Digital Commons Network^™

Educational Change Process: A Case Study Of A Rural School District's Reading Reform, Barbara M. Havel Bohach

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Beginning reading instruction is the subject of much debate in educational fields as well as in the political arena. The product of such debates is often a push to reform reading programs and teachers are targeted as the ones to carry out these reforms. If reading educators have been actively involved in a reading change process, what are their concerns about change and the influence of mandated legislation?

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to examine how teachers and administrators initiated and implemented a balanced reading innovation. It also investigated how the Concerns-Based Adoption Model identified teachers' concerns …

Copyright Under Siege: The First Amendment Front, Lackland H. Bloom Jr.

Computer Law Review and Technology Journal

For the past twenty-five years, I have taught courses in both Copyright and Freedom of Speech. Until quite recently, these two tangentially-related subjects have co-existed in peaceful harmony. Over the years, I have traditionally devoted about ten minutes of Copyright class time to the free speech issue and no time at all in Freedom of Speech class to issues of copyright. That was then; the old world has changed. Now, we have collectively become embroiled in what some are calling the "copyright wars", with the First Amendment (specifically, freedom of speech) as one of the central battlegrounds. In 1970, two …

Trademark Challenges, John M. Cone

Computer Law Review and Technology Journal

The proponent of a product design trade dress must show that the trade dress is non-functional. In 2001, the Supreme Court considered functionality in the context of a patented, dual-spring mechanism for temporary road signs, which were designed to withstand strong gusts of wind. In reversing the lower court's summary judgment, the Sixth Circuit held that the availability of spring mechanisms, functionally equivalent but with a different appearance, rendered the dual-spring mechanism non-functional.The Supreme Court reversed, finding instead that the TrafFix dual-spring design was functional as a matter of law. The Court thus held that the availability of functionally equivalent, …

Co-Operative Development Of Technology: Understanding The Risks And Creating Opportunities To Excel, David L. Hitchcock

Computer Law Review and Technology Journal

While technological advances come with increasing speed and complexity, the globalization of the economy has forced companies to become leaner and more focused on their core areas of expertise. As a result companies are forced to seek and acquire assistance from others when dealing with certain technological areas. In such cases, businesses often form co-operative relationships, such as outsourcing development work, mutual development agreements, joint ventures. These and other co-operative affiliations serve to facilitate a rapid adaptation to market and technology changes. These types of arrangements often come with significant risks, among them loss of trade secrets and competitive know-how, …

A Softer Side To Men, Michael J. Lenney

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

“I am on time. It’s the afternoon of my medical for life-insurance suitability. The AMP building in Sydney is my destination. I arrive with about twenty minutes to spare. I don’t remember the receptionist. I don’t remember the faces of the doctors who attended me that day. All I can remember is that I could see the clouds passing over the glass ceiling as my blood pressure was taken several times. The first doctor took my blood pressure three times before seeking another opinion. The second doctor confirmed his fears. I was in the “too high” risk category. At the …

Using Interactive Multimedia (Imm) To Help Year Four And Five Students Identified As Experiencing Reading Difficulties: A Formative Approach, Grace Oakley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study involved four formative experiments, each of which investigated ways in which IMM (Interactive Multimedia) could be used to help children who experienced reading difficulties. In each of the four contexts, classroom teachers identified a number of students with reading difficulties, selected pedagogical goals for them and worked with the researcher to plan IMM-based activities that targeted the selected goals. The implementations were evaluated formatively and modifications were made accordingly, with the intention of 'fine-tuning' them to facilitate achievement of the pedagogical goals. Facilitative and inhibitive factors were identified during and after each formative experiment, as were unplanned outcomes. …

Primitives And Design Of The Intelligent Pixel Multimedia Communicator, David K. Lucas

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Communication systems arc an ever more essential component of our modern global society. Mobile communications systems are still in a state of rapid advancement and growth. Technology is constantly evolving at a rapid pace in ever more diverse areas and the emerging mobile multimedia based communication systems offer new challenges for both current and future technologies. To realise the full potential of mobile multimedia communication systems there is a need to explore new options to solve some of the fundamental problems facing the technology. In particular, the complexity of such a system within an infrastructure framework that is inherently limited …

Occupational Awareness Of Singapore Primary School Children, Joy S. Ang

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The introduction of career guidance programmes in Singapore schools had tended to predominantly focus on secondary pupils. The lack of proactive career guidance programmes for the primary school had been due to the misguided belief that children in the primary school still have an extremely long way to go before they enter the workforce, and that their career development had not yet begun. Studies have shown that children have a natural tendency to form firm impressions of occupations early in life. This has resulted in their adopting certain occupations and discarding others before they have fully explored and understood the …

Optimisation Of John The Ripper In A Clustered Linux Environment, Christian Frichot

Theses : Honours

To aid system administrators in enforcing strict password policies, the use of password cracking tools such as Cisilia (C.I.S.I.ar, 2003) and John the Ripper (Solar Designer, 2002), have been employed as software utilities to look for "weak" passwords. John the Ripper (JtR) attempts to crack the passwords by using a dictionary, brute-force or "other" mode of attack. The computational intensity of cracking passwords has led to the utilisation of parallel-processing environments to increase the speed of the password-cracking task. Parallel-processing environments can consist of either single systems with multiple processors, or a collection of separate computers working together as a …

An Exploration Of The Impact Of The Family Court Process On 'Invisible' Stepparents, Natalie Gately

Theses : Honours

The increase of divorce in Australia is creating a social phenomenon for family researchers. Many families resolve disputes regarding children in the Family Courts, however due to the protracted litigation process many partners will have repartnered. Little is understood about how bureaucratic systems impact upon the experience of stepparents. These decisions might very well impact on the stepparents own new lifestyle and relationship, placing an additional burden on themselves and the stepfamily. The purpose of this review is to explore the literature pertaining to the issues surrounding repartnering and the Family Court process in order to illustrate how this invisibility …

Picturing A Postcolonial Australia : Breaking The 'White' Norm In Contemporary Creative Practice, Rebekah Rousi

Theses : Honours

This dissertation is about addressing social issues relating to colonial encounters from the perspective of a 'White' colonial Australian artist. The discussion seeks to address representational imbalances which occur within image construction as the result of a history of Imperial investment in defining the 'civilised Self against the non-European 'primitive Other' (Said, 1978). The label 'White' is analysed in terms of its contradictions and generalisations, where it is linked to a culturally assumed 'Self' positioning of human centrality and neutrality. This centrality (humanity) was used by Imperialists to justify reasoning behind colonial expansion. The thriving mechanisms of Euro-centric perception are …

Exploring The Possibilities Of Three Dimensional Image Manipulations On Mobile Devices, Thanuja Nuwan Hettiarachchi

Theses : Honours

With the introduction of more powerful mobile microprocessors and colour screen technology, complex image manipulations on various mobile devices such as mobile phones and handheld devices have become a reality. As a consequence of these improvements, there has been an increasing demand by users for interactive computer games which produce complex graphics by utilizing these advanced hardware technologies. Three dimensional (3D) graphics have been used to produce realistic interactive imaging for computer games during recent years. Java, through its mobile device programming platform, provides the framework for such complex image manipulations in computer games deployed on Java compatible mobile devices. …

Clutch, Claire Canham

Theses : Honours

The research encompasses an analysis of Paradigms of practice, material as content, historical precedents, social and political conditions relative to the project themes and corresponding theoretical discourse. It reflects issues of domesticity and familial relationships, memory, narrative and the use of specific materials and methods sympathetic to these concerns. Aspects of the practices of Eva Hesse and Marcel Duchamp have been considered to contextualise and differentiate the creative work. The research also attempts to define and position the artworks through relative critical evaluation of contemporary art practices.

2004 Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Faculty Senate meeting minutes for the entire year of 2004.

A Physics-Based Analytical Model Of An Algan/Gan High Electron Mobility Transistor, Jonathan Sippel

Theses

Popular semiconductors currently being used for RF applications include GaAs and InP. The operating frequencies for HEMTs built with these semiconductors covers the range from 800 MHz to 100 GHz. Although high-speed operation is attainable using GaAs or InP, product performance is limited when considering high-power applications, where a high breakdown field and thermal conductivity is needed. Proposed about fifteen years ago as a solution to this problem, GaN has emerged as a viable candidate to challenge, and perhaps overtake, GaAs and InP as the dominant semiconductor in RF products, particularly power amplifiers. This is due to its high breakdown …

Web Radio Blueprint, Michael P. Moran

Theses

The Internet is one of the most significant technological developments in our lifetime, and its impact affects many established technologies and media. Radio is one of the established media revolutionized by the Internet because of the expanding multi-media capabilities, leading the way to a more focused medium when compared to traditional terrestrial radio broadcasting. Radio transmissions over the Internet (Web Radio) offers the opportunity to provide content focused to a “niche” audience, while providing an opportunity for broader operator participation than terrestrial radio. Web Radio is an Information Technology that offers a viable alternative to commercial radio, which has become …

The Deceit Of Internet Hate Speech: A Study Of The Narrative And Visual Methods Used By Hate Groups On The Internet, Gina M. Albano

Theses

Intentional misinformation is a problem that has been documented in a variety of shapes and forms for thousands of years and continues to plague the American landscape. The advent and increasing usage of the Internet has created an additional venue through which intentional misinformation is disseminated, and many groups are taking full advantage of this new communication medium. Because the Internet allows anyone with web publishing skills to disseminate misinformation, it is often difficult for users to judge the credibility of the information. Hate groups understand this phenomenon and are taking full advantage of the Internet by publishing hate sites …

Internal Organizational Communication During Crisis Situations: The Effect Of Supportive Messages On Employee Stress Levels, Carin L. Kosmoski

Theses

This study investigates the effects of supportive messages from immediate supervisors or CEO's on employees during crisis situations. Supportive messages are hypothesized to decrease the stress levels of employees. The extent to which supportive messages from managers or executives during crisis situations affect employee perceptions of support from their organization, their CEO, and their immediate supervisor is also explored. During the research process, 78 volunteer participants received one of three messages from a hypothetical organization following a hypothetical crisis situation. Spearman's ranked correlations comparing reported support with reported stress levels indicate that, for the group studied, there is a negative …

Development Of A Human Visual System With The Ability To Detect Inconsistent Events, Jeremiah D. Brazeau

Theses

Current research has shown that it is possible to create a general purpose learning system that models the first few layers of the human visual system. The goal of this thesis is to build upon that idea and produce a computational model capable of learning different aspects of visual information. Simulations show that the system is capable of learning and distinguishing different types of motion. Results also give one explanation, consistent with current experiments, explaining how the human visual system learns information and as such may produce the capability to predict behavior in future experiments.

Avantgarda In Medijske Umetnosti, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Usability Of Online Payroll Marketing Websites., Maria Stella Plutino

Theses

Payroll processing companies grow by acquiring new clients. Potential clients may base part of their decision on which company to use by evaluating the usability and functionality of its website. It is therefore important for these companies to design the marketing portion of their websites to attract new customers and give the potential customers the confidence that the site will provide a sufficient level of functionality and will have good attributes of usability. Once the customer engages the services of the company it is likely that the relationship will be based on the marketing portion of the site and likely …

Data Hiding In Images Based On Fractal Modulation And Diversity Combining, Sarat B. Atluri

Theses

The current work provides a new data-embedding infrastructure based on fractal modulation. The embedding problem is tackled from a communications point of view. The data to be embedded becomes the signal to be transmitted through a watermark channel. The channel could be the image itself or some manipulation of the image. The image self noise and noise due to attacks are the two sources of noise in this paradigm. At the receiver, the image self noise has to be suppressed, while noise due to the attacks may sometimes be predicted and inverted. The concepts of fractal modulation and deterministic self-similar …

Interdisciplinary Collaboration In Graphic Design, Jill M. Kepler

Theses

Not Included

Using System Call Analysis To Stop Evasion Attacks In Anomaly Based Intrusion Detection System, Ashish Liladhar Samant

Theses

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) that operate on the principle of system call monitoring are known to be susceptible to mimicry or evasion attacks. It has been shown that an intelligent adversary armed with comprehensive knowledge of the target system or network, can penetrate these targets, hide his presence from the IDS, and continue to carry out damage. IDSs, which use system calls to define normal behavior, often leave out complimentary information about them, and intruders use precisely this drawback, to deceive the IDS. This thesis investigates the vulnerabilities of a system call based IDS and carries out a theoretical and …

Forecasting Hospital Bed Availability Using Computer Simulation And Neural Networks, Matthew J. Daniels

Theses

The success of hospitals in treating patients and staying in business relies on their efficient use of resources. In particular, the utilization of hospital beds is a critical concern, since over-crowding will result in delays or transfers of patients, and under-utilization will result in lost opportunity to treat patients and generate profit. To this end, hospital decision makers must have reliable forecasts of patient demand and bed availability. The objective of this thesis was to create a general method to forecast the availability of hospital beds in the short term, up to 2 days into the future. Specifically, this thesis …

Body/Landscape, Ju Yi Chia

Theses

Not Included

Effective Crisis Intervention In The School: The Role Of Training, Experience, And Self-Efficacy On School Psychologists' Ability To Intervene, Erica J. Deming

Theses

School psychologists' graduate and post-graduate preparation, intervention experience, and self-efficacy regarding crisis intervention services were investigated. A national survey was mailed to members of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) that resulted in a return rate of 38%. Demographic statistics indicated that a majority of school psychologists received at least some preservice crisis intervention training; however, 82.6% do not feel that this adequately prepared them to provide crisis intervention. Experience ratings suggested that school psychologists have little to no experience with gangs, weapons, gun control, natural disasters, and dealing with the media during a crisis. Chrildren's dealing with the …

User Interface Design: Porting Game Technology Concepts To Applications, Angelia Wilson

Theses

Not Included

Up, Hardeep Kharbanda

Theses

Not Included

Investigation Of Pulse Compression Technique And Time-Frequency Analysis In Medical Ultrasound Imaging, Shyam Venkataraman

Theses

Linear frequency modulation (LFM) followed by pulse Compression processing has been