Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Application Of Molecular Modeling In The Noncovalent Dispersion Of Carbon Nanomaterials, Praveen Kumar Madasu

Dissertations

Molecular modeling is a powerful tool to better understand the intermolecular interactions of carbon nanostructures. It provides structures and energies not easily obtainable from experiments and predicts properties that can be tested experimentally. Intermolecular interactions play an important role in the aggregation of various carbon nanomaterials. Three molecular modeling studies of carbon nanomaterial dispersions are presented in this dissertation, with an emphasis on illustrating how effective these theoretical techniques are in providing insight on the selection of dispersion additives. To achieve our goals, we employed molecular mechanics based methods, along with semi-empirical methods, and quantum mechanical methods, such as density …

A Pilot Study Of Organizational Performance, Performance Barriers And Faculty Engagement In The Nursing Education Unit, Yolanda Chapman Turner

Dissertations

This pilot study was driven by the problem of market disequilibrium and the subsequent overarching desire to identify and describe principles and processes taken by nursing education units to optimize market equilibrium for nursing service in response to cyclical market demands. Given the complexities of market responsiveness in conjunction with changes in healthcare delivery, health economics, population demographics, higher education and other contextual factors, it is essential for nursing education as a whole to be in a position to respond to demand. The purpose of this study was to investigate organizational performance, performance barriers and faculty engagement in the nursing …

A Contrast Pattern Based Clustering Quality Index For Categorical Data, Qingbao Liu, Guozhu Dong

Kno.e.sis Publications

Since clustering is unsupervised and highly explorative, clustering validation (i.e. assessing the quality of clustering solutions) has been an important and long standing research problem. Existing validity measures have significant shortcomings. This paper proposes a novel contrast pattern based clustering quality index (CPCQ) for categorical data, by utilizing the quality and diversity of the contrast patterns (CPs) which contrast the clusters in clusterings. High quality CPs can characterize clusters and discriminate them against each other. Experiments show that the CPCQ index (1) can recognize that expert-determined classes are the best clusters for many datasets from the UCI repository; (2) does …

Patent Expertise And The Regress Of Useful Arts, Andrew W. Torrance, Bill Tomlinson

Southern Illinois University Law Journal

Recent studies and findings have unveiled that patent systems may not accomplish the goal of technological progress as well as a commons system, at least in terms of innovation, productivity, and social utility.  Employing The Patent Game, a multi-user interactive simulation of patent and non-patent (commons and open source) systems, the authors of this Article are currently comparing rates of innovation, productivity, and social utility, but with expert users possessing formal expertise in patent law and open innovation.

This Article presents results of this study, which indicates no statistically significant difference in rates of innovation among a pure patent system, …

In Re Marriage Of Matchen, 866 N.E.2d 683 (Ill. App. Ct. 2007): Illinois Removal Standards Do Not Match Up With The Current National Trend, Misty Edwards

Southern Illinois University Law Journal

The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act provides that a parent who wishes to move out of the state of Illinois with a child must first petition the court for permission.  The court then bases its decision whether the child may be removed on the "best interests of the child" standard.  This Casenote examines the difficulty of applying the "best interests of the child" standard and advocates that Illinois adopt a standard favoring the present national trend: the ability of a custodial parent to move out of state unless motivated by bad faith.

High Contrast Grayscale Object Tracking Embedded System Design, Scott Donald Neally

Electrical Engineering

The purpose of this project is to prove that a real-time object-tracking camera can be implemented using the Digilent NEXYS board with Xilinx Platform Studio. With great ambition I set to implement the camera with RGB color tracking of bright green objects. This would make segmentation between the object of interest and its background much easier, allowing less stringent requirements on the background color beyond the object. Because of time restraints, the actual implementation remains as 8-bit grayscale, where the object of interest is intended to be white and highly contrasted from its black background. A simple algorithm is used …

Musicman Communications System, Dan Strengier

Electrical Engineering

The MusicMan portable music mixer is a solution for users who enjoy listening to music and would also like to communicate to friends on a walkie-talkie system. The MusicMan provides the user the ability to simultaneously listen to an MP3 player and operate a communications device, such as a walkie-talkie.

Punching Bag Trainer, Gian Delacruz

Electrical Engineering

Martial artists, such as boxers, kick boxers, and karate practitioners, use punching bags in training all the time to work on technique, speed and power but there hasn’t really been a good way to train reaction and combination speed (a combination is a string of strikes) without the aid of a training partner. Reaction and combination speed are important in competition because a faster competitor can attack successfully before his or her opponent has the time to react. This device aims to help martial artists increase reaction and combination speed through the use of randomly flashing targets attached to a …

Protected Ir Input System, Kevin Ersoy

Electrical Engineering

The result of this project is a product that may be used to apply a digital input to a system without physically touching a device. The combination of a modulated IR signal and reflective technology produces this remote actuation. The signal emitter should produce the modulated IR light, and the receiver should continuously wait for this signal to be received. If the IR signal should encounter an obstruction causing reflection at the appropriate distance, it will be reflected directly into the receiving device. This project may be extended to include multiple duplicate systems in proximity by transmitting a modulated digital …

Passivation Of Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes, Stephen A. Fehrman

Electrical Engineering

This senior project investigates various methods of packaging polymer LEDs. The polymer LEDs fabricated in the EE 422 Polymer Electronics lab use calcium cathodes. While calcium acts as an excellent low work function electrode, it quickly oxidizes in the presence of oxygen or water. Additionally, the intrusion of water can degrade the OC1C10-PPV electroluminescent polymer and the PEDOT polymer. Therefore, in order to use these devices outside the inert atmosphere of a glove box, we must first apply a passivation layer that inhibits the deterioration of these materials.

For this project I will test two packaging methods. The first method …

Anaglym: A Graphics Engine Providing Secure Execution Of Applications, Josh Holtrop

Masters Projects

"The Anaglym graphics engine uses the Lua programming language as the high-level language in which to interpret Anaglym applications. Applications running inside Anaglym are Lua scripts that have a particular environment exposed to them. By default, when Lua is embedded inside a C or C++ host application, no Lua functions are available to the hosted script. Lua functions must be exported by the host environment to be callable by a Lua script."

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. …

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 …

Effectiveness Of The Sbar Format For Teaching Communication Skills To Nursing Students Undergoing A Simulation Experience, Anna Sackette-Umess

Theses and Dissertations

The development of communication skills is considered a cornerstone of nursing education. It is vital that student nurses learn to effectively and compassionately communicate with patients and family members. It is also of utmost importance that student nurses learn to accurately communicate with other healthcare professionals, ensuring patient care and safety standards are met. The ability to develop new strategies for teaching the fundamental skills of communication, while meeting national mandates on patient safety has been challenging for nursing programs. lnc011Jorating simulation technology into curriculum has been one way in which nursing programs across the counhy are making necessary updates. …

Bard Free Press, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2009), Bard College

Bard Free Press - All Issues (2000-2018)

No abstract provided.

Rainsford Island Shoreline Evolution Study (Rises), Christopher V. Maio

Graduate Masters Theses

RISES conducted a shoreline change study in order to accurately map, quantify, and predict trends in shoreline evolution on Rainsford Island occurring from 1890-2008. It employed geographic information systems (GIS) and analytical statistical techniques to identify coastal hazard zones vulnerable to coastal erosion, rising sea-levels, and storm surges. The 11-acre Rainsford Island, located in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, consists of two eroded drumlins connected by a low-lying spit. Settled by Europeans in 1636, the Island was later used as the Harbor’s main quarantine station. Previous archeological surveys have identified numerous historically sensitive sites dating to before the Revolutionary War period, including …

On-Farm Mortality Composting In Washington State: Outreach And Producer Survey, Caitlin Price, Lynne Carpernter-Boggs, Jessica Goldberger

Journal of Extension

The WSU On-Farm Mortality Composting Project of the Biologically Intensive and Organic Agriculture (BIOAg) Program demonstrated on-farm mortality composting as an effective disposal option for routine livestock mortalities. To evaluate the impacts of the project and determine the direction of future research and outreach, Washington dairy producers currently composting farm mortalities were surveyed. Their most important sources of initial information about mortality composting were other farmers and neighbors, magazines and newspapers, and local conservation districts. Future information was preferred from a Web site and university Extension bulletin, not classes or seminars. Composting reduced mortality disposal costs for 92% of these …

Chopping And Storing Quality Corn Silage, Clark Israelsen, James Barnhill, Linden Greenhalgh, Michael Pace, Jody Gale

All Current Publications

This publication explains proper harvesting and storage of corn silage as a quality forage.

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.

Why They Stay: The Ideal Selves Of Persistent Women Engineers, Kathleen R. Buse

Student Scholarship

Women remain dramatically underrepresented in the engineering profession – and far fewer women than men persist in the field. In the first study of women who stay (vs. stray) from corporate engineering careers, we interviewed 21 long tenured female engineers and a control group of ten women who opted out of the profession after an average decade of employment to generate a grounded theory about their personal and professional “lived lives.” Women constitute only 11% of the U.S. corporate engineering workforce and remain as engineers for shorter periods of time than men. Several studies have described why women leave engineering …

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 …

An Examination Of The Organizational, Social And Psychological Climate For Individuals Infected With Or Affected By Hiv/Aids, Rashone Scott-Williams

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

An examination of the organizational, social and psychological climate for individuals infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. Enclosed is an identification of the organizational (household), social (family, spouse, friends, church, etc.) and psychological (mental health, thoughts, feelings etc.) press/environment effecting individuals diagnosed with the virus or disease. This project examines and applies the elements of Ekvall’s 10 dimensions of a creative environment for women who are infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS; the results are reflected in a Creative Climate Survey. The participants of the survey were anonymous and voluntary. The survey was distributed throughout an entire month to a …

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 …

A Medical Monitoring Claim For Asymptomatic Plaintiffs: Should Illinois Take The Plunge?, Herbert L. Zarov, Sheila Finnegan, Craig A. Woods, Stephen J. Kane

DePaul Journal of Health Care Law

No abstract provided.

Illuminations, Fall Issue, December 2009, Ucf Libraries

Libraries' Newsletters

No abstract provided.

The Banner - V. 144, No. 12 - (December 2009), Christian Reformed Church In North America

The Banner

10 - Editorial: Sooooo Busy! by Bob De Moor / 11 - Letters to the Editor / 12 - CRC News: Plantinga steps down from seminary / 17 - Frequently Asked Questions / 19 - Catch Your Breath: Streak of Grace by John Lee / 20 - The Nightmare of Christmas by James C. Schaap / 25 - Parenting: Two Little Girls by Donna Huisjen / 26 - CRC Annual Ministry Report / 41 - Dear Reader: May There Be Peace by Jerry Dykstra / 44 - Tuned In: The Truth About Fiction by Phil Christman Jr / 46 - …

Construction Law, Frank O. Brown Jr.

Mercer Law Review

This Article focuses on noteworthy construction law decisions by Georgia appellate courts between June 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009, and significant construction-related Georgia legislation and regulations during the same period.

Auction & Bidwatching, Siddharth Machiraju

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Auctions are among the oldest economic institutions in place. They have been used since antiquity to sell a wide variety of goods, and their basic form has remained unchanged. In this dissertation, we explore the efficiency of common auctions when values are interdependent- the value to a particular bidder may depend on information available only to others-and asymmetric. In this setting, it is well known that sealed-bid auctions do not achieve efficient allocations in general since they do not allow the information held by different bidders to be shared. Auction & Bid Watching concept deals with the Online Auction & …

E-Classifieds, Srikanth Adabala

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

E-classifieds is a new website developed by Business Solutions which explains the software development process of an E-Classifieds system. E-classifieds gives an opportunity to the customers to buy and sell products online. E-classifieds addresses different phases of software development process which includes use cases, class diagrams which helps in understanding the objects used in the development of E-classified system. E-classifieds replaces the conventional ways of buying and selling products. It helps consumers a virtual shopping experience using internet and allows the customers to buy and sell their goods from home.