Digital Commons Network^™

Privacy & Authentication In Extreme Low Power Wireless Devices: Rfid And Μ-Sensors, Ena Choudhary

Theses

Authentication and Privacy are important concerns in current low power wireless devices like RFID and µ-sensors. µ-sensors are low power devices which have been identified as being useful in variety of domains including battlefield and perimeter defense etc. Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology for automated identification of objects and people. An RFID device frequently called RFID tag is a small microchip device that holds limited amount of data and transmits the same over the various frequency ranges. An RFID tag is typically attached to an item and contain identification information like serial numbers unique to that item. RFID tags …

The School-To-Work Transition Of Students With Learning Disabilities: The Influence Of Identity Status, Personality, And Career Decidedness On Career Decision Making, Jennifer L. Merry

Theses

Students with learning disabilities have higher dropout rates and have lower wages and employment rates. Furthermore, students with learning disabilities are less likely to have a full-time job and are more likely to attend a two-year college rather than a four-year college compared to those without disabilities. Approximately three million students are classified as having a specific learning disability in the United States. The challenges and struggles they deal with during the school years continues into the world of work. Federal legislation (e.g., IDEA) mandates that a transition plan is included in a student's Individualized Education Plan (IEP), which needs …

Parallelizing The Cluster Rank Analysis Application, Anthony G. Esposito Jr.

Theses

A wide range of researchers is beginning to utilize customized statistical methods for analyzing data as hardware and software become cheaper and more widely available. Cluster Rank Analysis (CRA) is an existing multivariate statistical algorithm that existed as an inefficient service-oriented application. Here it is described how CRA was optimized and parallelized using an available computing cluster and both open source and custom software. This was followed by the development of a command-line submission system for CRA jobs, as well as a Web retrieval system for the results of analyses. A subsequent timing study revealed speedup that quickly rose to …

Katrina And The Federal Emergency Management Agency: A Case Study In Organizational Failure, Elaine Van Patten

Theses

The risk of increasingly devastating natural disasters and the continuous threats of terrorism drive the nation's demand for swift and effective national emergency planning and response. Hurricane Katrina struck and devastated parts of the Gulf Region as a Category 4 hurricane in August 2005. After landfall in New Orleans, opportunities to maintain sanitation and hygiene quickly disappeared as flood water became contaminated, evacuees were stranded and forced to sleep next to dead bodies and human waste, survive without food or water and hope to be rescued. Survivors were convinced that they were abandoned by the federal government and left to …

The Effects Of Atmospheric Pressure Changes On Landfill Gas Collection Efficiency And Quality, Jason Leone

Theses

The effects of atmospheric pressure changes on landfill gas collection efficiency and quality are relatively complex and also very important to the effective management of these systems not only for practical operation and maintenance of these systems, but to also minimize the impacts of these fluctuations on the system in general. This thesis examined three areas of collection and control systems that effectively manage landfill gas (LFG), which is generated by the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter in municipal solid waste and analyzed the effects of barometric pressure on those systems. The three areas of analysis included the effects of …

The Manta Project: Conception, Implementation, And Reflections On A Cable Array Robot And Its Interfaces, Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Theses

We have created and flown a cable array robot based flying sculpture. This sculp ture, in its various versions, flew in both Rochester, New York and London, England. This thesis both explores the construction of the flying sculpture and presents a pub lished paper wherein an Human-Robotic Interaction design space is proposed to facilitate discussion of robotic interfaces.

On-Chip Digital Decoupling Capacitance Methodology, Eric Scott Bohannon

Theses

Signal integrity has become a major problem in digital IC design. One cause of this problem is device scaling which results in a sharp reduction of supply voltage, creating stringent noise margin requirements to ensure functionality. Reductions in feature size also result in increased clock speeds leading to many different high frequency noise producing components. As on-chip area increases to allow for more computational capability, so does the amount of digital logic to be placed, magnifying the effects of noisy interconnect structures.

Supply noise, modeled as AV = Ldi/dt , is caused by rapid current spikes during a rise or …

Tum Tum Yum Yum, Nongyao Moon Krapugthong

Theses

Not included

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.

Identification And Ranking Of Relevant Image Content, Mustafa I. A. Jaber

Theses

The work in this thesis proposes an image understanding algorithm for automatically identifying and ranking different image regions into several levels of importance. Given a color image, specialized maps for classifying image content namely: weighted similarity, weighted homogeneity, image contrast and memory color maps are generated and combined to provide a perceptual importance map. Further analysis of this map yields a region ranking map which sorts the image content into different levels of significance.

The algorithm was tested on a large database that contains a variety of color images. Those images were acquired from the Berkeley segmentation dataset as well …

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.

Ieee Compliant Double-Precision Fpu And 64-Bit Alu With Variable Latency Integer Divider, Ryan D. Williams

Theses

Together the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and floating-point unit (FPU) perform all of the mathematical and logic operations of computer processors. Because they are used so prominently, they fall in the critical path of the central processing unit - often becoming the bottleneck, or limiting factor for performance. As such, the design of a high-speed ALU and FPU is vital to creating a processor capable of performing up to the demanding standards of today's computer users.

In this paper, both a 64-bit ALU and a 64-bit FPU are designed based on the reduced instruction set computer architecture. The ALU performs …

Communication Issues And Processes At The Rit Inn And Conference Center, Wayne J. Pater

Theses

This study focuses on communication issues at The RIT Inn and Conference Center, (the Inn). Effective communication is crucial to nearly everything. Communication is the learned skill that makes the difference between an average organization and a great one. A great organization's management can fully engage staff in operations at a company that achieves maximum efficiency (Williford, 2002).

This study is important because it will identify the root causes of communication gaps between management and staff. In addition, it will identify problems related to disconnects between service staff and management that have caused several service recovery issues. These disconnects may …

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 …

Mutually Adaptive Distributed Heterogeneous Agents For Data Classification, Joshua Alan Harlow

Theses

Efficient and effective data classification is one of the most fundamental problems of computer science due to a huge number of important applications. As such, there have been many models that are capable of doing some form of data classification using a large number of varied algorithms and architectures. However, few share properties that implicitly take advantage of the distributed environment where classification has its most potential.

Therefore, to resolve this dilemma in this thesis a generic classification architecture com posed of mutually adaptive distributed heterogeneous agents was designed, implemented and experimentally analyzed. The system defined creates a multi-agent distributed …

Preparation And Processing Of Novel Precursors For Β-Bbo Nonlinear Optical Thin Films Using 1) 2, 4, 6- Triphenylcyclotriboroxine, Cryptand 2.2.2, And Barium Hydride And 2) 2, 4, 6-Trimethoxycyclotriboroxane, 18- Crown-6, And Barium Metal, Krista M. Fridman

Theses

Certain optical materials interact with high intensity light in a nonlinear way causing the emission of higher energy photons. Nonlinear optical thin films have many promising uses such as frequency converters, optical switches, and data storage devices. Betabarium borate (β-BaB204, β-BBO) was chosen for this investigation due to its large optical transparency range, high radiation damage threshold, and its ability to up-convert infrared light to the ultraviolet (UV) and visible region. The preparation and processing of two novel precursors for β-BBO nonlinear optical thin films were studied using 1) 2, 4, 6-triphenylcyclotriboroxine, cryptand 2.2.2, and barium hydride and 2) 2, …

Pov-It: The Pov-Ray Interactive Tutorial, Eleanor O'Rourke

Honors Theses

The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, commonly known as POV-Ray, is a computer graphics package that can be used to produce highly sophisticated and photorealistic images and animations. POV-Ray is widely used in the computer graphics community for a diverse variety of applications, including teaching college courses, creating visual music animations, and generating computer art. Although the popularity of POV-Ray is apparent, the teaching materials available for the package are confusing, disorganized, and inaccessible. In this project, I have designed an online system that provides a series of interactive tutorials that teach users how to create images using the POV-Ray …

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.

Typographic Decision-Making: Children's Book Design, Christina R. Fisher

Theses

Most children's first encounter with words and the act of reading is in the form of having a children's book read to them. Whether it is a cardboard book with only a sprinkling of words, an illustrated storybook with more narrative, or an independent reader with a few images and a larger concentration of words, children's books are essential to developing a child's reading ability and to fostering an enthusiasm for reading. Despite the importance of these books, their typographic design is often neglected. Little attention is paid to the integration of text and image, and typographic variables are often …

The Effects Of Facial Attractiveness, Weight, And Immediacy On Social Influence: A Test Of Dynamic Social Impact, Melinda Bullock

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Social impact theory (Latane, 1981) explains social influence as a multiplicative function of strength, immediacy, and number. Dynamic social impact theory (Latane, 1996a) states that four phenomena occur as a result of social influence: a) clustering (those living close together have similar attitudes), b) correlation (once unrelated attitudes become associated), c) consolidation (reduction in overall attitude variance), and d) continuing diversity (in spite of social influence attitudes diversity persists). This study used these two theories to examine how facial attractiveness, weight, and immediacy affect social influence. It. was expected that clustering, correlation, and consolidation would occur to a greater extent …

The Views Of Students With Disabilities Regarding Dropout And School Belonging, Rebecca L. Brandau

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

A large number of students drop out of high school each year. Most of the existing research does not focus specifically on students with disabilities. This study uses survey research to examine the perceptions of 40 students with mild disabilities regarding high school drop out and school belonging. Results indicate that participants believe it is important to graduate from high school, and they believe parents and teachers want them to graduate. The students indicated that their friends think about dropping out of school more than the students themselves do. Participants consistently indicated that they feel they can talk to an …

A Case Study Using Guided Reading And Teacher Read-Alouds While Monitoring English Language Learners' And Native English Speakers' Reading Achievement, Kelsey M. Baker

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The number of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States continues to increase (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002); therefore, schools and educators are affected by the growing differences in students' language skills, prior experiences, and progress. This research addresses the need for understanding ELLs and how ELLs benefit from adults effectively reading aloud to them. Further research is needed on effective reading instruction for ELLs for several reasons. First, teachers are becoming ELL teachers by default and feel overwhelmed because of the responsibility to teach both language and content (Gersten, 2002). Second, an achievement gap exists between ELLs and native …

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 …

Stochastic Models For Enhancing Agility Of Supply Chains, Alok K. Verma

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

This paper deals with the application of stochastic inventory model to the three-tier supply chain and verifying the values obtained by mathematical model with discrete event simulation. We investigate three-stage serial supply chain with stochastic demand and fixed replenishment lead-time. Inventory holding costs are charged at each stage, and each stage may incur a consumer backorder penalty cost charged by primary supplier to secondary supplier. The customer-demand follows Poisson distribution. We implement Base Stock model for inventory control at both suppliers. Computer simulation is then designed in such a way that it satisfied all the assumptions for mathematical model. Simulation …

Addressing Student Retention In Engineering And Engineering Technology Through The Use Of A Multidisciplinary Freshman Course, Anthony Dean, Bonita Anthony, Linda Vahala

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The Engineering Fundamentals Division of the Batten College of Engineering and Technology (BCET) at Old Dominion University administers a freshman engineering course sequence, along with four engineering departments (Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering) and the Department of Engineering Technology (which offers degrees in Mechanical Engineering Technology, Civil Engineering Technology and Electrical Engineering Technology). The two course sequence, Exploring Engineering and Technology I and II, involve the five departments in teaching at least one five week module in each of the two courses. Each department generally involves the students in a basic design …

Introducing Freshmen To Construction Estimating And Scheduling Using K'Nex Bridge Kits, Carol Considine, Vernon Lewis

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The College of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University has developed project-based courses for freshmen engineering students in order to engage them in engineering early with the goal of increasing retention. The courses are divided into three five-week modules that are distributed among the various departments within the college. The Engineering Technology department is responsible for two of the five week modules. One module is comprised of all the engineering technology curriculums; civil, electrical and mechanical, and the other module is strictly a civil engineering technology project.

The civil engineering technology project is focused on the construction industry. Students …

Managing A Distance-Learning Eet Laboratory Course Using Collaboration Software, Steve Hsiung, John Hackworth, Richard Jones, June Ritchie

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Methods of managing various distance learning EET laboratory courses using collaboration software are detailed. Particular emphasis is given to different types of collaboration software, advantages and disadvantages of each, and student and faculty feedback on the effectiveness of each.