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Due to the importance of well deliverability maintenance, a committee of specialists from Dominion East Ohio and other service companies meets every year to select the wells to be included in the deliverability maintenance plan. The application tool not only help in selecting the wells for deliverability maintenance plan but goes beyond that by designing the most optimum frac recipe.;The purpose of this study is to develop an engineering tool that will help petroleum engineers making a better decision for selecting well candidate and design well restimulation. The project focuses on a gas storage field and use data such as …