Digital Commons Network^™

Workplace Financial Education: The Effects On Employees' Financial Behavior, Marcy Alves

Open Access Master's Theses

This thesis examines the effects of workplace financial education on employees' subsequent financial behavior. Subjects in this research were employees of the State of Rhode Island. Faculty and staff from the University of Rhode Island's Center for Personal Financial Education delivered one or both of the following financial education programs to participants: Early Planning for Retirement and Practical Financial Planning. Each program consisted of two, one-hour seminars that were delivered approximately two months apart. Participants were given identical pre-, post, and longterm follow-up surveys containing behavioral questions from both seminars; they were members of the experimental group for questions …

Stories Of Mothers Of Medically Vulnerable Infants, Sarah E. Davis

Master's Projects

As with any new baby, a medically vulnerable infant must be incorporated into the life of the family. The work of this transition is principally the work of the mother as primary caretaker. The mother considers what it will mean to have this infant in the family, how he will fit in, and what things will change. The mother wonders about how his personality will unfold and what his future will bring. She thinks about her role as a mother and how to best meet her child's special needs. With a medically vulnerable infant, a mother also has to consider …

Nurses' Work Environment Perceptions: Key Elements To Retention, Karen De La Cuesta

Master's Projects

A study of work environment perceptions among today's multi-generational registered nursing workforce provides suggestions to enhance job satisfaction and improve retention.

Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of An Anaphylaxis Training Program For Unlicensed Assistive Personnel, Jean A. Litarowsky

Master's Projects

This study evaluated a training program designed to prepare unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) in high school settings to recognize and respond effectively to an anaphylactic emergency. Subjects included 53 adults employed by a high school district in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. A training model was developed based on Bandura's theory of sources of self-efficacy. Knowledge and perceived self-efficacy of participants were measured before and after the training program to determine if a theory-based anaphylaxis recognition and epinephrine auto-injector training program would increase participants' knowledge and self-efficacy in responding to an anaphylactic emergency. Paired t-tests revealed significant improvement …

Public Health Nurse Interventions For Women In Dependency Drug Court, Ann Somervell

Master's Projects

There are an increasing number of children placed into foster care due to abuse and neglect. Parents of these children often have difficult drug abuse problems leading to the removal of their children. The cost of caring for these children is staggering reaching billions dollars. One program in Santa Clara County that has been created to assist parents is dependency drug court. This court utilizes many disciplines including nursing in its efforts to stabilize and reunify the children. Previous research has shown that home visitations by the public health nurse using interventions based on support of the family has aided …

Best Practices In Implementing Operational Controls Of Iso 14001 Environmental Management Systems Into Small And Medium Businesses, Kuldeep Khalsa

Theses

Studies show that many small and medium businesses (SMBs) that have implemented environmental management systems (EMSs) and got certified to the ISO 14001 Environmental Management Standard experienced obstacles along the way. For SMBs the standards appear unnecessarily bureaucratic, and represent a way of working that fits poorly into their organizational cultures and decision-making structures of small companies. Studies also show that environmental management systems such as ISO 14001 provide a framework for organizations that wish to effectively manage their environmental affairs. Implementing an EMS that conforms to the ISO 14001 standard helps businesses integrate environmental values into their operations.

This …

Optical Properties Of Materials For 157 Nm Lithography, Anatoly Bourov

Theses

A survey of optical properties of sputtered materials in the spectral range of 145 nm to 800 nm has been performed. The optical constants n and k have been measured using ellipsometric techniques. Four combination materials have been created with the properties suitable for application in Attenuated Phase Shift Mask (APSM) manufacturing. The four combination materials have also been characterized, with the results presented.

Technology As A Scapegoat, Wendi B. Denman

Theses

Not Included

Passage, Brian Andrew Vogt

Theses

Not Included

A Two-Step Approach Bayesian Network Model Selection, Michael John Kane

Theses

It is often desirable to show relationships between unstructured, potentially related data elements, or features, composing a knowledge database (KD). By understanding the interaction between these elements, we may gain insight into the underlying process from which the KD is derived, and as a result, we can often model the process. Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN) in particular, are adept at modeling knowledge databases for two reasons. The first is that BBNs give a structural representation of data elements through a directed acyclic graph (DAG). This ability may make BBNs invaluable in areas such as data mining, where statistical relationships between …

Image Processing Techniques To Separate Linear And Curvilinear Features In Textures, Bhavani Pidaparthi

Theses

Varied image processing techniques have been developed to extract or detect linear features from images. However, these techniques are targeted at extracting or detecting linear features, and it has been shown in an existing technique that the Fourier transform can be used in conjunction with the polar transformation to essentially lift or separate linear features from the background image. Extracting or detecting linear features in images involves locating these features in the image while separating or lifting them involves separating them from the background image such that we get two images: one image containing the linear features and the other …

Human-Intoface: The Face As Communication Technology, Troy Bennett

Theses

Not Included

Cultural Sensitivity In Visual Communication, Yih-Chi Wang

Theses

Not Included

Decent Exposure: Evolution Of The Female Gaze, Jill Silverstein

Theses

Not Included

Multisensor Image Registration Utilizing Th Log Filter And Fwt, Karl C. Walli

Theses

This thesis examines the utility of automated image registration techniques developed by the author. The major thrusts of this research include using the Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) filter to automatically determine ground control points (GCPs) and wavelet theory for multiresolution analysis. Additionally, advances in both composite and predictive transformations will be covered. The defense will include an overview of the processes involved in general image registration and specifically how they pertain to automation with the techniques utilized in this thesis. Use of the LoG filter to extract semi- invariant GCPs, development of automated point matching schemas, and the use of …

Near-Lossless Bitonal Image Compression System, Jeremy Pyle

Theses

The main purpose of this thesis is to develop an efficient near-lossless bitonal compression algorithm and to implement that algorithm on a hardware platform. The current methods for compression of bitonal images include the JBIG and JBIG2 algorithms, however both JBIG and JBIG2 have their disadvantages. Both of these algorithms are covered by patents filed by IBM, making them costly to implement commercially. Also, JBIG only provides means for lossless compression while JBIG2 provides lossy methods only for document-type images. For these reasons a new method for introducing loss and controlling this loss to sustain quality is developed. The lossless …

Comparison Of Anode And Electrolyte Support Configuration Of Single-Chamber Sofc, Piotr Jasinski, Toshio Suzuki, Zach Byars, Fatih Dogan, Harlan A. Anderson

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The single-chamber solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has recently received considerable attention. This type of fuel cell operates in the mixed reactant gas and therefore does not require separation of the fuel and oxidant gases. In this paper we report the anode- and electrolyte-supported configurations of the single chamber SOFC that we have studied. The system based on typical fuel cell composition has been examined: yttrium stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as an electrolyte, nickel/YSZ cermet as an anode, lanthanum strontium manganese oxide (LSM) as a cathode. The cells were prepared by tape-casting and screen-printing techniques. The cathode processing parameters have been …

Energized Fluid Forms In Metal Work, Yoonjin Kim

Theses

Not listed.

An Investigation Into The Effectiveness Of Pdf/X Premedia Workflows, Nicholas E. Doyle

Theses

PDF/X technology was introduced in the mid 90's with the intentions of improving and automating the prepress workflows. Standards committees such as CGATS (Committee for Graphic Arts Technical Standards) and DDAP (Digital Distribution of Advertisers for Publications) started to draft and implement a plan of action to succeed the current file formats being used in premedia workflows. Previous file submissions that were handed off from advertising and design agencies became too time-consuming to prepare them for the final run. Top-tier printing and publishing companies such as RR Donnelley, Quad Graphics, Vertis, and Time Inc, started to invest in new technology …

Using Natural Language Parsers For Authorship Attribution, Westerly A D Magnera

Theses

The goal of authorship attribution is to find a set of unconscious writing characteristics or style features that distinguish text written by one person from text written by another. Once these features are found, they can be used to pair a text with the individual who wrote it. It is now well accepted that authors develop distinct and unconscious writing features. Over one thousand stylometric features (style markers) have been proposed in a variety of research disciplines [44] but none of that research has looked at the syntactic structure of the text. I conjectures that the distinct writing features of …

The Impact Of Information Technology On Mass Customization, Josephice M. Lim

Theses

Increasingly, companies are adopting mass customization as a business strategy to meet increasing customer demand for product variety to help compete in the global marketplace. This paper examines the effects and impacts of Information Technology (LT) on mass customization and how various IT tools are used as customizing mediums to enable mass customization and provide unique value to customers in the most efficient way possible. Examples are drawn from companies who leveraged IT technologies in their mass customization efforts. Recognizing the critical value of technology professionals, this paper further discusses IT professionals' roles and how they are an integral part …

The Broadband Impact: Asymmetric Regulations Restrict Growth, Brent P. Thurn

Theses

Though the growth of broadband has increased dramatically in the last decade, asymmetric government regulations are impeding its continued growth. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has placed additional regulations on advanced telecommunications capability services (broadband). This report will show that asymmetric government regulations have limited the future growth of broadband by local exchange carriers (LECs1). Broadband technology has had a significant impact on today's Internet culture because it has changed the way that we work and use the Internet as a means for communicating. Most of the broadband regulations only apply to the telephone incumbents as compared to cable, satellite, …

Automatic Classification Of One-Dimensional Cellular Automata, Daniel R. Kunkle

Theses

Cellular automata, a class of discrete dynamical systems, show a wide range of dynamic behavior, some very complex despite the simplicity of the system's definition. This range of behavior can be organized into six classes, according to the Li-Packard system: null, fixed point, two-cycle, periodic, complex, and chaotic. An advanced method for automatically classifying cellular automata into these six classes is presented. Seven parameters were used for automatic classification, six from existing literature and one newly presented. These seven parameters were used in conjunction with neural networks to automatically classify an average of 98.3% of elementary cellular automata and 93.9% …

Filter Selection For Spectral Estimation Using A Trichrmatic Camera, David C. Day

Theses

Current imaging practices are based on exploiting metamerism to record and reproduce images. As a result, the data obtained in these images are dependent on the viewing conditions and the observer. While these methods produce acceptable results for day to day use, they often do not exhibit the type of accuracy and control required for scientific purposes such as art conservation. As a solution, many research institutions are now advocating the use of multispectral imaging to record the objects fundamental spectral properties to remove the data's dependency on the observer and viewing environment. The research described in this thesis involved …

Experimental Verificaiton Of Dual Chamber Vortex Generation For An Absorption Chiller, Yue Zhou

Theses

The energy consumption per capita per year throughout the world is increasing. The scientists and engineers throughout the world are focusing more attention to develop potential methods that would use waste heat. A significant amount of thermal resources are available in the form of low temperature (between 60 C and 99 C) industrial waste heat, approximately 500 trillion kJ per year is known to be wasted every year. This waste heat could be used to drive absorption chillers. In order to utilize that waste heat, a new chiller generator consisting of dual chambers called "dual chamber vortex generator" has been …

The Legend Of Hahoe Masks, Jung-Mi Yoo

Theses

Not Included

Aircraft Landing Gear Simulation And Control, Sanoopkumar Ambalaparambil

Theses

The focus of this work is the development of a Multi-degree Of Freedom (MOF) model for simulation and control of the landing performances of the SAE Heavy Lift Airplane model built by the Aerodynamics design team of RIT. From dynamic considerations, the landing gear performance has two areas of interest: a) behavior during touchdown impact, and b) response to excitation induced by track roughness during taxi, take-off and later part of the landing runs. As the problem at hand is highly nonlinear and complex, initially a simplified 1-dof model of the same aircraft is derived and analyzed using Lagrange's equations …

Development Of A Fully-Depleted Thin-Body Finfet Process, Branislav Curanovic

Theses

The goal of this work is to develop the processes needed for the demonstration of a fully-depleted (FD) thin-body fin field effect transistor (FinFET). Recognized by the 2003 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors as an emerging non-classical CMOS technology, FinFETs exhibit high drive current, reduced short-channel effects, an extreme scalability to deep submicron regimes. The approach used in this study will build on previous FinFET research, along with new concepts and technologies. The critical aspects of this research are: (1) thin body creation using spacer etchmasks and oxidation/etchback schemes, (2) use of an oxynitride gate dielectric, (3) silicon crystal orientation …

An Enhanced Least-Squares Approach For Reinforcement Learning, Hailin Li, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents an enhanced least-squares approach for solving reinforcement learning control problems. Model-free least-squares policy iteration (LSPI) method has been successfully used for this learning domain. Although LSPI is a promising algorithm that uses linear approximator architecture to achieve policy optimization in the spirit of Q-learning, it faces challenging issues in terms of the selection of basis functions and training samples. Inspired by orthogonal least-squares regression (OLSR) method for selecting the centers of RBF neural network, we propose a new hybrid learning method. The suggested approach combines LSPI algorithm with OLSR strategy and uses simulation as a tool to …

Cooperative Cleaning For Distributed Autonomous Robot Systems Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, H. Subramanian, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Cooperative Autonomous Cleaning is a simple challenge that can be implemented with the help of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) by simulating the actual thinking process of the human. The human mind organizes its thoughts in priorities and this feature could be exploited well if a priori knowledge of the system exists. This technique has been attempted here for a DARS.