Digital Commons Network^™

In Search Of Copia: Using Rhetoric To Teach Creative Writing, Ryan Solomon

Theses and Dissertations

James Berlin, in his book Rhetoric and Reality, points out that our disparate epistemologies lead to inevitable classroom practices, which mean that different epistemologies impact our pedagogical approach and enforce certain views about the role and function of writing in classrooms. This thesis highlights the impact of Romantic beliefs about writing on creative writing pedagogy, as well as exploring how those beliefs hamper the critical function of the workshop. Romantic beliefs have enforced the idea that talent and genius is most important in creative writing, and that writing is spontaneous, organic, original, and expressive. Because of this, many creative writing …

The Mid-Infrared Emission Of M87, Eric S. Perlman, Rachel E. Mason, Christopher C. Packham, Nancy A. Levenson, Moshe Elitzur, Justin J. Schaefer, Masatoshi Imanishi, William B. Sparks, James T. Radomski

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

We discuss Subaru and Spitzer Space Telescope imaging and spectroscopy of M87 in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) from 5 to 35 μm. These observations allow us to investigate mid-IR emission mechanisms in the core of M87 and to establish that the flaring, variable jet component HST-1 is not a major contributor to the mid-IR flux. The Spitzer data include a high signal-to-noise ratio 15-35 μm spectrum of the knot A/B complex in the jet, which is consistent with synchrotron emission. However, a synchrotron model cannot account for the observed nuclear spectrum, even when contributions from the jet, necessary due to the …

A Methodology For The Assessment Of The Behavior And Performance Of Artificial Agents, Jessica Ryan

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Computer games are becoming more popular for both entertainment and educational applications. The growth of this technology and its realm of use creates a new demand for artificial intelligence (AI) systems: as AI becomes more prevalent, it becomes crucial for it to have a natural, human feel to it in order to best support its application. Consequently, the need for a reliable means of testing and comparing the behavioral development of the artificial intelligence used within game applications becomes important. Turings test has been the staple in evaluating the 'intelligence' of artificial agents in applications ranging from testing chatterbots to …

Current, July 09, 2007, University Of Missouri-St. Louis

Current (2000s)

Orientation Issue

Terrain And Behavior Modeling For Projecting Multistage Cyber Attacks, Daniel Fava, Jared Holsopple, Shanchieh Jay Yang, Brian Argauer

Presentations and other scholarship

Contributions from the information fusion community have enabled comprehensible traces of intrusion alerts occurring on computer networks. Traced or tracked cyber attacks are the bases for threat projection in this work. Due to its complexity, we separate threat projection into two subtasks: predicting likely next targets and predicting attacker behavior. A virtual cyber terrain is proposed for identifying likely targets. Overlaying traced alerts onto the cyber terrain reveals exposed vulnerabilities, services, and hosts. Meanwhile, a novel attempt to extract cyber attack behavior is discussed. Leveraging traditional work on prediction and compression, this work identifies behavior patterns from traced cyber attack …

Monitor Newsletter July 09, 2007, Bowling Green State University

Monitor

Official Publication of Bowling Green State University for Faculty and Staff

Extreme Ultraviolet Polarimetry With Laser-Generated High-Order Harmonics, Nicole Brimhall

Theses and Dissertations

We developed an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) polarimeter, which employs laser-generated high-order harmonics as the light source. This relatively high-flux directional EUV source has available wavelengths between 8 nm and 62 nm and easily rotatable linear polarization. The polarimeter will aid researchers at BYU in characterizing EUV thin films and improving their understanding of materials for use in EUV optics. This first-time workhorse application of laser high harmonics enables polarization-sensitive reflection measurements not previously available in the EUV. We have constructed a versatile positioning system that places harmonics on the microchannel plate detector with an accuracy of 0.3 mm, which allows …

July 9, 2007 Reporter, University Of Alabama At Birmingham

eReporter (campus newsletter)

No abstract provided.

First Cross-Correlation Analysis Of Interferometric And Resonant-Bar Gravitational-Wave Data For Stochastic Backgrounds, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, J. Agresti, P. Ajith, B. Allen, R. Amin, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, M. Arain, M. Araya, H. Armandula, M. Ashley, S. Aston, P. Aufmuth, C. Aulbert, S. Babak, S. Ballmer, H. Bantilan, B. C. Barish, C. Barker, D. Barker, B. Barr, P. Barriga, M. A. Barton, K. Bayer, K. Belczynski, J. Betzwieser, P. T. Beyersdorf, B. Bhawal, I. A. Bilenko, Tiffany Z. Summerscales

Faculty Publications

Data from the LIGO Livingston interferometer and the ALLEGRO resonant-bar detector, taken during LIGO's fourth science run, were examined for cross correlations indicative of a stochastic gravitational-wave background in the frequency range 850-950 Hz, with most of the sensitivity arising between 905 and 925 Hz. ALLEGRO was operated in three different orientations during the experiment to modulate the relative sign of gravitational-wave and environmental correlations. No statistically significant correlations were seen in any of the orientations, and the results were used to set a Bayesian 90% confidence level upper limit of Ωgw(f)≤1.02, which corresponds to a gravitational-wave strain at 915 …

Does Alcohol Inhibit Posttraumatic Stress Symptomology In Victims Of Sexual Assault?, Sandra Hargesheimer

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examines whether or not alcohol consumption during a sexual assault suppresses PTSD symptomology as well as the subjective impact of the assault. One hundred and fifty-one women participated in the study. The first hypothesis was that women in the alcohol condition would endorse less PTSD symptoms on a PTSD measure than women who were not consuming alcohol at the time of their assault experience. The second hypothesis was that women who were consuming alcohol at the time of their assault would subjectively rate the impact of the assault as having less of an impact than women who …

Super Learner, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Eric C. Polley, Alan E. Hubbard

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Previous articles (van der Laan and Dudoit (2003); van der Laan et al. (2006); Sinisi et al. (2007)) advertised and theoretically validated the use of cross-validation to select among many candidate estimators to compute a so called super learner which outperforms any of the given candidate estimators. The theoretical basis was provided for this super learner based on oracle results for the cross-validation selector (e.g., van der Laan and Dudoit (2003); van der Laan et al. (2006)) and in Sinisi et al. (2007). In addition, these papers contained a practical demonstration of the adaptivity of this so called super learner …

Reservoir Characterization And Outcrop Analogs To The Navajo Sandstone In The Central Utah Thrust Belt Exploration Play, Ashley Dalrymple

Theses and Dissertations

Reservoir heterogeneity plays an important role in oil field economics and completion strategies. We herein characterize the reservoir heterogeneity of the Early Jurassic Navajo Sandstone in the Justensen Flat/Devils Canyon area of the San Rafael Swell, Utah. These outcrops are located approximately 60 kilometers (45 mi) east of the recently discovered Covenant oil field which is located in the central Utah thrust belt exploration play. The reservoir for the Covenant field is the Navajo Sandstone. This study can serve as an outcrop analogue for this developing play and other eolian reservoirs worldwide. There are eight facies within the Navajo Sandstone …

Maintaining Phase Of The Tri-Phasic Crab Pyloric Rhythm, Christina Mouser, Farzan Nadim, Amitabha Bose

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Sensitivity To Distributional Assumptions In Estimation Of The Odp Thresholding Function, Wendy Jill Bunn

Theses and Dissertations

Recent technological advances in fields like medicine and genomics have produced high-dimensional data sets and a challenge to correctly interpret experimental results. The Optimal Discovery Procedure (ODP) (Storey 2005) builds on the framework of Neyman-Pearson hypothesis testing to optimally test thousands of hypotheses simultaneously. The method relies on the assumption of normally distributed data; however, many applications of this method will violate this assumption. This thesis investigates the sensitivity of this method to detection of significant but nonnormal data. Overall, estimation of the ODP with the method described in this thesis is satisfactory, except when the nonnormal alternative distribution has …

Two Chiral Nonet Model With Massless Quarks, Joseph Schechter, Amir H. Fariborz, Renata Jora

Physics - All Scholarship

We present a detailed study of a linear sigma model containing one chiral nonet transforming under U(1)_A as a quark-antiquark composite and another chiral nonet transforming as a diquark-anti diquark composite (or, equivalently from a symmetry point of view, as a two meson molecule). The model provides an intuitive explanation of a current puzzle in low energy QCD: Recent work has suggested the existence of a lighter than 1 GeV nonet of scalar mesons which behave like four quark composites. On the other hand, the validity of a spontaneously broken chiral symmetric description would suggest that these states be chiral …

“Almost” Subsidy-Free Spatial Pricing In A Multi-Dimensional Setting, Alexei V. Savvateev, Jacques Drèze, Michel Le Breton, Shlomo Weber

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

Consider a population of citizens uniformly spread over the entire plane, that faces a problem of locating public facilities to be used by its members. The cost of every facility is financed by its users, who also face an idiosyncratic private access cost to the facility. We assume that the facilities’ cost is independent of location and access costs are linear with respect to the Euclidean distance. We show that an external intervention that covers 0.19% of the facility cost is sufficient to guarantee secession-proofness or no cross-subsidization, where no group of individuals is charged more than its stand alone …

Naïve Learning In Social Networks: Convergence, Influence And Wisdom Of Crowds, Matthew O. Jackson, Benjamin Golub

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

We study learning and influence in a setting where agents communicate according to an arbitrary social network and naïvely update their beliefs by repeatedly taking weighted averages of their neighbors’ opinions. A focus is on conditions under which beliefs of all agents in large societies converge to the truth, despite their naïve updating. We show that this happens if and only if the influence of the most influential agent in the society is vanishing as the society grows. Using simple examples, we identify two main obstructions which can prevent this. By ruling out these obstructions, we provide general structural conditions …

Take Pride In America In Southern Nevada: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending July 05, 2007, Margaret N. Rees

Anti-littering Programs

• Don’t Trash Nevada website traffic remains strong despite no separate marketing.

• Project Manager Douglas Joslin attended a by-invitation-only presentation for environmental groups on May 17, 2007 to discuss marketing opportunities with BTDT Enterprises, Inc.

• Mr. Joslin is working with the Clark County School District on elementary educational programs.

• The Anti-Litter Team has started work on a GIS database for littering and dumping data with the GIS Team. The two Teams met twice this quarter to discuss strategy.

• Republic Services’ sponsored Don’t Trash Nevada advertisements, which have begun to run in local newspapers.

• More than …

Eigenvectors And Reconstruction, Hongyu He

Faculty Publications

In this paper, we study the simple eigenvectors of two hypomorphic matrices using linear algebra. We also give new proofs of results of Godsil and McKay.

Campus Report July 5, 2007

News Releases

No abstract provided.

Volume 44, Number 80: July 05, 2007, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

The Relationships Among Pain, Dyspnea, Constipation And Quality Of Life In Lung Cancer Patients Enrolled In A Hospice Program, Lisa A. Laches

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is evidence of a relationship between pain and associated symptoms, specifically constipation and dyspnea, and quality of life. Literature supports that endstage lung cancer patients suffer more symptoms than those with other types of cancers, and the course of treatment is primarily palliative, as many of these diagnosed patients cannot be cured. The purpose of this secondary analysis of data was to evaluate the relationships between pain and other common symptoms in end stage lung cancer patients in hospice care, and the relationships among pain, dyspnea, constipation and quality of life. The study sample included fifty lung cancer patients …

Linear, Redox Modified Dna Probes As Electrochemical Dna Sensors, Francesco Ricci, Rebecca Lai, Kevin W. Plaxco

Rebecca Lai Publications

We show here that hybridization-linked changes in the dynamics of a redox-modified, electrode-bound linear (as opposed to stem-loop) probe DNA produce large changes in Faradaic current, allowing for the ready detection of target oligonucleotides.

Wheelchair Positioning And Pulmonary Function In Children With Cerebral Palsy, Lee Barks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: In children with cerebral palsy (CP), poor trunk control fosters spinal deformity, pulmonary compromise (Canet, et al., 1998), increased health risks, and costs of long-term care (Braddock, 2001). Evidence links posture and pulmonary function, but influence of wheelchair parameters on pulmonary mechanics is unknown.

Objectives: 1) Determine relative contribution of five wheelchair configuration parameters to improvement in pulmonary mechanics--total airway resistance (RAW), tidal volume, minute ventilation (MV), and deadspace to tidal volume ratio; 2) Describe recruitment and retention of school-aged children with CP; and 3) Discuss response of the participants to the protocol.

Method: This within-subjects, descriptive study employed …

Recycle Please: Teach Your School To Recycle, To Care, And To Help Solve The Climate Crisis, Ted Wells

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This Independent Study offers one developmentally-appropriate way in which the elementary school teacher can help alleviate the current global warming crisis by leading students to organize a school-wide recycling program carried out in the spirit of service learning. The reader will learn that this recycling work is two-pronged: the physical labor of recycling and the educational outreach to the school community through marketing, using posters, assemblies, videos, and more. A philosophy of education underlying this work is described in detail, as is the journey of the author in discovering this pedagogy that includes tapping into a personal environmental activism for …

Empirical Software Engineering In Industry Short Courses, David S. Janzen, Hossein Saiedian

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper reports on a pilot project that incorporated small empirical studies in three industry short courses. These laboratory experiments were one component of a larger leveled study on the effects of test-driven development (TDD) on internal software quality. The approach is proposed to have pedagogical value to student-developers by improving their understanding and appreciation for empirical evidence, to instructors by providing feedback through surveys and exercises, and to the community at large by reporting results of the studies. Pre-experiment surveys in the three pilot experiments revealed large differences in programmer opinions of TDD. Possible correlations to development environment and …

New Pathways To Teaching In New Jersey: A Case Study Of The Alternate Route Teacher Education Program, Cheryl Reagan

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this case study was to identify the positive and challenging aspects of the New Pathways to Teaching in New Jersey (NPTNJ) Program, an alternate route teacher education preparation program located at the 19 community colleges in the state. The participants in this study included 10 teachers who were in their second or third year of teaching in the K-12 system and had completed their teacher certification program at one community college. Nine administrators who worked with one of the NPTNJ study participants were also included in the study. The major source of information was gathered through participant …

Directionality In The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Polarization Data, D. Hanson, Douglas Scott, Emory F. Bunn

Physics Faculty Publications

Polarization is the next frontier of cosmic microwave background analysis, but its signal is dominated over much of the sky by foregrounds which must be carefully removed. To determine the efficacy of this cleaning, it is necessary to have sensitive tests for residual foreground contamination in polarization sky maps. The dominant Galactic foregrounds introduce a large-scale anisotropy on to the sky, so it makes sense to use a statistic sensitive to overall directionality for this purpose. Here, we adapt the rapidly computable D statistic of Bunn and Scott to polarization data, and demonstrate its utility as a foreground monitor by …

Mechanistic And Structural Studies Of H373q Flavocytochrome B2: Effects Of Mutating The Active Site Base, Chi Lin Tsai, Kuppan Gokulan, Pablo Sobrado, James C. Sacchettini, Paul F. Fitzpatrick

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

His373 in flavocytochrome b2 has been proposed to act as an active site base during the oxidation of lactate to pyruvate, most likely by removing the lactate hydroxyl proton. The effects of mutating this residue to glutamine have been determined to provide further insight into its role. The kcat and kcat/Klactate values for the mutant protein are 3 to 4 orders of magnitude smaller than the wild-type values, consistent with a critical role for His373. Similar effects are seen when the mutation is incorporated into the isolated flavin domain of the enzyme, narrowing the effects to lactate oxidation rather than …

Extensible Pre-Authentication In Kerberos, Phillip L. Hellewell

Theses and Dissertations

Organizations need to provide services to a wide range of people, including strangers outside their local security domain. As the number of users grows larger, it becomes increasingly tedious to maintain and provision user accounts. It remains an open problem to create a system for provisioning outsiders that is secure, flexible, efficient, scalable, and easy to manage. Kerberos is a secure, industry-standard protocol. Currently, Kerberos operates as a closed system; all users must be specified upfront and managed on an individual basis. This paper presents EPAK (Extensible Pre-Authentication in Kerberos), a framework that enables Kerberos to operate as an open …