Digital Commons Network^™

An Overview Of Security Issues In A Digital City, Bonnie Yates

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

This paper addresses what a digital city is, the advantages a digital city provides and how security must be considered when developing and deploying a digital city. Digital cities provide a dynamic living space that cannot be founded on static technology. Instead, it must have its foundation on dynamic technology. Included in dynamic technology is security, which is a common thread among digital cities. Without proper security, digital cities cannot expand to their full potential.

Biologically Inspired Learning System, Patrick Mcdowell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Learning Systems used on robots require either a-priori knowledge in the form of models, rules of thumb or databases or require that robot to physically execute multitudes of trial solutions. The first requirement limits the robot’s ability to operate in unstructured changing environments, and the second limits the robot’s service life and resources. In this research a generalized approach to learning was developed through a series of algorithms that can be used for construction of behaviors that are able to cope with unstructured environments through adaptation of both internal parameters and system structure as a result of a goal based …

Conspiracy Culture In America After World War Ii, Valerie Rose Holliday

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Feminism has all too often been reified as a theoretical category. Specifically, Marxist critical categories fail to account for the integral importance of gender in any sociopolitical critique. This dissertation attempts to dereify gender and demonstrate a theoretical model that seamlessly integrates psychoanalysis, Marxism, and feminism. Conspiracy culture in America since World War II is an ideal aperture through which we may envision such a theoretical approach, and indeed see the critical need for such an approach. This dissertation looks at several post-war American conspiracy narratives, including Oliver Stone’s JFK and Nixon, Don DeLillo’s Libra, Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe, John …

Cultural Performance Of Roadside Shrines: A Poststructural Postmodern Ethnography, Rebecca Marie Kennerly

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Marking the site of death on the road with a shrine, an increasingly popular cultural practice in the United States, is a deeply personal, private affair, however, because shrines are placed in the public right-of-way, they attract attention and invite participation, comment, and criticism. These sites, the materials that mark them, how people come to build them, the messages that those who build them hope to convey, and the accumulative force these sites bring to bear in various contexts offer unique insights into our complex, fragmented, and often confounding relationships with death, living memory, and selective forgetting. This project takes …

Miniature Shear Vane Testing On Compacted Silts, James Duehning

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

Geotechnical Engineering is a branch of Civil Engineering that deals with soil, rock, ground water and their relationship with the design, construction, and operation of engineering projects (Coduto, 1998). As early as the Middle Ages builders found out through trial and error that the soils stratums underneath their structures had to be competent enough to withstand the stresses induced by these structures. The trial-and-error method continued through the Renaissance and into the Industrial Revolution. (Coduto, 1998) The trial-and-error method turned out to be a very tedious and expensive way of learning.

Netexaminer: A Network Visualization Tool, Justin Miller

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

The purpose of NetExaminer is to provide a tool that can visualize the condition of a network without communicating with the network being monitored. The application is written for operating systems that support wxWtdgets, a cross -platform GUI toolkit. MySQL was used to provide the data for NetExaminer. Whereas most tools for gathering and displaying security related information available today display data in a readout form, NetExaminer attempts to take the data and display it graphically. The NetExaminer software takes data in from MySQL and generates a list of hosts that matches a pre-defined dy­namic criteria. The project has been …

Mobile Telephone Detection, Benjamin Moss, Todd Hubing

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

A common threat to military personnel in Iraq is the use of unconventional warfare. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are crudely fashioned using explosives wired to consumer radio electronics. Garage door openers, two-way radios, and mobile telephones are a small sampling of the devices used in IEDs. The diverse nature of these devices makes it difficult to preemptively detect an IED using traditional means. Various methods of mobile phone detection are investigated, taking into account the type of phone and the available detection equipment. Specifically, a first-generation mobile phone is detected using an oscilloscope and MATLAB.

Untitled Paper 2004-2005b, Rahul Kothari

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

The dermvis research group at the University of Missouri-Rolla is seeking to identify melanoma automatically. They now have reported up to 90% diagnostic accuracy for malignant melanoma (1) and recently obtained about 93% correct melanoma identification, the highest obtained by research groups in North America. The goals of the OURE project described here were threefold:

1. Digitize images from existing photographic slides of dermoscopy images taken with the Heine Dermaphot unit.

2. Digitize images from patients with malignant melanoma or benign lesions in the infrared region using a new camera with hot mirror removed.

3. Determine microprocessor serial cable codes …

Engineering Management: Student And Alumni Perspectives, Vaishalee Naruka

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

Engineering Management which is considered to be a "non-traditional" field of engineering has a long history of attracting high caliber students regardless of some negative perceptions. This study was done at the University of Missouri - Rolla through focused interviews of forty current students and ten alumni in industry. The objective was to find out what motivated these students to pursue Engineering Management as a discipline, their perceptions and their success in industry compared to "traditional" engineers. This study showed that Engineering Management students just like others, choose a career path that satisfies their needs. These students tended to like …

Power And Memory Optimization Techniques In Embedded Systems Design, Atef Khalil Allam

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Embedded systems incur tight constraints on power consumption and memory (which impacts size) in addition to other constraints such as weight and cost. This dissertation addresses two key factors in embedded system design, namely minimization of power consumption and memory requirement. The first part of this dissertation considers the problem of optimizing power consumption (peak power as well as average power) in high-level synthesis (HLS). The second part deals with memory usage optimization mainly targeting a restricted class of computations expressed as loops accessing large data arrays that arises in scientific computing such as the coupled cluster and configuration interaction …

A Correlational Study Examining The Relationship Between Invented Spelling And Beginning Reading, Jane Mcdaniel Grove

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research study was designed to investigate correlations between invented spelling patterns and beginning reading for low-performing and on-level boys and girls in kindergarten. Two research questions were examined: (1) Is there a statistically significant relationship between invented spelling as displayed in task and reading skills as measured by DIBELS? and (2) Does the performance displayed in task and reading skills as measured by DIBELS differ significantly for boys and girls in kindergarten? Student performance data was gathered using extant school Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) benchmarks at collected at midyear of kindergarten. It was hypothesized that …

Ecotoxicology Of Metal-Hydrocarbon Mixtures In Benthic Invertebrates, Kurt A. Gust

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Metal-hydrocarbon mixtures are becoming increasingly prevalent in natural environments due to expanding industrial activity and urbanization. The ecotoxicology of metal-hydrocarbon mixtures in benthic environments is of particular concern because both classes of contaminants partition to sediments and can thereby exert toxic effects in benthic organisms. Mixtures of dissimilar chemicals (including metals and hydrocarbons) are broadly hypothesized to elicit independent toxic effects however; this hypothesis has little supporting data. The purpose of this dissertation was to test this hypothesis for metal-hydrocarbon mixtures using environmentally relevant exposures and to determine mechanisms for observed interactive effects. Sediment and water-only bioassays were conducted employing …

Technology Adoption Into Teaching And Learning By Mainstream University Faculty: A Mixed Methodology Study Revealing The 'How, When, Why, And Why Not', Pamela Stone Nicolle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The field of educational technology has been and continues to be an influential component within the vast array of educational strategies, pedagogies, plans, and processes designed to enhance student learning. Faculties are realizing the relevance and potential of educational technologies in their teaching and professional and personal growth. However, the distance between envisioning technological use and actual implementation is often a long, winding road for many educators.

University faculty members are in the midst of a strong emphasis by various stakeholders to travel that road and to travel it with speed and accuracy. The mainstream members of tertiary level faculties …

Illinois Legislators Revisited: A Comparison Of Legislators' Perceptions And Attitudes Toward Constituent E-Mail, Mary Louise Sheffer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This is a follow up study to a 2000 report, which measured and compared Illinois state legislators’ attitudes and perceptions toward constituent e-mail, and its impact on personal political agendas. Along with measuring attitudes, this study sought to measure and compare the impact of advances in e-mail technology on Illinois legislators’ use of e-mail as a political tool of communication. The panel comparison consisted of 59% of respondents who participated in both the 2000 and the 2004 study. A survey conducted in February 2000 showed that 89% of Illinois legislators had an active e-mail address, but only 65% of those …

Exile As Severance, Alexandru Boldor

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Exile is a phenomenon probably as ancient as humanity itself, and one of the oldest topics in universal literature. The great majority of its variants (political, economical, social,) are founded on the idea of "forced displacement." Consequently, most often exile is reflected in literary creations in discourses dominated by a sentiment of loss. However, in some cases exile is not seen as a tragic event, but rather as an opportunity for intellectual growth - as attested by a number of authors who have chosen voluntarily to exile themselves. The rationale behind this occurrence is a mental process I called "severance." …

Feed Sack Fashions In South Louisiana, 1949-1968: The Use Of Commodity Bags In Garment Construction, Jennifer Lynn Banning

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the first part of this study, 37 commodity bag garments made and worn by one woman in rural South Louisiana between the years 1949-1968 were analyzed. The garments are currently in the collection of the Louisiana State University Textile and Costume Museum. A material culture study model, originally developed by Fleming and adapted from Severa and Horswill, was used to identify, evaluate, culturally analyze and interpret the design, construction, and fabric characteristics of garments. Access to this collection provided a rare opportunity to examine the attributes of a related group of commodity bag garments. In the second part of …

Patient Satisfaction With Nurse Practitioner Delivered Primary Health Care Services, Lucie J. Agosta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore and determine the degree of client satisfaction with utilization of primary healthcare services delivered by a nurse practitioner in the Employee Health Services department of a not for profit hospital in the Southern United States. The Nurse Practitioner Satisfaction Survey (NPSS), a 28-item Likert-type survey instrument was specifically developed for this study and administered to a sample of 300 clients. Overall high levels of patient satisfaction with nurse practitioner delivered health care services were demonstrated. The mean general satisfaction score was determined to be 86.86 / 90, with mean communication and scheduling …

Creating Meaning In Organizational Change: A Case In Higher Education, Kathleen Barnett

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As change is an inevitable part of organizational life, this study explores one aspect of communication in organizational change: the creation and use of meaning during the change process. The implementation of a new, higher education admissions criteria framework of a state master plan is the specific change under study. University administrators, contracted consultants, and board staff members participated in the study. Framed by symbolic interactionism and a stakeholder perspective, I pose four research questions: RQ1: What meanings were created during the particular process of change under study? RQ2: How were meanings intentionally and unintentionally created among stakeholders during this …

The Efficacy Of Noncontingent Escape For Decreasing Disruptive Behavior During Dental Treatment, Patrick Michael O'Callaghan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers have developed and demonstrated the effectiveness of a number of interventions to manage disruptive behavior in the dental setting. However, these treatments vary in terms of their effectiveness, invasiveness, effort to implement, and acceptability to families. This study evaluated the effects of noncontingent escape for reducing disruptive behavior in a pediatric dental setting. Within a multiple baseline design across subjects, five children were provided response-independent breaks via an automated cuing device. Results demonstrated reductions in escape-related behaviors (e.g., crying, body movements) for all children. Additionally, the intervention was implemented with high integrity and was favorably rated by the dental …

Non-Medical Skills And Competencies Needed By Paraprofessional Caregivers, Martha L. Dix

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research effort was intended to identify the non-medical job skills projected to be needed by in-home paraprofessional caregivers of today and beyond as indicated by a Delphi panel of caregiving experts from public and private business areas as well as academia. Thirty Delphi participants were selected based on a qualifying questionnaire. Actual respondents, however, numbered 29 for Round 1, 24 for Round 2 and 23 for Round 3. Each round asked participants to respond to a survey as prompted by an open ended statement. Within the Round 1 process, participants indicated which non-medical skills from the prepared list they …

African-American Women's Reception Influence And Utility Of Television Content: An Exploratory Qualitative Analysis, Bettye A. Grable

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study featured 33 in-depth interviews of college-aged, African-American women and offers baseline exploratory data about how a majority cultural artifact like televised depictions become utilized in the everyday lives of an underrepresented group in media studies. This research represents one of a few studies to explore how black females decode and utilize TV content, and offers a new theoretical framework to explain informants' decoded receptions, influence and utility of television. An inductive analysis of interview narratives found that viewers use TV content like a looking-glass to understand how they are seen by others and where they fit in …

Using Partial Least Squares Approach To Predict Factors That Contribute To The Impact Of E-Folios On Pre-Service Teachers' Learning, Tasha Hoover Christmas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Teacher-education programs have the responsibility to prepare their future teachers by instilling in them the desire, confidence, and ability to be reflective practitioners, lifelong learners who continues to grow and develop professionally after graduation (Klenowski, 2000). In an effort to fulfill this responsibility, Teacher-education programs are beginning to make reforms to adhere to national standards, which prompt them to create alternative means for assessing pre-service teacher's performance and the success of the teacher-education program. One such alternative is the electronic portfolio. This study investigated the use of Louisiana colleges and universities' electronic portfolio system known as PASS-PORT. The purpose of …

Development And Validation Of Child Routines Questionnaire: Preschool, Molly Murphy Wittig

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Experts emphasize routines as a paramount practice in successful child rearing (Fiese, 2002). Only recently, however, has empirical evidence begun to corroborate this theory. While many researchers and clinicians have documented the use of daily child routines in their parenting packages and treatment studies, none has measured the effects of child routines directly. The emergence of The Child Routines Questionnaire offered ample evidence of the importance of child routines in school-age children. Significant findings link a lack of routines to child behavior problems, poor parenting practices, and parental psychopathology (Sytsma et al., 2001; Sytsma-Jordan, Kelley, & Henderson, 2002; Jordan, 2003). …

Efficient Automatic Correction And Segmentation Based 3d Visualization Of Magnetic Resonance Images, Mikhail V. Milchenko

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the recent years, the demand for automated processing techniques for digital medical image volumes has increased substantially. Existing algorithms, however, still often require manual interaction, and newly developed automated techniques are often intended for a narrow segment of processing needs. The goal of this research was to develop algorithms suitable for fast and effective correction and advanced visualization of digital MR image volumes with minimal human operator interaction. This research has resulted in a number of techniques for automated processing of MR image volumes, including a novel MR inhomogeneity correction algorithm derivative surface fitting (dsf), automatic tissue detection algorithm …

Long Term Pressure Behavior In Turbidite Reservoirs, Feng Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, we investigated several possible mechanisms that would give rise to the anomalous pressure behavior (early concave-up on Horner plot or upward drift on the derivative curve of the log-log plot and asymmetry between the pressure drawdown and buildup behavior) sometimes encountered in the turbidite reservoirs in GOM primarily using numerical simulation and 2-level experimental designs. We ascertained the most influential parameters to the pressure behavior and identified that multilayer commingled system and the leaky compartment model are the most probable mechanisms to cause the anomalous behavior due to layer or zone property contrast to a certain degree. …

Active Security Mechanisms For Wireless Sensor Networks And Energy Optimization For Passive Security Routing, Lydia Ray

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Wireless sensor networks consisting of numerous tiny low power autonomous sensor nodes provide us with the remarkable ability to remotely view and interact with the previously unobservable physical world. However, incorporating computation intensive security measures in sensor networks with limited resources is a challenging research issue. The objective of our thesis is to explore different security aspects of sensor networks and provide novel solutions for significant problems. We classify security mechanisms into two categories - active category and passive category. The problem of providing a secure communication infrastructure among randomly deployed sensor nodes requires active security measurements. Key pre-distribution is …

"I Cried Out And None But Jesus Heard!" Prophetic Pedagogy: The Spirituality And Religious Lives Of Three Nineteenth Century African-American Women, Elecia Brown Lathon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

African American women represent a long line of prophetic women. Women who fought for space in the religious world of the nineteenth century, and who fought to have their voices heard in America. The lives and experiences of such women have been excluded, ignored, and dismissed from academic discourses. This study adds a new dimension (the spirituality of African-American women) to the field of curriculum theory and builds on the scholarship of literary scholars who have and are currently recovering the lost lives of African American women and their spirituality. Therefore, this research examined the spirituality and rhetorical strategies utilized …

Farming At Wylie : A Technical Biography 1933- 1963, Bruce Rhind

Theses : Honours

The genesis of this project was my father Graeme Rhind's collection of photographs of farming in Western Australia, dating back to 1929 when his parents first began farming in the wheatbelt near Wyalkatchem. I was interested in the way these photographs illustrated changing farming practices during the following three decades, and how they provided both documentary evidence and stimulated recall of memory. I was also concerned by the loss of knowledge of old photographic collections. The photographs are insufficient by themselves because each image requires specialised knowledge which the viewer may not possess, and that knowledge is lost with the …

Performing Successfully In The Heat At The 2004 Olympic Games In Athens: Which Active Cooling Strategies Represent Best Practice For Endurance Athletes, Marc Quod

Theses : Honours

Previous research using athletes has documented that precooling can improve endurance performance, especially in warm conditions. However, research comparing performance following different cooling techniques which are incorporated into a prerace routine is rare. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two precooling techniques on cycling time trial performance in warm conditions. Methods: Six endurance trained, regionally competitive cyclists completed one maximal graded exercise test (V0_2peak 71.4 ±3.2 ml’kg^-1min^-1) and four ~40 min laboratory cycling time trials in a heat chamber (34.3 ± 1.1°C; 41.2 ± 3.0% relative humidity (rh)) using …

Photocontrol Of Upper And Lower Rim Complexation Of Neutral And Cationic Species By P-Tert-Butylcalix[4]Arene Tetraethyl Ester, Mary Deasy, Bernadette Creaven, Brian A. Murray, Catherine Mckenna, Darren Tobin

Articles

A number of sodium salt complexes of p-tert-butylcalix[4]arene tetraethyl ester, 1, were isolated both with and without upper-rim encapsulated solvent. Selective decomplexation of lower rim bound sodium cations and upper rim encapsulated solvent molecules could be successfully achieved using low pressure light sources. Oxidation of the counter anion at the lower rim of p-tert-butylcalix[4]arene tetraethyl ester triggered both the upper and lower rim decomplexation process. The extent of decomplexation at both rims is controlled both by the nature of the counter-anionic species at the lower rim and by the fate of the photoproducts generated. The calixarene host …