Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2005

Discipline
Institution
Keyword
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 66781 - 66810 of 70128

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

The Effects Of Journal Writing On Student Attitudes And Performance In Problem Solving, Christine Quinones Jan 2005

The Effects Of Journal Writing On Student Attitudes And Performance In Problem Solving, Christine Quinones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study summarizes research conducted in a second grade classroom at a rural elementary school in the fall of 2004. This study investigated the practice of using writing activities in mathematics to improve student attitudes and performance in problem solving. The classroom teacher supplemented traditional mathematics instruction with daily problem solving activities and affective journal writing. Students were asked to complete daily problem solving prompts and write about their problem-solving solutions. Attitude data was collected using a pre and post attitude survey as well as affective journal writing assignments. Performance data was collected using a performance based problem-solving rubric. Results …

Go to article

Differential Radio Link Protocol: An Improvement To Tcp Over Wireless Networks, Jaideep Sarkar Jan 2005

Differential Radio Link Protocol: An Improvement To Tcp Over Wireless Networks, Jaideep Sarkar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

New generations of wireless cellular networks, including 3G and 4G technologies, are envisaged to support more mobile users and a variety of wireless multimedia services. With an increasing demand for wireless multimedia services, the performance of TCP becomes a bottleneck as it cannot differentiate between the losses due to the nature of air as a medium and high data load on the network that leads to congestion. This misinterpretation by TCP leads to a reduction in the congestion window size thereby resulting in reduced throughput of the system. To overcome this scenario Radio Link Protocols are used at a lower …

Go to article

Teacher Attrition And Retention In Exceptional Student Education: An Evaluation Of The Skills, Tips, And Routines For Teacher Success (Starts) Initiative Of Volusia County, Florida Schools, Mary Speidel Jan 2005

Teacher Attrition And Retention In Exceptional Student Education: An Evaluation Of The Skills, Tips, And Routines For Teacher Success (Starts) Initiative Of Volusia County, Florida Schools, Mary Speidel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teacher attrition affects the quality of services for students in K-12 education and poses an ongoing challenge for educational leaders, especially in the area of special education. Special educators leave the profession at higher rates than general educators. As a growing state, Florida has identified special education as a critical teacher shortage area. This study evaluated the Skills, Tips, and Routines for Teacher Success (STARTS) initiative of Volusia County Schools, a large district in east central Florida. Implemented in 2001 for new ESE teachers, STARTS offered four days of training in policies and procedures, curriculum, and classroom management. Research questions …

Go to article

Famtile: An Algorithm For Learning High-Level Tactical Behavior From Observation, Brian Stensrud Jan 2005

Famtile: An Algorithm For Learning High-Level Tactical Behavior From Observation, Brian Stensrud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on the learning of a class of behaviors defined as high-level behaviors. High-level behaviors are defined here as behaviors that can be executed using a sequence of identifiable behaviors. Represented by low-level contexts, these behaviors are known a priori to learning and can be modeled separately by a knowledge engineer. The learning task, which is achieved by observing an expert within simulation, then becomes the identification and representation of the low-level context sequence executed by the expert. To learn this sequence, this research proposes FAMTILE - the Fuzzy ARTMAP / Template-Based Interpretation Learning Engine. This algorithm attempts …

Go to article

Integration Of Real-Time Experiments With Internet Access, Pavan Talakala Jan 2005

Integration Of Real-Time Experiments With Internet Access, Pavan Talakala

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The revolution of Internet – enabled instrumentation is emerging as a revolution in Measurement and Automation. New standards are being developed for transmitting data and connecting instruments to the Internet. The main purpose of this thesis is to design and develop a system to Integrate various Real – time experiments and be able to monitor and control them over Internet using LabVIEW. LabVIEW is a graphical programming package capable of data acquisition, data analysis, data presentation and real time remote control. In this thesis a Real – time system is developed which integrates several real time experiments and remote control …

Go to article

Developing An Object-Oriented Approach For Operations Simulation In Speedes, Amit Wasadikar Jan 2005

Developing An Object-Oriented Approach For Operations Simulation In Speedes, Amit Wasadikar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using simulation techniques, performance of any proposed system can be tested for different scenarios with a generated model. However, it is difficult to rapidly create simulation models that will accurately represent the complexity of the system. In recent years, Object-Oriented Discrete-Event Simulation has emerged as the potential technology to implement rapid simulation schemes. A number of software based on programming languages like C++ and Java are available for carrying out Object Oriented Discrete-Event Simulation. These software packages establish a general framework for simulation in computer programs, but need to be further customized for desired end-use applications. In this thesis, a …

Go to article

System Design And Optimization Of Optical Coherence Tomography, Avni Ceyhun Akcay Jan 2005

System Design And Optimization Of Optical Coherence Tomography, Avni Ceyhun Akcay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Optical coherence imaging, including tomography (OCT) and microscopy (OCM), has been a growing research field in biomedical optical imaging in the last decade. In this imaging modality, a broadband light source, thus of short temporal coherence length, is used to perform imaging via interferometry. A challenge in optical coherence imaging, as in any imaging system towards biomedical diagnosis, is the quantification of image quality and optimization of the system components, both a primary focus of this research. We concentrated our efforts on the optimization of the imaging system from two main standpoints: axial point spread function (PSF) and practical steps …

Go to article

Interferometry-Based Free Space Communication And Information Processing, Muzamil Arshad Arain Jan 2005

Interferometry-Based Free Space Communication And Information Processing, Muzamil Arshad Arain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studies, analyzes, and experimentally demonstrates the innovative use of interference phenomenon in the field of opto-electronic information processing and optical communications. A number of optical systems using interferometric techniques both in the optical and the electronic domains has been demonstrated in the filed of signal transmission and processing, optical metrology, defense, and physical sensors. Specifically it has been shown that the interference of waves in the form of holography can be exploited to realize a novel optical scanner called Code Multiplexed Optical Scanner (C-MOS). The C-MOS features large aperture, wide scan angles, 3-D beam control, no moving parts, …

Go to article

Becoming Transcultural: Filling The Cultural And Communication Gap Within The Black American Community, Quanda Le Boldin Jan 2005

Becoming Transcultural: Filling The Cultural And Communication Gap Within The Black American Community, Quanda Le Boldin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to define transculturalism by exploring the Black experience through collectivism/individualism, Black identity and the ability to be transcultural. The study included 83 male and female Black American, college students, graduate students and college graduates. The participants answered a 4-part survey that measured collectivism/individualism, Black identity, the ability to be transcultural and minority hardships. Results revealed that the Pre-encounter, Immersion, Emersion and Internalization phases of Black identity are predictors of minority hardships. There were also significant results for the Internalization phase of Black identity and the ability to be transcultural. In conclusion, Black Americans that …

Go to article

Evaluating Teacher Performance In Higher Education:The Value Of Student Ratings, Judith Prugh Campbell Jan 2005

Evaluating Teacher Performance In Higher Education:The Value Of Student Ratings, Judith Prugh Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purposes of this research were to: (a) assess community college students' perceptions of the student evaluation practice; (b) assess community college faculty members' responses to student evaluations of teachers and the extent to which instructional modifications resulted from student ratings; and (c) assess community college administrators' responses to student evaluations of teachers, the extent student ratings influenced administrators' evaluations of faculty, and how the results from student ratings were used to promote instructional effectiveness. A total of 358 students, faculty, and administrators from 5 Florida community colleges contributed their opinions on the value of the practice of student evaluation …

Go to article

The Effects Of A Responsibility-Based Character Education Program On Middle School Academic Achievement And School Climate At An International School In East Africa, Terry Allen Howard Jan 2005

The Effects Of A Responsibility-Based Character Education Program On Middle School Academic Achievement And School Climate At An International School In East Africa, Terry Allen Howard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of a character education program on middle school student academic performance, effort and attitude about their school located in an international setting. Middle school students at the participating international school were assigned to either an experimental or control group. Those students in the experimental group classes received a series of 12 lessons focusing on the character trait of responsibility. Those students in the control group classes did not receive these lessons. Twelve responsibility-based lessons were presented to students in the experimental group. Student academic grades in six different academic subjects, …

Go to article

Addressing The Impact That Workshop Site Coordinators And Administrators Have On The Teaching Of Science In The Classroom, Valerie Elaine Mckenna Jan 2005

Addressing The Impact That Workshop Site Coordinators And Administrators Have On The Teaching Of Science In The Classroom, Valerie Elaine Mckenna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studied the beliefs and practices of principals, workshop site coordinators, and science support personnel in two Central Florida school districts and compared those beliefs and practices to the literature on effective science in-service education. It is important to understand these beliefs and practices because they directly affect the content and pedagogical knowledge of classroom teachers, yet this aspect of instructional practices has been ignored in the science education literature. This study used a grounded theory methodology using open-ended individual interviews, participants observation, and documented analysis. Constant comparisons were built through analyzing the data. The research shows that in-service …

Go to article

The Salzburgers' "City On A Hill": The Failure Of A Pietist Vision In Ebenezer, Georgia, 1734-1774, Ashley Elizabeth Moreshead Jan 2005

The Salzburgers' "City On A Hill": The Failure Of A Pietist Vision In Ebenezer, Georgia, 1734-1774, Ashley Elizabeth Moreshead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A group of Protestant refugees from Salzburg founded the town of Ebenezer, Georgia, in 1734. The Pietists at the Francke Foundation in Halle sent two pastors, Johann Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau, to lead the religious immigrants in their new settlement. As other historians have shown, the Halle sponsors wanted Ebenezer to fulfill their own purposes: establish social and religious autonomy under British colonial rule, reproduce the economic structure and institutions of social and religious reform of the Francke Foundation, and establish a successful Pietist ministry in North America. This study examines journals and correspondence from Ebenezer's pastors, British …

Go to article

Reading Motivation In Upper Elementary Students: How Children Explain Reading For Pleasure, Rebecca Lynn Poppe Jan 2005

Reading Motivation In Upper Elementary Students: How Children Explain Reading For Pleasure, Rebecca Lynn Poppe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated the phenomenon of the pleasure reading experience in fourth and fifth grade students. The purpose of the study was to create a dialogue with children regarding their leisure reading habits in an effort to inform our understanding of aliteracy, a term that refers to having the ability to read but choosing not to. Fourth grade students were surveyed to uncover their attitudes toward pleasure reading and eleven students were chosen for interviews. Comparative data was obtained from those students who conveyed either extremely negative or extremely positive attitudes toward reading. Students of both genders were selected …

Go to article

Explanations In Contextual Graphs: A Solution To Accountability In Knowledge Based Systems, Brian W. Sherwell Jan 2005

Explanations In Contextual Graphs: A Solution To Accountability In Knowledge Based Systems, Brian W. Sherwell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In order for intelligent systems to be a viable and utilized tool, a user must be able to understand how the system comes to a decision. Without understanding how the system arrived at an answer, a user will be less likely to trust its decision. One way to increase a user's understanding of how the system functions is by employing explanations to account for the output produced. There have been attempts to explain intelligent systems over the past three decades. However, each attempt has had shortcomings that separated the logic used to produce the output and that used to produce …

Go to article

Constructing Educational Criticism Of Online Courses: A Model For Implementation By Practitioners, Kelvin Thompson Jan 2005

Constructing Educational Criticism Of Online Courses: A Model For Implementation By Practitioners, Kelvin Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Online courses are complex, human-driven contexts for formal learning. Little has been said about the environment emerging from the interaction of instructor(s), learners, and other resources in such courses. Theories that focus on instructional settings and methods that are designed to accommodate inquiry into complex phenomena are essential to the systematic study of online courses. Such a line of research is necessary as the basis for a common language with which we can begin to speak holistically about online courses. In this dissertation, I attempt to generate better questions about the nature of online instructional environments. By combining prior works …

Go to article

Social Competence Of High School Students Enrolled In Online Physical Education Courses, Deborah M. Ware Jan 2005

Social Competence Of High School Students Enrolled In Online Physical Education Courses, Deborah M. Ware

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the social competence of high school students enrolled in online Physical Education courses. Additionally, the demographic information regarding students who enroll in online Physical Education courses was examined. The subjects for this study included sixty students taking one of two Physical Education courses at the Florida Virtual School during the spring 2005 term. The entire curriculum of the Florida Virtual School is presented online and students live throughout the entire state of Florida. Therefore, the entire study was administered online. The assessment instrument used was the Teenage Inventory of Social Skills created …

Go to article

Network Intrusion Detection: Monitoring, Simulation And Visualization, Mian Zhou Jan 2005

Network Intrusion Detection: Monitoring, Simulation And Visualization, Mian Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents our work on network intrusion detection and intrusion sim- ulation. The work in intrusion detection consists of two different network anomaly-based approaches. The work in intrusion simulation introduces a model using explicit traffic gen- eration for the packet level traffic simulation. The process of anomaly detection is to first build profiles for the normal network activity and then mark any events or activities that deviate from the normal profiles as suspicious. Based on the different schemes of creating the normal activity profiles, we introduce two approaches for intrusion detection. The first one is a frequency-based approach which …

Go to article

Perceived Stress, Coping, And Adequacy Of Social Support: Implications For Subjective Well-Being In College Students, Kia Asberg Jan 2005

Perceived Stress, Coping, And Adequacy Of Social Support: Implications For Subjective Well-Being In College Students, Kia Asberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stress is a widespread concept commonly associated with psychological and medical problems that may impair an individual's functioning and incur costs on society. Alarming rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and other stress-related problems have been found among college students. This study (N = 241)argues that reducing emotional and financial stress-related costs may be possible through increasing public and professional awareness of moderating variables, such as social support and coping resources. Results indicated that stress, inadequate social support, and escape-avoidance coping were related to higher levels of depression and lower life satisfaction in both males and females. Social support functioned …

Go to article

Development And Validation Of The Beile Test Of Information Literacy For Education (B-Tiled), Penny Beile O'Neil Jan 2005

Development And Validation Of The Beile Test Of Information Literacy For Education (B-Tiled), Penny Beile O'Neil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Few constituencies exist where it is more important to produce information literate individuals than teacher candidates, yet rarely is it suggested that practitioners entering the field are adequately prepared to teach and model information literacy to their students. As a result, information literacy has been established as a key outcome by a number of teacher education accrediting bodies and professional associations. Corollary to this initiative is the effort to develop valid instruments that assess information literacy skills. Yet, at the time of this dissertation, no rigorously reviewed instruments were uncovered that measure the information literacy skills levels of teacher candidates. …

Go to article

Modeling Satellite Formations In The Presence Of Perturbations, Robert Cannaday Jan 2005

Modeling Satellite Formations In The Presence Of Perturbations, Robert Cannaday

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The potential benefits of autonomous satellite formation flying in such areas as high- resolution remote sensing, and sparse aperture radar, has stimulated interest in modeling the satellite environment for feasibility and simulation studies to help explore and define the technical challenges that must be solved in order to achieve successful autonomous satellite formations. The purpose of this paper is to develop and describe a numerical simulation of the orbital environment including central force field perturbations and atmospheric drag effects which will be a useful analytical tool for investigating issues relating to maintaining satellite formations in low-earth-orbit. Many of the studies …

Go to article

Evaluating Ramp Metering And Variable Speed Limits To Reduce Crash Potential On Congested Freeways Using Micro-Simulation, Albinder Dhindsa Jan 2005

Evaluating Ramp Metering And Variable Speed Limits To Reduce Crash Potential On Congested Freeways Using Micro-Simulation, Albinder Dhindsa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent research at UCF into defining surrogate measures for identifying crash prone conditions on freeways has led to the introduction of several statistical models which can flag such conditions with a good degree of accuracy. Outputs from these models have the potential to be used as real-time safety measures on freeways. They may also act as the basis for the evaluation of several intervention strategies that might help in the mitigation of risk of crashes. Ramp Metering and Variable Speed Limits are two approaches which have the potential of becoming effective implementation strategies for improving the safety conditions on congested …

Go to article

Relationship Between Adolescent Behavior And Civic Engagement, Michael Ernst Jan 2005

Relationship Between Adolescent Behavior And Civic Engagement, Michael Ernst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Citizenship - commitment to and participation in a political community - is the heart of constitutional democracy and a free society. Knowledge of the rights, responsibilities, and privileges are the electrical impulses that keep a steady beat. Without the participation of educated citizens, a democratic republic can not and does not function. This study analyzed the relationship between adolescent behavior and civic engagement. This task was accomplished by examining the amount of civic knowledge possessed by two groups within a population. The population examined, a high school in Flagler County, was composed of "at risk" students (those who had an …

Go to article

An Inverse Algorithm To Estimate Thermal Contact Resistance, Jennifer Gill Jan 2005

An Inverse Algorithm To Estimate Thermal Contact Resistance, Jennifer Gill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Thermal systems often feature composite regions that are mechanically mated. In general, there exists a significant temperature drop across the interface between such regions which may be composed of similar or different materials. The parameter characterizing this temperature drop is the thermal contact resistance, which is defined as the ratio of the temperature drop to the heat flux normal to the interface. The thermal contact resistance is due to roughness effects between mating surfaces which cause certain regions of the mating surfaces to loose contact thereby creating gaps. In these gap regions, the principal modes of heat transfer are conduction …

Go to article

Optical Wave Propagation In Discrete Waveguide Arrays, Jared Hudock Jan 2005

Optical Wave Propagation In Discrete Waveguide Arrays, Jared Hudock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The propagation dynamics of light in optical waveguide arrays is characteristic of that encountered in discrete systems. As a result, it is possible to engineer the diffraction properties of such structures, which leads to the ability to control the flow of light in ways that are impossible in continuous media. In this work, a detailed theoretical investigation of both linear and nonlinear optical wave propagation in one- and two-dimensional waveguide lattices is presented. The ability to completely overcome the effects of discrete diffraction through the mutual trapping of two orthogonally polarized coherent beams interacting in Kerr nonlinear arrays of birefringent …

Go to article

Employee Motivation: A Comparison Of Tipped And Non-Tipped Hourly Restaurant Employees, Catherine Johnson Jan 2005

Employee Motivation: A Comparison Of Tipped And Non-Tipped Hourly Restaurant Employees, Catherine Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Employee motivation shall be defined by Robbins (as cited in Ramlall, 2004) as: "the willingness to exert high levels of effort toward organizational goals, conditioned by the effort's ability to satisfy some individual need." To engage in the practice of motivating employees, employers must understand the unsatisfied needs of each of the employee groups. This study desires to provide practitioners in the restaurant industry the ability to recognize motivators for these different employment groups and their relationship to organizational commitment. The restaurant industry consists of two types of employees: salaried and hourly. This study focuses on hourly employees, and their …

Go to article

The Sputnik Crisis And America's Response, Ian Kennedy Jan 2005

The Sputnik Crisis And America's Response, Ian Kennedy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, and the Space Age had arrived. While not an American achievement, Sputnik stands as a significant juncture in United States history. This thesis explores the resulting American political crisis, its development in the final three months of 1957, and the impact Sputnik had on American life. The thesis also examines the social and political context of the Sputnik crisis and will challenge some long-standing analysis of how America's reaction to the Soviet satellite developed. To accomplish this task, it was necessary to consult both primary and …

Go to article

Micromachined Electrochemical Sensors For Hydrogen Peroxide And Chlorine Detection, Anjum Mehta Jan 2005

Micromachined Electrochemical Sensors For Hydrogen Peroxide And Chlorine Detection, Anjum Mehta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hydrogen peroxide and chlorine detection is critical for many biological and environmental applications. Hydrogen peroxide plays important roles in a variety of fields including plant physiology, medical, environmental and biochemical applications. Its role in plant defense and signal transduction, diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzhemier's, industrial processes such as disinfection and wastewater treatment and biochemical enzymatic reactions is critical. Given the gamut of areas that hydrogen peroxide is a key component of; its detection assumes great importance. Similarly chlorine has long been used as a disinfectant for making drinking water safe, but excessive chlorination is an environmental and health hazard …

Go to article

Resource Allocation Using Touch And Audition, David Mortimer Jan 2005

Resource Allocation Using Touch And Audition, David Mortimer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When people multi-task with inputs that demand attention, processing, andencoding, sensory interference is possible at almost any level. Multiple Resource Theory (MRT) suggests that such interference may be avoided by drawing from separate pools of resources available when using different sensory channels, memory processes, and even different response modes. Thus, there should be advantages in dividing tasks among different sensory channels to tap independent pools of attentional resources. For example, people are better with two tasks using the eye and ear, than when using two auditory or two visual inputs. The majority of the research on MRT involves visual to …

Go to article

Structural Evolution In Mechanically Alloyed Fe-Based Powder Systems, Umesh Patil Jan 2005

Structural Evolution In Mechanically Alloyed Fe-Based Powder Systems, Umesh Patil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A systematic study of iron-based binary and multi-component alloys was undertaken to study the structural evolution in these powders as a function of milling time during mechanical alloying. Blended elemental powders of Fe100-XBX (where x = 5, 10, 17, 20, 22, 25, 37.5 and 50 at. %) and a bulk metallic glass (BMG) composition (Fe60Co8Zr10Mo5W2B15) were subjected to mechanical alloying in a SPEX 8000 mixer mill. X-ray diffraction technique was employed to study the phase evolution, crystallite size, lattice strain and also to determine the crystal structure(s) of the phases. Depending on the milling time, formation of supersaturated solid solutions, …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last