Digital Commons Network^™

Nebraska School Facilities: Educational Adequacy Of Class Iii School District Structures, John M. Weidner Sr.

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 2009, a replication of the Pool study was conducted. This study, however, focused on the school systems classified as Class III districts. Nebraska has 252 Class III districts. Compared with Class II (21), Class IV (1), and Class V(1) districts, the Class III districts offer a wide array of school settings, from urban to extremely rural, and from the third largest school system in Nebraska to a single school district occupying a county in the western sandhills.

The survey responses were sorted and analyzed by five indices: Class, Quartile of Valuation per Pupil, Population Change Category of the 2008 …

Has The Marital Time Cost Of Parenting Changed Over Time?, Jeffrey P. Dew

Faculty Publications

Qualitative and quantitative research has suggested that married couples handle the increasing demands of intensive parenting norms and work expectations by reducing spousal time (e.g., the time that spouses spend alone with each other). Using nationally representative time-diary data, this study examined whether married individuals with children at home lost more spousal time in the years 1975–2003 than individuals without children at home. The analyses showed that on average married individuals have reduced their spousal time by 50 minutes a day. Contrary to expectations, however, individuals with minor children at home had lower time declines than individuals without children. The …

New Infrared Spectral Data For 27 Asteroids: An Investigation Of Meteorite-Asteroid Relationships By Using The Modified Gaussian Model, Katherine Marie Gietzen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Asteroids provide unique insights into the origin and early history of the solar system. Since asteroids are considered to be fairly pristine, studying them provides opportunities to learn more about the primordial solar system, its materials, processes and history. Since the discovery in 1801 of the first asteroid, Ceres, during the era when everyone was searching for the "missing planet", astronomers have been trying to understand what they are, where they came from, why they exist and what they can tell us about how our solar system formed and evolved.

Within the asteroid population are a number of sub-populations, the …

Thin Film Integrated Capacitors With Sputtered-Anodized Niobium Pentoxide Dielectric For Decoupling Applications, Susan Jacob

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electronics system miniaturization is a major driver for high-k materials. High-k materials in capacitors allow for high capacitance, enabling system miniaturization. Ta2O5 (k~24) has been the dominant high-k material in the electronic industry for decoupling capacitors, filter capacitors, etc. In order to facilitate further system miniaturization, this project has investigated thin film integrated capacitors with Nb2O5 dielectric. Nb2O5 has k~41 and is a potential candidate for replacing Ta2O5. But, the presence of suboxides (NbO2 and NbO) in the dielectric deteriorates the electrical properties (leakage current, thermal instability of capacitance, etc.). Also, the high oxygen solubility of niobium results in oxygen …

Perceptions Of Mentoring And Induction In The State Of Arkansas, Bruce W. Bryant

College of Education Dissertations

This study examined the perceptions of novice teachers and mentors concerning the Arkansas model of mentoring. The independent variables of roles of the teachers (mentor teacher versus novice teacher) and gender (male versus female) were compared among the dependent variable for the overall score and its component parts that measured attitudes represented by scores related to activities, funding, time, and use of Pathwise®. A sample of teachers in Arkansas public schools who were employed as novice teachers (n = 160) or as mentors (n = 158) who have been involved in the process as outlined by the Arkansas Department of …

Economic Investigation Of Community-Scale Versus Building Scale Net-Zero Energy, N. Fernandez, S. Katipamula, M. R. Brambley, T. A. Reddy

Publications (E)

The study presented in this report examines issues concerning whether achieving net-zero energy performance at the community scale provides economic and potentially overall efficiency advantages over strategies focused on individual buildings.

Trade-Offs Between Predation Risk And Forage Differ Between Migrant Strategies In A Migratory Ungulate, Mark Hebblewhite, Evelyn Merrill

Wildlife Biology Faculty Publications

Trade-offs between predation risk and forage fundamentally drive resource selection by animals. Among migratory ungulates, trade-offs can occur at large spatial scales through migration, which allows an "escape'' from predation, but trade-offs can also occur at finer spatial scales. Previous authors suggest that ungulates will avoid predation risk at the largest scale, although few studies have examined multi-scale trade-offs to test for the relative benefits of risk avoidance across scales. Building on previously developed spatial models of forage and wolf predation risk, we tested for trade-offs at the broad landscape scale and at a finer, within-home-range scale for migratory and …

Using Labeled Data To Evaluate Change Detectors In A Multivariate Streaming Environment, Albert Y. Kim, Caren Marzban, Donald B. Percival, Werner Stuetzle

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

We consider the problem of detecting changes in a multivariate data stream. A change detector is defined by a detection algorithm and an alarm threshold. A detection algorithm maps the stream of input vectors into a univariate detection stream. The detector signals a change when the detection stream exceeds the chosen alarm threshold. We consider two aspects of the problem: (1) setting the alarm threshold and (2) measuring/comparing the performance of detection algorithms. We assume we are given a segment of the stream where changes of interest are marked. We present evidence that, without such marked training data, it might …

U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Liability Survey: Inaccurate, Unfair, And Bad For Business, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce uses its Survey of State Liability to criticize judiciaries and seek legal change but no detailed evaluation of the survey’s quality exists. This article presents evidence that the survey is substantively inaccurate and methodologically flawed. It incorrectly characterizes state law; respondents provide less than 10 percent correct answers for objectively verifiable responses. It is internally inconsistent; a state threatened with judicial hellhole status ranked first in the survey while venues not on the list ranked lower. The absence of correlation between survey rankings and observable activity suggests that other factors drive the rankings. Two factors …

Attempted Cloning Of A Wnt Gene From Botrylloides Violaceus, Manasa Chandra, James Tumulak

Biological Sciences

Botrylloides violaceus is a colonial ascidian with the ability to undergo sexual and asexual reproduction as well as regeneration. The canonical pathway starts with the extracellular protein Wnt and ends with β-catenin, a transcription factor, which also functions in cell adhesion. The Wnt signaling pathway is involved in embryogenesis and regeneration in a variety of other species. In our studies we attempt to isolate and sequence both a Wnt gene and from Botrylloides via degenerate primer design and PCR. Using bioinformatic methods we aligned sequences from other organisms, as the Botrylloides genome has not yet been sequenced. Using mouse, Ciona, …

Learning Condition-Specific Networks, Sushmita Roy

Computer Science ETDs

Condition-specific cellular networks are networks of genes and proteins that describe functional interactions among genes occurring under different environmental conditions. These networks provide a systems-level view of how the parts-list (genes and proteins) interact within the cell as it functions under changing environmental conditions and can provide insight into mechanisms of stress response, cellular differentiation and disease susceptibility. The principle challenge, however, is that cellular networks remain unknown for most conditions and must be inferred from activity levels of genes (mRNA levels) under different conditions. This dissertation aims to develop computational approaches for inferring, analyzing and validating cellular networks of …

Major Airline Pilot Hiring, Low Cost Versus Legacy, Daniel Lang

Theses and Dissertations

There are 15 major airlines and 15 different types of initial pilot selection processes. Airlines generally publish low minimum application requirements in order to comply with non discrimination laws in the United States. However, most applicants will have far exceeded these minimums in order to be competitive. As airlines become more selective, their applicant pool becomes smaller resulting in a more homogenous group. Since all major airlines draw from this relatively small homogenous group, why does every airline have a different selection process? Most major airlines administer written and or computer tests, simulator evaluations, psychological tests, and aeronautical knowledge tests. …

The Embodied Mind In Early Development: Sitting Postural Control And Visual Attention In Infants With Typical Development And Infants With Delays, Regina T. Harbourne

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

As infants learn to sit between the ages of 5 and 8 months, they undergo many changes in their bodies as well as in their minds, creating conditions for the emergence of skills that allow greater interaction with their environment. The present study focused on the interaction of developing postural control in sitting with cognition, exemplifying the concept of the embodied mind. Look time, or the time an infant looks at an object, served as a proxy for the construct of cognitive processing. Three experiments examined developmental changes in sitting postural control and looking. The first experiment examined archival data …

Satellite-Based Estimation Of Chlorophyll-Α Concentration In Turbid Productive Waters, Wesley Moses

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Inland, coastal, and estuarine waters, which are often turbid and biologically productive, play a crucial role in maintaining global bio-diversity and are of immense value to aquatic life as well as human-beings. Concentration of chlorophyll-a (chl-a) is a key indicator of the trophic status of these waters, which should be regularly monitored to ensure that their ecological balance is not disturbed. Remote sensing is a powerful tool for this.

Due to the optical complexity of turbid productive waters, standard algorithms that use blue and green reflectances are unreliable for estimating chl-a concentration. Algorithms based on red and near-infrared (NIR) reflectances …

Fully Exponential Laplace Approximation Em Algorithm For Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models, Meijian Zhou

Department of Statistics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nonlinear mixed effects models provide a flexible and powerful platform for the analysis of clustered data that arise in numerous fields, such as pharmacology, biology, agriculture, forestry, and economics. This dissertation focuses on fitting parametric nonlinear mixed effects models with single- and multi-level random effects. A new, efficient, and accurate method that gives an error of order O(1/n²), fully exponential Laplace approximation EM algorithm (FELA-EM), for obtaining restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimates in nonlinear mixed effects models is developed. Sample codes for implementing FELA-EM algorithm in R are given. Simulation studies have been conducted to evaluate …

Canon Law, American Law, And Governance Of Catholic Schools: A Healthy Partnership, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Roman Catholic schools developed in the United States during the latter part of the 19th century partially in response to a significant wave of anti-Catholic sentiment that swept the nation. Consequently, Catholic schools were established as a kind of parallel system largely free from civil laws, as bishops, pastors, and other religious leaders were free to operate their schools largely under the Church's own internal juridical system, the Code of Canon Law. However, by the middle of the 20th century, due to a variety of demographic factors, the composition of Catholic schools began to change dramatically, particularly with regard to …

Illuminations, Fall Issue, December 2009, Ucf Libraries

Libraries' Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Seeing The Future: Biology Research Allows Undergraduates New Insight Into Their Own Futures, Merideth Krevosky, Jeffery Bowen

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Updating And Enhancing The Indiana Bridge Management System (Ibms), Kumares C. Sinha, Samuel Labi, Bobby G. Mccullouch, Abhishek Bhargava, Qiang Bai

JTRP Technical Reports

The Indiana Bridge Management System (IBMS) software package, considered one of the few bridge management system software packages in the United States, possesses several unique features such as multiple criteria analysis but has not been used to its full capabilities because of coding language, outmoded operating system, and other software-related problems. Also, the framework lacked certain considerations such as a preventive maintenance component. In addressing this issue, this study reviewed the existing internal logic of IBMS, and updated some of the cost and deterioration models to include preventive maintenance considerations in the decision tree. Also, the IBMS operating system and …

Lead Optimization Of Cox-2 Inhibitor Nimesulide Analogs To Overcome Aromatase Inhibitor Resistance In Breast Cancer Cells, Bin Su, Shiuan Chen

Chemistry Faculty Publications

A series of COX-2 selective inhibitor nimesulide derivatives were synthesized. Their anti-cell proliferation activities were evaluated with a long-term estrogen deprived MCF-7aro (LTEDaro) breast cancer cell line, which is the biological model of aromatase inhibitor resistance for hormone-dependent breast cancer. Compared to nimesulide which inhibited LTEDaro cell proliferation with an IC50 at 170.30 μM, several new compounds showed IC50 close to 1.0 μM.

An Animation Framework For Improving The Comprehension Of Tinyos Programs, Sravanthi Dandamudi

All Theses

To meet the increasing demand for monitoring of the physical world, there has been an increase in the development of wireless sensor network applications. The TinyOS platform has emerged as a de facto standard for developing these applications. The platform offers a number of advantages, with its support for concurrency, power-efficient operation, and resource-constrained hardware chief among them. However, the benefits come at a price. Even without the TinyOS platform, the inherent parallel and distributed nature of these applications makes it difficult for developers to reason about program behavior. Further, the TinyOS programming model adopts
asynchronous, split-phase execution semantics. Developers …

Thermochromic Absorption And Photoluminescence In [Pt(Ppy)(Μ-Ph2pz)]2, Aaron A. Rachford, Felix N. Castellano

Chemistry Faculty Publications

The temperature effects on the spectral properties and photophysics of a new d(8)-d(8) dinuclear Pt-II chromophore, [Pt(ppy)(mu-Ph(2)pz)](2) (ppy is 2-phenylpyridine and Ph(2)pz is 3,5-diphenylpyrazolate), have been investigated. The thermochromic shifts are tentatively ascribed to intramolecular sigma interactions between the two pseudocofacial d(Z2) orbitals. Substantial emission profile changes occur in the solid state, solution, and doped polymer films.

Modeling The Fluorescence Of Protein-Embedded Tryptophans With Ab Initio Multiconfigurational Quantum Chemistry: The Limiting Cases Of Parvalbumin And Monellin, Sara Pistolesi, Adalgisa Sinicropi, Rebecca Pogni, Riccardo Basosi, Nicolas Ferre, Massimo Olivucci

Chemistry Faculty Publications

We show that a quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics strategy based on ab initio (i.e., first principle) multiconfigurational perturbation theory can reproduce the spectral properties of a tryptophan residue embedded in the contrasting hydrophobic and hydrophilic environments of parvalbumin and monellin, respectively. We show that the observed absorption and emission energies can be reproduced with a less than 3 kcal mol(-1) error. The analysis of the computed emission energies based on a protein disassembly scheme and protein electrostatic potential mapping allows for a detailed understanding of the factors modulating the tryptophan emission. It is shown that for rnonellin, where the tryptophan is exposed to …

Notes From The Director, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgements, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Modified Newtonian Dynamics And Other Alternatives To The Theory Of Dark Matter, Crystal Red Eagle

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

The Absurdity In Samuel Beckett, Quianna Juawanda Glapion

Theses (Pre-2016)

Samuel Beckett became famous as a dramatist after his publication of Waiting for Godot in 1951. My thesis concentrates on three .of Beckett's plays. These plays place him in the Theatre of the Absurd which is one of the major movements in drama following World War II. Between 1950 and 1960 this literary movement also connected other dramatists such as Edward Albee, Harold Pinter and Jean Genet. According to Albert Camus's essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus," the work of these artists is an expression of their own personal experience and world outlook. Camus also reveals that the emotions of absurdity …

Violin Note Detector Using Digital Signal Processing, Nathaniel Kyle Mopas

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Forced Oscillations Of The Korteweg-De Vries Equation On A Bounded Domain And Their Stability, Muhammad Usman, Bingyu Zhang

Mathematics Faculty Publications

It has been observed in laboratory experiments that when nonlinear dispersive waves are forced periodically from one end of undisturbed stretch of the medium of propagation, the signal eventually becomes temporally periodic at each spatial point. The observation has been confirmed mathematically in the context of the damped Kortewg-de Vries (KdV) equation and the damped Benjamin-Bona-Mahony (BBM) equation. In this paper we intend to show the same results hold for the pure KdV equation (without the damping terms) posed on a bounded domain. Consideration is given to the initial-boundary-value problem

uu_xu_xxx 0 < x < 1, t > 0, (*)

It is shown …

The Eagleville Times,Volume 7, Issue 23, Debbie Ryan

Eagleville Times

No abstract provided.