Digital Commons Network^™

The Influence Of Beaver Impoundments On Vegetative Composition, And Modeling Habitat Suitability As A Tool For Wildlife Management And Conservation, Jerry Leanne Bonner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Beavers (Castor canadensis) can have dramatic effects on vegetative communities through impounding streams and wetlands. These alterations may influence rare plant species where beaver create ponds. We found that the youngest and oldest beaver ponds in Canaan Valley, West Virginia, USA had similar species richness. Rare plant species occurred most in oldest ponds, although no significant differences were detected. Species composition around ponds was found to be different between areas influenced by ponds versus those not affected, creating more obligate wetland communities when influenced by beaver. This information should be incorporated into management decisions when rare plant species conservation is …

Automated Dental Identification: A Micro-Macro Decision-Making Approach, Diaa Eldin M. Nassar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Identification of deceased individuals based on dental characteristics is receiving increased attention, especially with the large volume of victims encountered in mass disasters. In this work we consider three important problems in automated dental identification beyond the basic approach of tooth-to-tooth matching.;The first problem is on automatic classification of teeth into incisors, canines, premolars and molars as part of creating a data structure that guides tooth-to-tooth matching, thus avoiding illogical comparisons that inefficiently consume the limited computational resources and may also mislead the decision-making. We tackle this problem using principal component analysis and string matching techniques. We reconstruct the segmented …

Resource-Based View Of Knowledge Management For Competitive Advantage, Leila A. Halawi, Jay E. Aronson, Richard V. Mccarthy

Publications

We are not only in a new millennium, but also in a new era: the knowledge era. Sustainable competitive advantage is dependent on building and exploiting core competencies. The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm defines a strategic asset as one that is rare, valuable, imperfectly imitiable and non-substitutable. Knowledge is seen as a strategic asset with the potential to be a source of competitive advantage for an organization. In this paper, we provide a model that examines how and why knowledge management (KM) can be sued to create competitive advantage from the RBV of the firm.

Degree Of Sedentarization Affects Risks And Conflicts For The Waso Boran In Northern Kenya, D. Layne Coppock, Abdullahi D. Jillo, Mark N. Mutinda, Abdilla A. Aboud

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

The Waso Borana have lived for over a century in northern Kenya. In the last few decades, however, their ability to maintain their traditions has been severely challenged. Here we report survey results from 540 households in Isiolo District, stratified among three groups differing in terms of lifestyle: sedentary, semi-sedentary, and mobile. In some cases these groups vary with respect to important perceived risks, causes of natural-resource related conflict, and possible solutions to conflict. For example, sedentary respondents often noted concerns over land tenure problems, human diseases, and political incitement. Mobile respondents, in contrast, often noted primary concerns over drought, …

History, Collective Memory, And The Appropriation Of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Reagan's Rhetorical Legacy, Denise M. Bostdorff, Steven R. Goldzwig

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This article argues that President Ronald Reagan appropriated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words and memory to suggest equal opportunity in the United States had been largely achieved. Individuals—rather than the government—now had to take responsibility for any additional progress. By arguing that the dismantling of federal civil rights laws and social programs was actually consistent with Dr. King's words, President Reagan advanced his own agenda for civil rights in direct violation of Dr. King's intentions, while narrowing the purview of civil rights to eliminate government intervention in employment, education, and other arenas.

Removal Of Heavy Metals From Aqueous Solutions Using Local Adsorbents, Moza S. Al-Sharyani

Theses

The recent rapid increase in industrialization activities contributed to most of aquatic pollution problems. Among aquatic pollutants, heavy metals, such as zinc, lead, cadmium, and copper have gained relatively more significance in view of their persistence and toxicity. Due to their health and toxicological effects, environmental agencies and authorities have set strict regulations to maintain the limit of heavy metals in wastewater below the maximum acceptable concentration levels.

The technical feasibility of using raw date pits and different activated carbons prepared from date pits by air and acid activation as low cost local adsorbents for the removal of different heavy …

Dynamic Growth Rates Of Microbial Populations In Activated Sludge Systems, Peter George Stroot, Pascal E. Saikaly, Daniel B. Oerther

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Results of mathematical modeling and whole cell 16S ribosomal RNA-targeted fluorescence in situ hybridizations challenge the widely held perception that microbial populations in "steady-state" activated sludge systems share a common net growth rate that is proportional to the inverse of the mean cell residence time. Our results are significant because they encourage bioprocess engineers to appreciate the differences in growth physiology among individual microbial populations in complex mixed microbial communities such as suspended growth activated sludge bioreactor systems.

Using Community Service Projects To Teach Leadership And Team-Building: Theoretical Foundations, Students' Reactions And Practical Considerations, Gilbert Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper discusses the theoretical foundations of utilizing Community Service Project (CSP) or service-learning to teach Leadership and Team-Building. It examines the students’ reactions to this innovative method of instruction. This is done through conducting a content analysis of students’ learning journals, in which students reflect on their CSP learning experiences. Two themes emerged from the data: (a) variety of learning experiences, and (b) impact of CSP experience. The data suggested that students derived a variety of learning experiences from the CSP. In addition, there were attitudinal and learning impacts associated with the CSP experiences. The paper also outlines some …

Retest Effects In Operational Selection Settings: Development And Test Of A Framework, Filip Lievens, Tine Buyse, Paul R. Sackett

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study proposes a framework for examining the effects of retaking tests in operational selection settings. A central feature of this framework is the distinction between within-person and between-person retest effects. This framework is used to develop hypotheses about retest effects for exemplars of 3 types of tests (knowledge tests, cognitive ability tests, and situational judgment tests) and to test these hypotheses in a high stakes selection setting (admission to medical studies in Belgium). Analyses of within-person retest effects showed that mean scores of repeat test takers were one-third of a standard deviation higher for the knowledge test and situational …

The Use Of Charge -Charge Correlation In Impedance Measurements: A Test Of The Epet Method, Christopher W. Gregory

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

It is well known that biological tissues possess impedance properties that might be useful in medical diagnostics and treatment. Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) images internal electrical properties by using numerical methods to solve Laplace's differential equation. The indirect reconstruction method (IRM), a common method in application, predicts internal electrical property distribution by iteratively computing a forward and inverse solution. This approach reduces the non-linear Laplace's equation into a poorly conditioned series of linear equations, which are solved simultaneously. This method suffers from high computational effort and is susceptible to prediction errors that stem from measurement noise.;As an alternative to Laplace's …

A Qualitative Study Of Pre -Service Teachers Using Co -Teaching As A Method To Understand Scientific Process Skills To Teach *Inquiry, Jennifer Carter Mccain

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The National Science Education Standards (NSES) have established scientific literacy as a goal for all students. The goals advocate scientific inquiry as an instructional strategy to be used in the classroom, and standards of inquiry have even been established. At the same time, co-teaching has become prevalent in classroom as regular education teachers work with special education teachers. The classrooms are inclusive and both teachers are to work together to benefit all the students. Research has shown positive perceptions and negative perceptions of co-teaching. In this study, pre-service teachers are co-taught an elementary science methods course at a medium-sized university. …

A Grapheme To Phoneme Converter For Standard Malay, Haizhou Li, Mahani Aljunied, Boon Seong Teoh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper describes the process of creating a grapheme-to-phoneme (G2P) converter for Standard Malay (SM). A fundamental step to building TTS and ASR engines, is to build a good G2P system that can automatically generate accurate phonemic representations for words. Our goal is to generate phonemes that reflect real speech, thereby facilitating more accurate phoneme alignment with actual waveforms (obtained from voice-data collection), keeping human intervention to the minimum. Here we discuss the key areas in SM that require considerable phonemic alterations including letter elisions, consonant insertions, multiple ways of uttering a letter/diagraph – areas that any good G2P system …

Controllability, Observability And Realizability, Inna N. Smith

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In this research project, we analyze three important concepts of the control theory, including controllability, observability and realizability. In particular, we analyze the theory of and solutions to linear time systems, continuous and discrete time systems, time-varying systems, and first-order matrix Sylvester systems. Examples and sample computed calculations are provided for both uncontrolled and controlled systems. We also develop a new method for computing the approximate values of matrix exponentials, and use this to estimate solutions to initial value problems.

Teaching Reading: Report And Recommendations, Ken Rowe, National Inquiry Into The Teaching Of Literacy (Australia)

School and system improvement

The objectives of the Inquiry were to review and analyse recent national and international research about literacy teaching approaches; identify the extent to which prospective teachers are provided with reading teaching approaches and skills that are effective in the classroom and have the opportunities to develop and practise the skills required to implement effective classroom reading programs; identify the ways in which research evidence on literacy teaching and policies in Australian schools can best inform classroom teaching practice and support teacher professional learning; examine the effectiveness of assessment methods being used to monitor the progress of students' early reading learning; …

Online Support For Multivariate Integration, Shujun Li

Dissertations

In this dissertation, we present an online problem solving environment for multivariate numerical integration. To build an environment for users with various backgrounds, we address issues of Web interface support for end-users, remote application programming interfaces for distributed system programmers, visualization of multivariate integrand functions for problem analysis, and highly efficient integration methods. Compared to previous implementations, our new load balancing schemes increase the scalability of parallel integration and hence are suitable for large scale computations. A parallel integration service, called PI service, was implemented based on Web services technologies to support both remote integration and remote visualization. The multivariate …

On Sequential And Fixed Designs For Estimation With Comparisons And Applications, Mekki Terbeche, Broderick O. Oluyede, Ahmed Barbour

Mathematical Sciences: Faculty Publications

A fully sequential approach to the estimation of the difference of two population means for distributions belonging to the exponential family of distributions is adopted and compared with the best fixed design. Results on the lower bound for the Bayes risk due to estimation and expected cost are presented and shown to be of first order efficiency. Applications involving the Poisson and exponential distributions with gamma priors as well as the Bernoulli distribution with beta priors are given. Finally, some numerical results are presented.

An Efficient And Robust Computational Framework For Studying Lifetime And Information Capacity In Sensor Networks, Enrique J. Duarte-Melo, Mingyan Liu, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper we investigate the expected lifetime and information capacity, defined as the maximum amount of data (bits) transferred before the first sensor node death due to energy depletion, of a data-gathering wireless sensor network. We develop a fluid-flow based computational framework that extends the existing approach, which requires precise knowledge of the layout/deployment of the network, i.e., exact sensor positions. Our method, on the other hand, views a specific network deployment as a particular instance (sample path) from an underlying distribution of sensor node layouts and sensor data rates. To compute the expected information capacity under this distribution-based …

Tailored Watermarking Schemes For Authentication Of Electronic Clinical Atlases, Feng Bao, Robert H. Deng, Beng-Chin Ooi, Yanjiang Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It is accepted that digital watermarking is quite relevant in medical imaging. However, due to the special nature of clinical practice, it is often required that watermarking not introduce irreversible distortions to medical images. The electronic clinical atlas has such a need of "lossless" watermarking. We present two tailored reversible watermarking schemes for the clinical atlas by exploiting its inherent characteristics. We have implemented the schemes and our experimental results look very promising.

Webarc: Website Archival Using A Structured Approach, Ee Peng Lim, Maria Marissa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Website archival refers to the task of monitoring and storing snapshots of website(s) for future retrieval and analysis. This task is particularly important for websites that have content changing over time with older information constantly overwritten by newer one. In this paper, we propose WEBARC as a set of software tools to allow users to construct a logical structure for a website to be archived. Classifiers are trained to. determine relevant web pages and their categories, and subsequently used in website downloading. The archival schedule can be specified and executed by a scheduler. A website viewer is also developed to …

Earmstrong, Armstrong Atlantic State University

Armstrong News & Publications: e-Armstrong Newsletter (Archived)

No abstract provided.

Current Parent Involvement Practices In Georgia Title I Schools As Reported By Title I District-Level School Administrators, Martha Massey Mcbride

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The current parent involvement practices in Georgia Title I schools as reported by Title I district-level school administrators are described in this quantitative study. Data gathered describe strategies, means of communication, barriers, personnel, and staff development impacting parent involvement. The researcher found that, although districts employ a variety of research-based strategies to engage parents, only half of the surveyed strategies had been used with any degree of frequency. This is possibly attributable to the finding that almost two-thirds of the participants had five or fewer years Title I administration experience and that many districts had not provided teacher compensation or …

Georgia Technical College Administrators' Perceptions Of The Future Vocational And Academic Roles Of Georgia's Technical Colleges, Thomas Ennis Bragg

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In 2000 the Georgia General Assembly passed House Bill 1187 giving the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education (DTAE) schools the right to change their names from technical institutes to technical colleges. This event could have led to a change in the type and method of delivery of course offerings at the technical colleges in Georgia. This study was designed to examine the technical college administrators' perceptions of the future vocational or academic roles of Georgia's technical colleges. A 21-question survey was designed to assess the administrators' perceptions of the future vocational and academic role of the 35 technical …

Integration Of Probabilistic Graphic Models For Decision Support, Jiang C., Poh K., Tze-Yun Leong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It is a frequently encountered problem that new knowledge arrived when making decisions in a dynamic world. Usually, domain experts cannot afford enough time and knowledge to effectively assess and combine both qualitative and quantitative information in these models. Existing approaches can solve only one of two tasks instead of both. We propose a four-step algorithm to integrate multiple probabilistic graphic models, which can effectively update existing models with newly acquired models. In this algorithm, the qualitative part of model integration is performed first, followed by the quantitative combination. We illustrate our method with an example of combining three models. …

A Cross-Cultural Study Of Hearing And Hearing-Impaired Children’S Human Figure Drawings, Chia-Liang Timothy Hu

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to further the research of human figure drawings as useful assessment tools and add to the understanding of children’s human figure drawings from a cross-cultural perspective.

In this quantitative study, 147 human figure drawings made by 59 hearing and 64 hearing-impaired Taiwanese children and 24 hearing-impaired American children were collected. In addition, 50 drawings done by hearing American children were randomly chosen from the children’s drawing database of Eastern Virginia Medical School Graduate Art Therapy Program. Five Formal Elements Art Therapy Scales (FEATS) scales were modified for use with human figure drawings and were …

Radar - A Novel Admission Control And Handoff Management Scheme For Multimedia Leo Satellite Networks, Syed Rashidali Rizvi

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks are deployed as an enhancement to terrestrial wireless networks in order to provide broadband services to users regardless of their location. In addition to global coverage, these satellite systems support communications with hand-held devices and offer low cost-per-minute access cost, making them promising platforms for Personal Communication Services (PCS). LEO satellites are expected to support multimedia traffic and to provide their users with some form of Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. However, the limited bandwidth of the satellite channel, satellite rotation around the Earth and mobility of end-users makes QoS provisioning and mobility management …

Robust And Efficient Localization Techniques For Cellular And Wireless Sensor Networks, Haseebulla M. Khan

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Localization in wireless networks refers to a collection of tasks that, collectively, determines the location of a mobile user, striving to hide the effects of mobility from the user and/or application. Localization has become an important issue and has drawn considerable attention, as many applications including E-911, cargo tracking, locating patients, location-sensitive billing, etc., require knowledge of the location of user/objects. It was realized, quite a while back, that extending emergency 911-like services (E-911) to continually growing mobile population is one of the extremely important localization applications. The bulk of the proposed solutions to emergency location management in wireless environments …

Homegrown Child Pornography And The Commerce Clause: Where To Draw The Line On Interstate Production Of Child Pornography, Lauren Bianchini

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching A Vocal Tract Simulation To Imitate Stop Consonants, M Huckvale, I Howard

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The imitation of spoken stop consonants by an articulatory synthesizer using only general learning principles addresses significant issues in speech inversion and speech acquisition. Stop consonants are relatively large, complex acoustic events resulting from discrete articulations, so inversion based on the use of small time windows or based on the minimisation of average articulatory error across multiple places of articulation will not provide a satisfactory solution. This paper explores the effect of variation in inversion window size and the use of smoothing constraints on the quality of imitation of the stops [b], [d] and [g]. However good results are only …

Mutual Ionization In 200-Kev H⁻+ He Collisions, T. Ferger, Daniel Fischer, Michael Schulz, R. Moshammer, A. B. Voitkiv, B. Najjari, J. Ullrich

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We studied mutual ionization in 200-keV H-⁺He collisions in a kinematically complete experiment by measuring the fully momentum-analyzed recoil ions and both active electrons in coincidence. Comparison of the data to our calculations, based on various theoretical models, show that mutual ionization proceeds predominantly through the interaction between both electrons. The post-collision interaction between the outgoing ejected electrons as well as higher order processes involving the interaction between the core of both collision partners are also important.

A Scalable Correlation Aware Aggregation Strategy For Wireless Sensor Networks, Yujie Zhu, Ramanuja Vedantham, Seung Jong Park, Raghupathy Sivakumar

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Sensors-to-sink data in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are typically correlated with each other. Exploiting such correlation when performing data aggregation can result in considerable improvements in the bandwidth and energy performance of WSNs. In order to exploit such correlation, we present a scalable and distributed correlation-aware aggregation structure that addresses the practical challenges in the context of aggregation in WSNs. Through simulations and analysis, we evaluate the performance of the proposed approach with centralized and distributed correlation aware and unaware structures.