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The Development Of Small Christian Communities In The Catholic And Among The Lugbara People Of Uganda After The Second Vatican Council: A Historical, Theological And Pastoral Investigation, Diego Cadri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation depicted the events in the lives of the Lugbara Ethnic group, who will go down in the history of Uganda, through their actual existence, their deeds, their accomplishments and their contributions, but particularly because of their successful, "small Christian communities," an important segment in all its facets, in the Lugbara Christian life. The new way of being Church that came out of the Second Vatican Council, that is, since the 1960s was the small Christian community. These pages narrated the development, the early struggle, the uncertainty, the needs, the goals, the purposes, the accomplishments and the success of …

The Experience Of Transitioning To The Caregiving Role For A Family Member With Alzheimer's Disease Or A Related Dementia, Kathleen Czekanski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer's disease is a chronic, debilitating disease that currently affects approximately 5.1 million Americans (Alzheimer's Association 2007). The majority of these individuals are being cared for at home by family caregivers who are known to suffer from more depression and burden than any other group of caregivers. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of transitioning to the role of caregiver for a family member with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia. The study followed purposeful sampling and eight women and two men with a mean age of 66.3 participated in the study. These …

The Bloody Truth: A Psychological And Cultural Study Of Menstruation As Lived And Experienced By Women, Carolyn Deforest

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present research explores the negation and affirmation of menstrual life as found in culture, theory, and the concrete experiences of individual women. A phenomenological and hermeneutical thematic analysis is used throughout. In this study, the aspects of culture analyzed include language, humor, art, television, film, literature, print and television advertising, menstrual education, medicine, and some of the historical influences in the perception of women. Additionally, the formal psychological literature is examined as part of the cultural data, as is the researcher's own observations and cultural experiences.

Overall, this research reveals that the experience of menstrual bleeding has been culturally …

Internet Use In Teacher Preparation Programs: The Relationship Between Pedagogy And Practice In The Pennsylvania State System Of Higher Education, Leighann Forbes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overall purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) teacher educators' pedagogical beliefs and their use of telecollaborative Internet activities in practice. The goal of this examination was to address the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (April 2002) call for collecting data about how digital content is being used and to make recommendations for action. The study collected data, via a web-based survey, about pedagogical beliefs and practices of PASSHE teacher educators. The analysis of descriptive statistics, rankings, Spearman rho correlations, and ANOVA calculations revealed …

Scientific Evolution, Creation Theologies And African Cosmogonies In Dialogue: Toward A Christian Theology Of Evolution, Ameh Ejeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a dissertation in which the question of cosmic origins is examined from three perspectives, namely, Scientific Theories of Evolution, Christian Theologies of Creation, and African Cosmogonies, respectively. Through the use of comparative-dialogic and dialectic methods, and the application of the models of contact/dialogue and confirmation/integration in ways of relating science with religion, the insights of these three perspectives are examined and analyzed in the formulation of a Theology of Evolution that conceives of evolution as a medium of divine creativity.

The themes of evolutionary process, interconnection, interrelation and interdependence in nature, the mystery and sacredness of nature and …

The Mathematics Behind Speciated Isotope Dilution Mass Spectrometry, Jingyan Sun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Speciated Isotope Dilution Mass Spectrometry (SIDMS) allows researchers to measure the concentrations of species -- usually elemental -- in a sample by solving a system of non-linear equations. This thesis explores multiple mathematical methods to solve SIDMS equations, and compares the properties of these solution methods. Simulation analysis is conducted to provide uncertainty estimates.

Effect Of Steroids And Sulfated Steroids On Growth Of The Human Mg-63 Osteoblast-Like Cell Line, Laura Vollmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The importance of estrogen in bone regulation is exemplified by the rapid loss of bone density at the onset of menopause. Post-menopausal women have low levels of estrogens, but high levels of inactive sulfated steroids. These can be converted to active steroids by steroid sulfatase. While it is known that estrogens can stimulate the growth and maintenance of bone cells, it is not known if sulfated steroids can induce a similar response. The purpose of this study was to determine if sulfated steroids can induce proliferation of a human osteoblast-like cell line MG-63, and if steroid sulfatase inhibitors were capable …

Fate Of The Vegetal Yolky Cells In The Direct Developing Frog Eleutherodactylus Coqui, Uma Karadge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Puerto Rican tree frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui, is a striking example of a deviation from the indirect mode of development among amphibians. E. coqui does not have an intermediate tadpole stage. It hatches out directly as a free-living froglet, deriving nutrition from the yolky material attached to its intestine. The innermost of the three germ layers, the endoderm, forms the lining of the gut. In the amphibian model Xenopus laevis, the endoderm originates from the vegetal hemisphere. The cells, which are originally present on the vegetal surface of the embryo, end up forming the definitive gut. They, thus, provide nutrition …

A Light-Weight Middleware Framework For Fault-Tolerant And Secure Distributed Applications, Ian Jacob Baird

Masters Theses

"This thesis outlines the design, implementation, and performance of a lightweight middleware framework for interprocess communication with an update log propagation algorithm. The system was designed and implemented using a point-to-point based lightweight middleware framework and compared to a similar system implemented utilizing CORBA--Abstract, page iii.

Cued Speech: Not Just For The Deaf Anymore, Shana Baber

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Originally, Dr. Cornett designed Cued Speech for the Deaf to serve as a supplement to lipreading in order to allow the Deaf access to spoken English in a purely visual form. However, because of its integration of multiple senses and brain areas—sound, sight, kinesthesia, and motor movement—Cued Speech is particularly well suited to help many students with special needs regardless of their hearing status. This article will provide an overview of what Cued Speech is and how it can be used by speech-language pathologists and other professionals to aid a variety of students with special needs who may or may …

Feudal Strength!: Henry Ii And The Struggle For Royal Control In England, Jordan Paul Carr

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

In 1154 Henry II gained the throne of England after a long civil war between Henry and King Stephen of England. When Henry was crowned king England was in a chaotic state. The nobles had used the conflict to vastly increase their power at the expense of the king. Royal authority was at a low and the influence of the king had been greatly reduced by the war. Setting out to reassert the royal power of his grandfather Henry I of England, Henry II established massive reforms to the administration of justice and created Common Law in England. Through his …

Applications Of Solar Energy To Power Stand-Alone Area And Street Lighting, Joshua David Bollinger

Masters Theses

"A stand-alone solar-powered street or area lighting system is designed and operated completely independent of the power grid. The equipment and maintenance costs associated with a stand-alone solar-powered system are compared with the cost of using electricity to run grid connected street lights. The project focused on the viability of using solar energy to power the lights in the area surrounding St. Louis, Missouri. The results had to be consistent to warrant converting new areas to independent solar powered lighting. A prototype system is constructed from equipment available on the market for the purpose of gathering data on different lighting …

Detection Of Flash In Dermoscopy Skin Lesion Images, Radhika Nagane

Masters Theses

"Dermoscopy images of skin lesions are often acquired by covering the skin with mineral oil, alcohol, another liquid or a gel and illuminating the area at a low angle of incidence from all directions before taking the photograph. Deeper pigment patterns are more visible in this type of image than in a clinical image because the liquid immersion and structured light effectively make the upper layers of the skin more transparent. Flash regions are the small, high reflectance areas in the image where direct reflections of the illumination source(s) cause undesirable bright spots in the image. These flash regions may …

Hildegard Von Bingen: German High School Teaching Unit, Gretchen Toth-Fejel

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

This honors thesis is a four week German-language teaching unit based on learning about the medieval mystic and scholar Hildegard von Bingen. The unit was created in order to: 1) teach language-learning in an interesting and student-directed way, 2) encourage critical thinking in a foreign language context, 3) demonstrate a valid connection between language and culture and, finally, 4) to show women’s contributions as useful to society. The format for this unit is based on the model created by educational professional Dr. Madeline Hunter at the University of California at Berkley. After completing this unit a successful student should: 1) …

Compressor Valve Failure Detection And Prognostics, Raghuram Puthali Ramesh

Masters Theses

"Reciprocating compressors are commonly used machinery for industrial applications. Unscheduled downtime and maintenance activity on the compressors causes considerable loss in throughput and efficiency of a plant. Of all the failures that cause unscheduled downtime in reciprocating compressors, valve related causes are predominant. Most of the failures associated with the valves are tracked to the failure of moving elements within the valve. Achieving higher reliability of critical reciprocating systems requires continuously monitoring the system and performing dynamic analysis of the sensory data for valve fault diagnosis. Continuous monitoring will improve the time and cost to repair through keeping a constant …

Analysis Of Soil Erosion Based On Soil Properties, Preetha Veeraraghavan

Masters Theses

"The objectives of this research were to identify the major soil parameter(s) that affect the erosion rate of soil and to estimate the erosion rate based on those soil parameters. Both prepared samples and natural samples were used in this research. The soil properties analyzed were the water content, unit weight, Atterberg limits, and soil cohesion. The erosion rate was determined using a rectangular flume and a linear relation between the erosion rate and shear stress was established from the flume experiment. The slope of the linear relation was a good indicator of the soil's erosion rate. The erosion rate …

Adhesion-Delamination Mechanics Of Linear And Axisymmetric Film At Film-Substrate Interface, Ming-Fung Wong

Masters Theses

"This thesis is to characterize the thin membrane adhesion-delamination phenomena which occur in biological cells and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) operation. The delamination of a thin film adhered to a rigid substrate is subjected to the coupling effects of tensile residual stress and interfacial adhesion energy. The adhesion-delamination mechanics is derived using the classical linear elasticity and thermodynamics energy balance. The membrane deformation is here dominated by a mixed plate-bending and membrane-stretching, while the concomitant stress is neglected. An 1-dimensional model is first investigated where a pre-stressed rectangular film clamped at both ends delaminates from a rigid punch of the same …

Ph Effect On Adsorption Of Saxititoxin On Powdered Activated Carbon, Jie Ding

Masters Theses

"The presence of algal toxins, or cyanotoxins, in surface water has been increasingly reported. These highly hazardous toxins are potential threat to both human health and animals by contaminating drinking water sources over the world. In this study, the removal efficiency of saxitoxin from water using powered activated carbon was tested at different pH values for deionized water and natural surface water. The results of this study showed that pH has a strong impact on removal efficiency of saxitoxin using powdered activated carbon. Specifically, the removal efficiency of saxitoxin is significantly increased at higher pH from 5.7 to pH 10.7. …

Performance Improvement Of Adaptive Filters For Echo Cancellation Applications, Deepak Challa

Masters Theses

"This work focuses on performance improvement of adaptive algorithms for both line and acoustic echo cancellation applications. Echo in telephone networks, Line Echo, is observed naturally due to impedance mismatches at the long-distance/local-loop interface. Acoustic echo is due to the acoustic coupling between the microphone and the speaker of a speakerphone. The Affine Projection (APA) and the Fast Affine Projection (FAP) algorithms are two examples of reliable and efficient adaptive filters used for echo cancellation...This thesis presents, Variable Regularized Fast Affine Projections (VR-FAP) algorithm, with a varying, optimal regularization value which provides the desirable property of both fast and low …

Low-Thrust Control Of A Lunar Orbiter, Nathan Harl

Masters Theses

"This thesis presents a method for maintaining a long-term lunar Sun-synchronous orbit using continuous low-thrust hardware. The control method is developed using optimal control theory, which involves controlling a system through the minimization of a desired cost function"--Abstract, page iii.

Operation Of A Brushless Dc Drive For Application In Hybrid Electric Vehicles, James Scott Jenkins

Masters Theses

"One of the goals of a hybrid electric vehicle design is to improve the overall performance of the vehicle by incorporating several different power sources in such a way as to maximize the energy usage. By combining the desirable characteristics of each of the components in the system, the vehicle becomes more efficient to operate. Energy storage systems such as batteries and ultra-capacitors can be used to supply or store energy from the system when needed. The primary power source in this model will be an internal combustion engine coupled with a permanent magnet synchronous generator. The purpose of this …

Converting Some Global Optimization Problems To Mixed Integer Linear Problems Using Piecewise Linear Approximations, Manish Kumar

Masters Theses

"Some global optimization problems are converted to mixed-integer linear problems (MILP) using piecewise-linear approximations in this thesis so that they can be solved using commercial MILP solvers, such as CPLEX. Special attention is given to approximating two-term log-sum functions, which appears frequently in generalized geometric programming problems. Numerical results indicate the proposed approach is sound and efficient"--Abstract, page iii.

Best Practices For Implementing A Biodiesel Program, Sundaresan Sadashivam

Masters Theses

"The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) has a mandate to utilize biodiesel blends in its fleets. However, they have not been able to meet this requirement due to various implementation issues. Therefore, this thesis presents a study to determine the best practices for implementing a biodiesel program. The study was conducted by soliciting information from Departments of Transportation and other agencies related to their biodiesel programs and practices. A list of best practices was developed and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to prioritize this list of best practices"--Abstract, page iv.

Refrigerant-Based Propulsion System For Small Spacecraft, Carl Reiner Seubert

Masters Theses

"The MR SAT spacecraft under development at UMR requires a propulsion system that can be utilized to perform orbital maneuvers and three-axis attitude control to complete its mission objective of conducting spacecraft formation flight. This thesis documents the research, analysis design and development of the cold gas propulsion system that was integrated on the MR SAT spacecraft"--Abstract, page iii.

Performance Improvements Of Automobile Communication Protocols In Electromagnetic Interference Environments, Fei Ren

Masters Theses

"Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) is frequently encountered in automobile communication systems due to a large number of inductive nodes used in these systems. This thesis investigates the effects of EMI on two types of automobile communication systems, the Controller Area Network (CAN) and the FlexRay. It also proposes a modified Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) scheme to improve the communication performances in EMI environments"--Abstract, page iii.

Fast Sphere Decoder For Mimo Systems, Praveen G. Krishnan

Masters Theses

"This work focuses on variants of the conventional sphere decoding technique for Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) systems. Space Time Block Codes (STBC) have emerged as a popular way of transmitting data over multiple antennas achieving the right balance between diversity and spatial multiplexing. The Maximum Likelihood (ML) technique is a conventional way of decoding the transmitted information from the received data, but at the cost of increased complexity. The sphere decoder algorithm is a sub-optimal decoding technique that is computationally efficient achieving a ;symbol error rate that is dependent on the initial radius of the sphere. In this thesis, …

Characterization Of Noise On Pdn And Electromagnetic Shielding, Sandeep K. R. Chandra

Masters Theses

"Modern FPGA and microprocessor have complex logic inside them, which draw current from the Power Distribution Network (PDN). This current drawn from the PDN creates disturbance on the PDN, which then propagates to other IC in different places on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB), and appears as a noise voltage. Ability to predict noise voltage at any point on the PCB gives a greater ability to carefully design the board and the PDN. In order to accurately predict the noise, it is important to accurately predict the current drawn and the transfer impedance from the source to the victim point. …

Empirical Dynamic Modeling And Nonlinear Force Control Of Friction Stir Welding, Xin Zhao

Masters Theses

"Current Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process models are mainly concerned with the detailed analysis of material flow, heat generation, etc. and therefore, are computationally intensive. Dynamic models describing the total forces acting on the tool throughout the entire welding process are required for the design of feedback control strategies and improved process planning and analysis. In this thesis, empirical models relating the process parameters (i.e., plunge depth, travel speed, and rotation speed) to the process variables (i.e., axial, path, and normal forces) are developed to describe their dynamic relationships"--Abstract, page iv.

Sensor Network Coverage And Data Aggregation Problem: Solutions Toward The Maximum Lifetime, Li Yin

Masters Theses

"In the coverage problem, an optimal solution is proposed for the maximum lifetime sensor scheduling problem, which could find the upper bound of a sensor network's lifetime. This research reveals the relationship between the degree of redundancy in sensor deployment and achievable extension on network lifetime, which can be a useful guide for practical sensor network design"--Introduction, page 4.

Fine Particle Classification Using Dilute Fluidized Beds, Rajasekharan Pillai Annapoorneswari

Masters Theses

"The main objective of this project is to classify spherical soda-lime glass particles based on their size using a dilute fluidized bed system. The influence of inclined plates in the column, plate separation, plate inclination, and number of plates on the overall separation efficiency of particles will be investigated. The effect of column shape on the classification efficiency will also be assessed"--Introduction, page 3.