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Analyzing Financial Ratios; Aicpa Practice Aid Series 06-3, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants. Business Valuation And Forensic & Litigation Services Section

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A Dyadic Composition To Foster Virtual Team Effectiveness: An Experimental Study, Gamze Karayaz

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The importance of effectiveness for virtual teamwork continues to gain momentum as technology and globalization of work accelerate. The implementation of virtual teams provides one approach to enhance competitiveness, overcoming the disadvantages of space and time differences through collaborative technologies. The influence of structure to virtual team performance has not been clearly established in the literature. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the effectiveness of a dyad structured approach for virtual teams using a quasi-experimental research design.

This research investigated four questions related to the influence of structure on virtual team effectiveness related to task performance, communication …

Fabrication Of Array Microstructures By Localized Electro-Deposition, Nidal Khalaf Alshwawreh

Theses

Localized Electro-Deposition (LED) is now highly receiving scientists and researchers attention for its advantages over conventional fabrication techniques. These advantages include simplicity of the setup thus reducing the overall fabrication cost, capability of producing 2D and 3D high aspect ratio microstructures and its ability to fabricate microstructures from various raw materials. Efforts now are taking place in order to standardize the fabrication by LED to develop a commercial setup that is capable of producing complex microstructures which, in tum, can be integrated in different applications including microelectronics, microelectrochemical systems (MEMS) and sensors applications. The standardization process is performed by studying …

Genealogies Of Soft Law, Anna Di Robilant

Faculty Scholarship

The relatively recent blossoming of multiple soft law tools and the calls for a soft harmonization of European private law have invited reflection on the genealogy of soft law. Genealogical arguments have come to play a critical role in the heated European soft law v. hard law debate. While some find the ancestors of soft law in the medieval legal regime and particularly the lex mercatoria, others link soft law to a prolific strand of 19th and early 20th century theories of social law and legal pluralism. At times explicitly invoked, more often im plicitly alluded to, the neo-medieval genealogy …

Indecent Standards: The Case Of U.S. Versus Weldon Angelos, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

In today's highly punitive culture, perhaps Weldon Angelos' fifty-five-year sentence does not seem unusual. He's a 25-year-old man who was convicted in December 2003 of selling marijuana, possessing firearms while drug dealing, and money laundering. ³ The facts proven at trial are that on three occasions in June and July, 2002, Angelos sold eight one-ounce bags of marijuana for $350 each to a government informant. ⁴ The purchaser testified that a firearm was visible during two of these drug sales.⁵ Police seized another gun from Angelos' home five months later pursuant to a warrant.⁶ At no time was …

Parental Compliance To Clinical Recommendations In An Adhd Clinic., Alice Samantha Thibodeau

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Psychological assessments are a cornerstone of clinical practice in psychology,but if results and recommendations are not used to guide treatment interventions, their value is greatly diminished. Currently, there is very little research that examines adherence to treatment recommendations given to parents or caregivers following psychological evaluations of their children. The present study expands on previous research (MacNaughton & Rodrigue, 2001) examining perceived barriers to parental compliance with psychological assessment recommendations by considering the impact of severity of child behavior problems and parenting stress on compliance. Eighty caregiver/child dyads were recruited through an ADHD evaluation clinic and caregivers completed a telephone …

Electrophoretic Deposition Of Ferrite, Cody Washburn

Theses

The ability to integrate a material with a high permeability on chip, allows for magnetically coupled circuits and structures to be designed and incorporated along side CMOS circuitry. Devices ranging from A.C. transformers to magnetically driven MEMS structures can be designed and fabricated. Desirable characteristics of magnetic cores for integrated inductors and transformers are first high saturation flux in order to obtain high saturation current; high permeability to obtain high inductance; high resistivity to reduce eddy current loss at high frequencies and compatible deposition and patterning processes. High frequency magnetic materials are oxide based ceramics and are therefore difficult to …

Computer -Mediated Communication In Society: A Study On Self -Disclosure, Scott C. Green

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the effects of computer-mediated communication (CMC) were examined on two different measurements of self-disclosure. The hypothesis was that CMC is qualitatively different from face-to-face communication (FtF), that this difference affects self-disclosure, and that the anonymity engendered by CMC is one cause of this increase in self-disclosure. Therefore, the researcher examined how prominently anonymity factored into the difference that was observed between dyads that communicated in FtF or CMC conditions. The experiment employed a 2 X 2 factorial design by which participants engaged in a conversation using either computer conferencing technology or FtF, and in which the participant …

Family Strengths, Stress, And Well -Being Among Troubled And Well Adjusted Adolescents, Leah A. Powell

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this doctoral research was to determine whether family stress covaried with family strength. In addition, the relationship between family strengths and family stress was investigated as a function of residential group home (RGH) placement and non-residential placement. The family strengths of resources, coping, and well-being, and family stress were measured for 17 RGH parent and adolescent dyads and 22 non-RGH parent and adolescent dyads. Thirty-nine families participated. It was hypothesized that family stress decreases with increases of family strengths. In addition, it was expected that family strengths would be greater for non-RGH families and family stress would …

Novice Special Educators' Perceptions And Use Of Research -Validated Classroom Practices For Students With High Incidence Disabilities, Melissa L. Jones

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the implementation of NCLB (2001) and IDEIA (2004), the research-to-practice gap in specialEducation has garnered increased attention. This qualitative investigation involved a collective case study that explored the phenomenon through the eyes of 10 novice special educators. Specifically, the study sought to determine the teachers' perceptions of research in general as well as their use of six broad practices that have been validated by research for students with disabilities. Interviews, observations, and self-report measures resulted in findings that indicate low rates of implementation as well as a lack of alignment between the educators' words and actions. Finally, barriers and …

Psychological Well-Being And Level Of Outness In Male -To -Female Transsexuals, Jeffrey D. Strain

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between psychological well-being (i.e., depression, anxiety, self-esteem, gender role congruence) and level of outness in male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals. Hans (1998) stated that a transsexual is someone who, after experiencing intense long-term discomfort resulting from incongruence between their preferred gender and their biological sex, adapts his or her body and behavior to appropriately reflect his or her true gender identity. Participants were 105 MTF transsexual attendees at an annual transgender conference held in Atlanta, Georgia. Participants completed eight questionnaires, including: the Demographics Questionnaire, the Outness Demographics Questionnaire, the Outness Attitude Scale, the Openness Scale, the Beck …

Stressors Among First-Generation College Students: A Retrospective Inquiry, Maryann Therese Latus

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A multiple-case-study qualitative approach was used to examine the stressors among first-generation college students. The students were in their senior year at a medium-sized Midwestern public university. The researcher conducted two focus groups and a total of 10 in-depth interviews with first-generation college students. Several themes emerged from the data that was collected. The overarching themes that served as the primary framework for this study were stressors related to family, friends, and the university. One of the major themes, how the participants coped with their particular stressors, is discussed in detail. The differences that were found between this group of …

The Effects Of Existential Attribution And Religiousness/Spirituality On Well -Being In Hiv Patients, Amy N. Huggins-Rieke

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

HIV is a serious illness that has received considerable attention in research literature addressing the implications of spirituality/religiousness on coping with this illness. Past research indicates that an individual's level of guilt over having contracted HIV is associated with feelings of stigmatization and suffering, which can influence his or her wellbeing in coping with the illness. The current study seeks to investigate the relationship between feelings of responsibility for illness (attributions) and engagement with religiousness/spiritual meaning as a coping resource. It is hypothesized that the use of existential attribution will moderate the relationship between an individual's religiousness/spirituality and his or …

Jini Distributed Key Exchange And File Transfer Service With Digital Signatures, Kevin Ligozio

Theses

This thesis compares security algorithms for the Jini Networking Technology. The first method is to add security at the infrastructure level, and is the method chosen by the Jini Community in Jini version 2.0. The second method is the original research portion of this thesis, and explores adding security in the application layer. In order to explore the application layer security, the thesis includes four components. First, we investigate and implement some cryptographic algorithms. Specifically, we use a Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Provider containing the Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement algorithm and the RSA Digital Signature Algorithm. Second, we perform a novel …

Security In An Ad Hoc Network Using Many-To-Many Invocation, Jefferson Tuttle

Theses

There is an increasing need to secure electronic communication. This need is being met on workstations and servers, which have large amounts of memory, and a dedicated network connection. Securing communication in mobile devices is a relatively new research area, and has different requirements than workstations and servers. This project attempts to address these new requirements by incorporating security into the Many-to-Many Invocation (M2MI) library developed at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Specifically, this project addresses adding encryption and decryption of M2MI method invocations using session keys. It also addresses the methods of establishing and maintaining session keys based …

Mfs: M2mi File System, Ravi Bhatia

Theses

The M2MI File System is a Virtual File System designed for ad hoc networks. It uses M2MI/M2MP to perform ad hoc communication. The file system comprises of several file system instances spread across the network. Each file system instance furnishes a partial state, contributing to the complete structure of the file system. Hence MFS is a union of several file system instances collaborating with each other. The file system facilitates four file operations: ADD, REMOVE, LIST, and READ. The operation ADD allows a user to import a file from the local file system into MFS. It also permits the creation …

Real-Time Scheduling Algorithms, Task Visualization, Kevin Churnetski

Theses

Real-time systems are computer systems that require responses to events within specified time limits or constraints. Many real-time systems are digital control systems comprised entirely of binary logic or a microprocessor dedicated to one software application that is its own operating system. In recent years, the reliability of general-purpose real-time operating systems (RTOS) consisting of a scheduler and system resource management have improved. In this project, I write a real-time simulator, a workload generator, analysis tools, several test cases, and run and interpret results. My experiments focus on providing evidence to support the claim that for the Rate Monotonic scheduling …

Emotion In Flocking, Katherine Law

Theses

Behavioral animation is a category of computer animation that enables objects to determine their own actions. This saves an animator from having to determine every detail of movement for each object in the animation. As the number of objects within an animation increases, specifying the position of each object becomes increasingly difficult. Flocking is an example of behavioral animation. Some examples of flocking can be seen in movies, such as the stampede of the antelopes in The Lion King, the herds of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, and the massive battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings. In this project, …

A Comparison Of Web Development Technologies: Webobjects Vs. Asp.Net, Adnan Al-Ghourabi

Theses

There are at least two competing technologies for Web applications development: ASP.NET by Microsoft and WebObjects by Apple. The IBuySpy application, a web portal that has been developed by the ASP.NET team at Microsoft using the .NET framework, illustrates the best practices for developing ASP.NET applications, in terms of modular design, caching, user authentication and authorization, and state management. In this project, a similar application was developed in WebObjects so that both technologies can be compared in terms of system architecture, frameworks, reusability, development environment and tools, security, and implementation.

Tuple Board: A New Distributed Computing Paradigm For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Chaithanya Bondada

Theses

In this project, we introduce a new distributed computing paradigm called "tuple board" which is based on the tuple space abstraction originated by Gelernter and the blackboard architecture popular in distributed artificial intelligence. Most prominent implementations of tuple space systems including JavaSpaces and T-Spaces follow a centralized architecture where the space itself resides on a server, akin to a database server. Recently, researchers have attempted to develop decentralized architectures for tuple space systems. Some work includes LIME and PeerSpaces. In our opinion, the traditional implementation of tuple spaces is not well suited for ad hoc networks where devices frequently lose …

Distributed Objects In C#, Xiaoyun Xie

Theses

Today more and more programs run over a collection of autonomous computers linked by a network and are designed to produce an integrated computing facility. Java Distributed Objects (JDO) proposed by Dr. Axel T. Schreiner builds an infrastructure which allows distributed program components to communicate over a network in a transparent, reliable, efficient, and generic way. JDO was originally intended as a teaching device to assess design parameters for distributed objects. This project focuses on porting JDO, which is implemented in Java on Sun's JDK, to C# on Microsoft's .NET. On one hand, it builds an infrastructure in C# that …

A Dynamic Web Server Based Appointment Calendar, Jane Zhong

Theses

The most advanced server side technology, Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft SQL, will be used to develop a dynamic web server based calendar to handle appointment and meeting scheduling. It s a new calendar in architecture and functions compared to the traditional calendars. The existing commercial calendars, such as Outlook calendar, iCal and MeetingMaker, have a common weakness: unique calendar software should be installed in the user s computer. They are all not web based calendars. Some existing web calendars, like Yahoo calendar, have very limited functions. In this proposal, a web server based calendar is proposed to overcome this …

Group Data Communication With M2mi, Kay Cheng

Theses

The Anhinga Project is developing an infrastructure that supports board range of collaborative systems running on small proximal wireless devices in ad-hoc networks. The core of Anhinga Infrastructure is a new method invocation technology called the Many-to-Many Invocation (M2MI). In this technology, every method invocation is broadcasted through the network and all the objects that implement the same method execute it. M2MI is layered on a new network protocol, Many-to-Many Protocol (M2MP), which is designed for broadcasting messages within small wireless devices in Ad hoc network. In this project, I will provide three different design patterns of M2MI-based collaborative systems, …

Master's Project Website: A Comparison Of Several Server-Side Technologies, Prabhakaran Nagarajan

Theses

Any Graduate student in the Computer Science department at RIT has to complete either a Thesis or Project as part of their degree requirements. A common repository that allows students to browse project / thesis work already undertaken by RIT alumni will help students looking for project ideas or faculty interests. There currently exists a Masters project web site, designed and implemented by Dr. Schreiner using Java servlets. This project aims to select two technologies that are either extensively used, and/or are defining technologies of the future, and re-implement the Masters project website, with the aim of comparing the implementations. …

Genetic Music, Ryan Becker

Theses

Algorithmic music composition has long been an active area of research in computer science, but the need for a human element only recently began to be more widely acknowledged. Interactive Evolutionary Computing (IEC), made popular by Karl Sims, effectively solves many high dimension problems, like music composition, involving creative and subjective elements. This work applies several Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Genetic Programming (GP) approaches, inspired by Karl Sims, to algorithmic music composition. The implementation of these IEC algorithms is described and their effectiveness compared.

Web-Based 3-D Theatre Seating Charts And Ticket Reservation Application, Patrick Henstebeck

Theses

Seating charts for theatres and stadia have always been an important part of buying tickets to a staged event, despite offering little information about the view from any particular seat. While the internet has increased the potential to provide this information, most official arena websites and online ticket brokers still only provide the standard two-dimensional diagram whose detail is limited to the approximate location of each section and which offers no guidance as to the height or slope of the section, nor any warning of any obstructing objects that would depreciate a seat s true value. The few three-dimensional models …

Group Key Agreement Protocols With Implicit Key Authentication, Jisoo Kim

Theses

There have been numerous studies performed on secure group communication over unsecured channels such as the Internet and ad-hoc network. Most of the results are focused on cryptographic methods to share secret keys within the group. In the real world, however, we cannot establish an application for group communication without considering authentication of each peer (group member) since the adversary could digitally disguise itself and intrude into the key sharing process without valid membership. Therefore, authentication is an inevitable component for any secure communication protocols as well as peer group communication. In the classical design of group key protocols, each …

Electronic Voting System For Rit Student Government Elections, Sungho Maeung

Theses

Recent studies argue that traditional voting systems do not encourage increased voter participation due to constraints in time, location, accuracy, and, accessibility. To ensure the rights of a democratic society and to enhance and secure the voting rights of citizens by surpassing all the limitations of the traditional voting system, the development of an electronic voting system is an attractive solution. Research on secure electronic voting systems has been conducted for at least the past two decades. We propose to develop an electronic voting system, called the Rochester Institute of Technology Student Government Election System (SGEES) based on Damgard et …

Managing The Acm Programming Contest, Navin Bhaskar

Theses

The Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) conducts an international collegiate programming contest held on an annual basis. Teams compete to solve multiple questions within the allotted six hour duration of the contest. A panel of judges grades the solutions online. The team that answers the maximum questions correctly wins the contest. This application will assist in the process of selection of winners of the programming contest. It will make the process of submission of solutions, and grading of the answers convenient. The ACM application is a Java based and web-enabled application and therefore platform independent.

N-Body Visualizations, William Mclaughlin

Theses

In the age of technology and information, data calculations and visualizations are key to the communication and understanding of the world in which we live. It is sometimes difficult to display data in a way to make it clear and understanding, or is difficult to calculate the data to be displayed. The N-body problem has elements of both. The N-body problem is a set of N particles representing stars that move in response to the gravitational force generated by the N-1 other particles. There have been many attacks to this problem. The GRAPEcluster Project of RIT has developed software and …