Digital Commons Network^™

Environmental Health & Safety Management In The Wake Of Sarbanes-Oxley: A Focus On The Benchmark Alcohol Beverage Industry, Diana V. Vesosky

Theses

In a post-Enron world, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act holds the highest corporate officers of publicly held corporations personally accountable with regard to financial reporting. This project examines the requirements of the law, risks of not complying the law, how Sarbanes-Oxley has impacted environmental health and safety (EHS) management, and what EHS professionals and companies should be doing to comply with the law.

Effect Of Die Cutting On Polymeric Materials, Pushpak Jain

Theses

Concavity is a major concern of manufacturers in every region. Concavity occurs as a process of die cutting foam. During die cutting, hydraulic pressure is applied. The compression from die causes concavity in foam sheets. The experiment was conducted using eight different dies and 2different materials polyethylene and polyurethane with 2 different densities and 2 different thicknesses. The experiment will evaluate the factors contributing toward the concavity.

Landscapes Of Beethoven's Signature "From The Heart, May It Go To The Heart", Virginia L. Martin

Theses

"Landscapes of Beethoven's Signature, an exhibit consisting of twenty-two works of art in a variety of media, is a tribute to the revolutionary composer Ludwig van Beethoven [...]. Landscapes of Beethoven's Signature comprises a body of visual works showing the hand of Beethoven the Creative Artist. Literal landscapes, which also incorporate Beethoven's calligraphy, have been interpreted in the two larger oil paintings, 'In Moonlight' and 'Look Through These Trees.' Figurative depiction of 'landscape' and 'signature' is represented in a variety of ways within the sculptures, prints, books and calligraphy. For several of the pieces, visual material was derived from Beethoven's …

Energy- And Area-Efficient Dc-Dc Converters Fabricated In Low Temperature Crystalline Silicon-On-Glass Technology, Hans Christian Rotmann

Theses

The display industry is moving toward the development of system-on-panel (SOP) architectures to make increasingly compact small-format displays and reduce manufacturing cost. Presently, the voltages required by pixel drivers, row scan logic, and timing circuitry, are generated from a single supply voltage using charge pumps fabricated on a high voltage, monolithic integrated circuit mounted off the glass panel.

In this work, a new high-efficiency charge pump architecture for fabrication on display glass substrates is presented. The distinguishing feature of this work is the nestedclock timing scheme used to improve power efficiency and reduce output voltage noise without the use of …

The Integration Of Graphic Communication And Educational Tools For Children With Dyslexia, Amar Abdulla Behbehani

Theses

Design for education is an important approach in the graphic design field. The intention of this thesis is to conduct further research that can help educators and designers build healthier learning environments for children with learning disabilities. Learning environments are not limited to physical environments such as classroom designs or school architecture; they are extended to cognitive environments that are greatly affected by external influences such as sensory stimulation and learning methods. Children with special educational needs could benefit from effective design solutions for better information processing. This designer attempts to develop typographic solutions to facilitate the reading process of …

Agent Based Supply Chain Architecture For Modern Supply Chain Management, Vilesh S. Salunkhe

Theses

A Supply chain is a linked series of various business partners that participate in the process of developing a finished product from raw materials. Supply chain management is the process of managing all the related activities. Though decisions are made by each business partner on their own, frequent interaction with other partners is a must. Timely response and high accuracy in the decisions made require collection of related data, analysis, and conclusion steps without missing a beat. However, these steps are tedious, complex, and very error prone as often these decisions are made by people with multiple responsibilities and frequent …

Artfully Concealed, Athesia V. Benjamin

Theses

The following document is a summary of the development of my work during two years in the MFA painting program at Rochester Institute of Technology. The process intrinsic to thesis development eventually brought me to my final concept of obscuring my identity as a way to develop a body of figurative paintings. Along with the eleven pieces created during this two-year period, I have thoroughly studied this specific topic within the context of contemporary and historical art and identified artists with like concepts and images.

Beetle Blasphemy, Ferris Webby

Theses

A descriptive narration of a project to create a 3D animated short comedy film, "Beetle Blasphemy," featuring a beetle who believes himself to be the Messiah. Includes original proposal, timeline, budget, original script, original storyboards, and film stills.

Quarry, Matt Kleis

Theses

A descriptive narration of a project to create a 3-D computer animated film, "Quarry," about a gargoyle in a big city and a little girl who comes to have a special bond with him. Includes original proposal, storyboard example, production stills, script, and set design and character.

Identification Of Trans-Splicing Sites In Leishmania Major Using Probabilistic Methods, Lukas Habegger

Theses

Leishmania major, a member of the Kinetoplastida family, is a primitive protozoan that causes a human disease, called leishmaniases, affecting numerous people worldwide. The identification of new drug targets to combat leishmaniases necessitates a thorough understanding of how genomic instructions are transformed into functional proteins. It requires not only the prediction and categorization of all the genes, but also a profound understanding of their regulation. Much of gene regulation may occur through a process known as frarcs-splicing. Trans-splicing, which is mechanistically similar to cissplicing, is the process of cleaving a large polycistronic transcript into smaller monocistronic components.

The goal of …

Incorporating Triple Bottom Line Strategies Into Corporations, Bill C. Lin

Theses

In this new era of globalization, the competition among multi-national corporations in various industries is tighter than ever. Due to this intense struggle for corporations to grow their bottom line, the corporations have recognized that a new approach to business is necessary. Corporations have realized that they can no longer just think about their economical profitability to survive in this environment, but they also have to be good stewards to the people they employ and be conscious of the impact the corporation's daily operations have on the environment. Because of this new found recognition, corporations have started using phrases such …

Parental Perceptions Of School Climate And Middle School Students' Performance, Christine Demart

Theses

This research study explored the relationship between parental perceptions of school climate and middle school students' academic and social success. In particular, this study investigated what specific school climate factors may have the greatest impact on students' academic achievement, disciplinary referrals, and school attendance.

The Multifaceted Nature Of Impulsive Sensation-Seeking: Differential Relationships With Personality, Deviance, And Laboratory Tasks, Drew J. Miller

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

The current study examined divergences among impulsivity and sensation seeking items from the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire Impulsive Sensation Seeking scale in terms of their relations to other personality models, deviance, and laboratory task outcomes. A sample of 654 undergraduates was gathered across two studies and given a Five Factor Model of personality measure (e.g. NEO Five Factor Inventory, NEO Five Factor Report Form), deviance measures (e.g. Antisocial Behavior Inventory, Explicit Attitudes Towards Marijuana Questionnaire), and three laboratory tasks (e.g. Balloon Analogue Risk Task, Newmans Card-Playing Task). Results demonstrated the hypothesized divergences among impulsivity and sensation seeking items on measures of …

Numerical Investigation And Parallel Computing For Thermal Transport Mechanism During Nanomachining, Ravi R. Kumar

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Nano-scale machining, or Nanomachining is a hybrid process in which the total thermal energy necessary to remove atoms from a work-piece surface is applied from external sources. In the current study, the total thermal energy necessary to remove atoms from a work-piece surface is applied from two sources: (1) localized energy from a laser beam focused to a micron-scale spot to preheat the work-piece, and (2) a high-precision electron-beam emitted from the tips of carbon nano-tubes to remove material via evaporation/sublimation. Macro-to-nano scale heat transfer models are discussed for understanding their capability to capture and its application to predict the …

Cutting Propagation And Container Production Of Rudy Haag Burning Bush [Euonymus Alatus Rudy Haag], Amy Lynn Poston

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Softwood cuttings of Euonymus alatus and the cultivar Rudy Haag, a nearly seedless cultivar, were taken in Kentucky on two cutting dates. E. alatus Rudy Haag cuttings taken in mid-May, untreated or treated with 1000 - 3000 ppm IBA, produced many roots on a high percentage of cuttings. Post-rooting shoot growth was reduced for the species with cuttings taken in June. Rudy Haag produced new growth on cuttings taken in May with no IBA treatment. Transplanting resulted in a decrease in new growth. Liner plants of E. alatus Compactus and Rudy Haag were planted into 1 and 3 gallon containers …

A Network Processing Node For Light Unmanned Aircraft, Timothy William Arrowsmith

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Over the last decade, research into unmanned and autonomous vehicles has greatly increased. With applications ranging from science and exploration to humanitarian and military efforts, the rising need for autonomous vehicles demands constant innovation and growth. The Intelligent Dependable Embedded Architectures (IDEA) lab at the University of Kentucky is continually launching research oriented programs [1]. A few key projects focus on the development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Through this research, at the University of Kentucky, the need to develop a reliable, lightweight, node based hardware for use in light UAVs and other unmanned and autonomous vehicles became apparent. This …

A Camera-Based Energy Relaxation Framework To Minimize Color Artifacts In A Projected Display, Nathaniel Sanders

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

We introduce a technique to automatically correct color inconsistencies in a display composed of one or more digital light projectors (DLP). The method is agnostic to the source of error and can detect and address color problems from a number of sources. Examples include inter- and intra-projector color differences, display surface markings, and environmental lighting differences on the display. In contrast to methods that discover and map all colors into the greatest common color space, we minimize local color discontinuities to create color seamlessness while remaining tolerant to significant color error. The technique makes use of a commodity camera and …

Implementation And Validation Of The Hybrid Turbulence Models In An Unstructured Grid Code, Sri S. Panguluri

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Since its introduction in 1997, the use of Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) and similar hybrid turbulence techniques has become increasingly popular in the field of CFD. However, with increased use some of the limitations of the DES model have become apparent. One of these is the dependence of DES on grid construction, particularly regarding the point of transition between the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes and Large Eddy Simulation models. An additional issue that arises with unstructured grids is the definition of the grid spacing in the implementation of a DES length scale. To lay the ground work to study these effects the …

A Control Mechanism To The Anywhere Pixel Router, Subhasri Krishnan

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Traditionally large format displays have been achieved using software. A new technique of using hardware based anywhere pixel routing is explored in this thesis. Information stored in a Look Up Table (LUT) in the hardware can be used to tile two image streams to produce a seamless image display. This thesis develops a 1 input-image 1 output-image system that implements arbitrary image warping on the image, based a LUT stored in memory. The developed system control mechanism is first validated using simulation results. It is next validated via implementation to a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based hardware prototype and …

Application Of Genetic Algorithms And Cfd For Flow Control Optimization, Narendra Beliganur Kotragouda

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Active flow control is an area of heightened interest in the aerospace community. Previous research on flow control design processes heavily depended on trial and error and the designers knowledge and intuition. Such an approach cannot always meet the growing demands of higher design quality in less time. Successful application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to this kind of control problem critically depends on an efficient searching algorithm for design optimization. CFD in conjunction with Genetic Algorithms (GA) potentially offers an efficient and robust optimization method and is a promising solution for current flow control designs. Current research has combined …

Catalytic Growth Of Structured Carbon Via The Decomposition Of Halogenated Reactants Over Supported Nickel, Laxmi Deepshika Cherukuri

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

The synthesis of highly ordered carbonaceous materials, including carbon nanofibers, has been the subject of a disparate and burgeoning literature over the past decade. Growth of carbon nanotubes via an atypical catalytic route, the decomposition of halogenated reactants as chlorobenzene (CB) over 10% (w/w) Ni/SiO2 is investigated. The C (carbon) yield and structural order are a function of reaction time and temperature. Greater degree of structural order and C yield is observed from CB relative to benzene, suggesting Cl/catalyst interaction(s) and metal site restructuring. Evaluation of the effect of H2 on C growth from CB reveals that C yield is …

The Use Of Selective Annealing For Superplastic Forming Of Mg Az31 Alloy, Michael Christopher Cusick

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

A recent study on the Post-Formed properties of Superplastically Formed Magnesium AZ31B has shown that the heating time prior to testing has a major effect on the Post Forming properties of the superplastically material. To this point, there has been very little examination into the effect of pre-heating or annealing on superplastic forming (SPF) properties. In this work, the effects of annealing prior to the SPF of Mg AZ31 alloy were examined. Both high temperature SPF tensile and bulge specimens were formed after annealing. Multiple annealing temperatures were examined to produce specimens with grain sizes ranging from 8 andamp;igrave;m to …

The Development Of An Engine Lubricant Containing Soybean Oil, Stephanie Mccoy

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

The major downfalls of vegetable oils, namely soybean oil in this research, are very detrimental to engine lubricant performance. A unique - out of the box- additive package is needed to compensate for the lubricant deficiencies. This research searched for unique additive solutions to the problems of oxidation and heat stability, low temperature pumpability, and fluid corrosiveness. The additive solutions were then tested in preliminary engine tests. In this research, several formulations were developed that passed the main engine oil low temperature test, the mini rotary viscometer. The lubricants met the passing viscosity requirements of 60,000 centipoise and exhibited no …

Stimulating Proactive Fault Detection In Distributed Systems, Namita Naik

Theses

Fault Tolerance is an important issue considered when developing a reliable Distributed System. Reactive fault systems are designed to redistribute the current process on to other machines when failure occurs. In contrast to the conventional method of reactive recovery, an emerging concept in the field of fault tolerance is a proactive approach. This approach exploits pre fault symptoms and initiates fault recovery henceforth. This project is to implement a proactive fault prediction simulator for a distributed system. This will include developing a language for simulation, which allows the user to define a distributed system. The language is further used to …

Design And Simulation Of Strained-Si/Strained-Sige Dual Channel Hetero-Structure Mosfets, Puneet Goyal

Theses

With a unified physics-based model linking MOSFET performance to carrier mobility and drive current, it is shown that nearly continuous carrier mobility increase has been achieved by introduction of process-induced and global-induced strain, which has been responsible for increase in device performance commensurately with scaling. Strained silicon-germanium technology is a hot research area, explored by many different research groups for present and future CMOS technology, due to its high hole mobility and easy process integration with silicon. Several heterostructure architectures for strained Si/SiGe have been shown in the literature. A dual channel heterostructure consisting of strained Si/Si1-xGex on a relaxed …

Fouling In Silicon Microchannel Designs Used For Ic Chip Cooling And Its Mitigation, Jeffrey L. Perry

Theses

Particulate fouling studies with alumina and silica dispersions were performed in silicon, rectangular microchannels having hydraulic diameters between 220-225 μm. The particulates used ranged from the colloidal size range up to tens of microns in size (for particle aggregates). Data show for the most part the absence of particle depositions within the microchannels. This is even the case when there is an electrostatic attraction between the particles and the microchannel surface. The primary reason for this is due to the high wall shear stress at the microchannel walls. In contrast, the headers for the microchannels are quite susceptible to particulate …

Accountability For Mental Health Counseling In Schools, Catherine Ann Lesio

Theses

Accountability has become an important concept in school-based mental health because students face many social and emotional issues that demand highly effective interventions (Repie, 2005). This study examined the data of a survey that was conducted with 147 members of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) regarding their counseling practices in the schools. The results indicated that a majority of NASP members only “sometimes” use pre and post measures with their counseling cases. A Stepwise Regression showed one significant predictor for the use of progress monitoring through pre and post measures in counseling – the more prepared for counseling …

Development Of Tunnel Diode Devices And Models For Circuit Design And Characterization, David Pawlik

Theses

Historically, the microelectronics industry has scaled down CMOS transistor dimensions in order to increase operating speeds, decrease cost per transistor, and free up on-chip real estate for additional chip functions. There are numerous challenges involved with scaling transistors down to the near term 32 nm node, and beyond. These challenges include short gate lengths, very thin gate oxides, short channel effects, quantum effects, band-to-band tunneling from source to drain, Gate Induced Drain Leakage, Fowler Nordheim tunneling, and increasing dopant concentrations. Field effect transistor circuits augmented with tunnel diodes lead to decreased circuit footprints, decreased device count, improved operating speeds, and …

Process Development For Integration Of Cofeb/Mgo-Based Magnetic Tunnel Junction (Mtj) Device On Silicon, Shrinivas Pandharpure

Theses

Methods of communication and dissemination of information have changed dramatically with the emergence of the Internet and mobile phones. To sustain this revolution, we need reliable mass storage devices which would store information not only in large amount in small space but also for long time. Therefore, realizing high performance memory technologies is very critical for this revolution. This work contributes towards the development of one such technology; Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM) based on Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ). The research conducted in this study is primarily focused on the process development for integrating MTJ on silicon. The film stack …

Seating For Communicating, Myung Taek Jung

Theses

Not listed.