Digital Commons Network^™

A Logic Formulation For The Qca Cell Arrangement Problem, Marc Stewart Orr

Dissertations and Theses

Some people believe that IC densities are approaching the fundamental limits inherent to semiconductor technologies. One alternative to semiconductors is Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA); QCA is a nanotechnology that offers the potential to build denser IC's that switch at higher frequencies and run on lower power. QCA's most basic building block, the QCA cell, is inherently binary; digital circuits are implemented by arranging these QCA cells in pre-defined configurations on a two dimensional plane. This paper proposes a logic formulation that describes arranging QCA cells on a two dimensional plane; it is presented as a set of rules that can …

A Cross Sectional Exploratory Study Of The New York State Global History/ Geography Regents, 2001-2007, Patrick J. Darfler-Sweeney

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

.

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of A Professional Development Program On Teacher Knowledge And Practice To Address Adolescent Health Issues, Narima Aliya Shahabudeen

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

.

Determinants Of A Professor's Decision To Include Service-Learning In An Academic Course, Miriam Lyons Frolow

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

.

The Use Of Mortgage-Backed Securities In International Comparative Perspective: Lessons And Insights, Csaba Rusznak

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The secondary mortgage market in the United States has helped millions of people purchase homes over the past half century. Following the burst of the real estate bubble and the credit crisis, it is important for American policymakers not to lose sight of the importance that the secondary mortgage market has played in increasing home ownership. The financial engineering in the form of securitization that led to the success of the secondary mortgage market needs to be preserved, although it should also be reworked so that the externalization of unappreciated risk is reduced and the possibility of a large-scale financial …

Keeping It Green: Using A Compost To Improve Student Learning, Spencer Mesick, Kayla Hendrix

Iowa Science Teachers Journal

This article discusses ways in which composting might be used to mentally engage students with science content. Incorporating a compost pile in the classroom provides ample connections to future science content (e.g., conditions necessary for the life of organisms in a well running aerobic compost, what decomposition means in a biological sense, aerobic vs. anaerobic decomposition, food webs, respiration, recycling of nutrients, landfill issues, etc.). Also, reflecting the complexities of effective science teaching, the article makes clear the crucial role of the teacher during the activity. The science content and activity addressed in this article are appropriate for 9th - …

When Dissatisfaction Is A Good Thing, Michael P. Clough, Jerrid Kruse

Iowa Science Teachers Journal

Our previous editorial (Clough and Kruse, 2010) in the Iowa Science Teacher Journal used conceptual change theory (Posner, 1982; Pintrich et al., 1993; Abd-El-Khalick & Akerson, 2004; Clough, 2006) to highlight the similarities between students learning science content and educators learning to teach well. An important part of conceptual change is first acknowledging and then confronting current ways of thinking. That is, before learners (whether children or adults) will consider altering their thinking, they must first develop some sense of dissatisfaction with their currently held ideas. That can be difficult because the ideas people hold do appear to work — …

New Media Globalization In Asia: The Online Game Industries Of South Korea, Singapore, And China, Peichi Chung

Iowa Journal of Communication

This paper examines the emerging media flow in the new media economy of Asia by focusing on the networking of media exchange among three growing production centers. It argues that the nation-state has come to play an increasingly important role in the development of a pan-Asian cultural economy in the online gaming industries of Asia. New cultural production centers have created a rising regional growth corridor between South Korea, Singapore and China. This paper concludes that this emerging growth corridor in Asia redefines the power relationship between core and periphery in the global media industry in ways that affect the …

Iowa Journal Of Communication, Volume 42, Number 1, Fall 2010 [Download Entire Issue]

Iowa Journal of Communication

No abstract provided.

Improving Predicted Protein Loop Structure Ranking Using A Pareto-Optimality Consensus Method, Yaohang Li, Ionel Rata, See-Wing Chiu, Erik Jakobsson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Background

Accurate protein loop structure models are important to understand functions of many proteins. Identifying the native or near-native models by distinguishing them from the misfolded ones is a critical step in protein loop structure prediction.

Results

We have developed a Pareto Optimal Consensus (POC) method, which is a consensus model ranking approach to integrate multiple knowledge- or physics-based scoring functions. The procedure of identifying the models of best quality in a model set includes: 1) identifying the models at the Pareto optimal front with respect to a set of scoring functions, and 2) ranking them based on the fuzzy …

Comparison And Application Of Three Decorrelation Methods Pca, Maf And Acdc, Jacqueline Ferreira

Theses : Honours

Geostatistics is a branch of applied mathematics that deals with spatially correlated data. Analysing and modelling spatially correlated data can be difficult and time consuming, especially for a multivariate data set. One of the techniques used to make analysis and modelling easier involves decorrelation, whereby a linear transformation on the sample variables is used to associate the spatially correlated variables with a set of decorrelated factors which are statistically and spatially independent. PCA was one of the first multivariate techniques and is mostly used as a data reduction technique. A popular alternative decorrelation technique often used in the mining industry …

Impact Of Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements On Nteu Membership Density, Tulsi Laxman Panchani

Theses : Honours

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is the only union working entirely in tertiary education around Australia. The union has over twenty four thousand members comprising of academic and general staff. NTEU maintains membership records at three levels, national, state and branch. The information collected includes gender, age group, employment type and work classification. In late April 2005, Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs) legislation was introduced by the Australian government. This legislation imposed restrictions on the interaction between the universities and the union and also curtailed an automatic involvement of the union in the resolution of workplace issues. The …

The Relationship Between Amount Of Training And Performance On A New Task, Jacinta Avril Tan

Theses : Honours

This paper was designed to examine the relationship between training and transfer tasks and performance on these tasks whereby training can be used to predict transfer. Previous research has assumed that performance of an established task should extrapolate the power function of learning. That is, performance of an established skill in a new domain will continue to improve at the same rate with practice as if there was no change in the domain. 60 participants were recruited from the University of Edith Cowan and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions; I 0 block condition, 20 block condition, or …

The Analysis Of Composition Techniques In Utp_: Synthetic Composition For Electroacoustic Ensembles, Kynan Tan

Theses : Honours

This thesis attempts to analyse and describe a number of spectrally oriented composition techniques for composing music for electroacoustic ensemble. These techniques aim to achieve a synthetic approach to combining electronic and acoustic sound sources in live performance. To achieve this, an in-depth analysis of utp_ (2008) by Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto in collaboration with Ensemble Modern is conducted. utp_ utilises a large acoustic ensemble, live electronic processing, prerecorded electronic sound and video projections in performance. The discussion also queries the possible problems of electroacoustic performance, and examines ways to resolve the most prevalent issues. This involves a discussion …

Re-Designing The 'Great Australian Dream': Creating A More Sustainable Housing Future, Eko Pam

Theses : Honours

Sustainable design is a buzzword in the field of architecture, yet very few houses built in Western Australia last year had an environmentally friendly focus. Through much debate and research, designers now have a thorough understanding of the environmental impact ofhousing (Kibert, 2005; Roaf, 2001; Yeang, 1995). The result is that architects worldwide are now offering a more sustainable housing model. These houses are expensive and look very different to the popular project homes. Despite this environmental awareness, the homes Western Australians build appear to be growing larger, with little regard for their future sustainability. There is reluctance among Australians …

The Experience Of Retirement For Individuals With An Intellectual Disability, Megan Flowers

Theses : Honours

Retirement is a significant life transition that affects all workers; it is therefore important that individuals in the workforce are aware of the issues that can occur during the retirement years. The retirement experience has been researched in depth, however studies into the experience of retirement for individuals with an intellectual disability is severely lacking. Robert Atchley researched the factors that facilitate successful retirement adjustment for individuals in the normative population; this narrative review discusses these factors in relation to the barriers that individuals with an intellectual disability face in achieving a smooth retirement adjustment. The results found that: individuals …

The Seventeenth-Century Battaglie For Lute In Italy, Aiden Deasy

Theses : Honours

Italy had been the theatre of war for centuries. Political fragmentation ignited dynastic rivalries, carving out powerful autonomous city-states whose leaders amassed within their courts artists, musicians and writers in order to chronicle their military, religious and political vision. The musical depictions of particular military exploits, or battaglia, became popular springboards for colourful, programmatic compositions. These works were often performed in public in order to garner support for campaigns. Originally a vocal genre whose distant relative can be traced back to the caccia, or hunting song, the battaglie were often transcribed for instruments, in particular the lute, thus …

Application Of The Theory Of Planned Behaviour To Career Choice: The Role Of An Improved Measure Of Emotion, Saveta Tegova

Theses : Honours

Adherents of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) propose that intention to perform behaviour can be predicted by attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Recent studies, however, have indicated that the standard TPB predictor variables account for 28% to 40% of the variance in intention, leaving a considerable percentage of the variance in intentions to be explained. Attitude is traditionally measured by the valence associated with the intention. The present study employed an improved measure of attitude, including both emotional dimensions of valence and arousal (Bradley & Lang, 1999), rather than using valence alone, and tested whether this enhanced …

Motivated Learning As An Extension Of Reinforcement Learning, Janusz Starzyk, Pawel Raif, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We have developed a unified framework to conduct computational experiments with both learning systems: Motivated learning based on Goal Creation System, and reinforcedment learning using RL Q-Learning Algorithm. Future work includes combining motivated learning to set abstract motivations and manage goals with reinforcement learning to learn proper actions. This will allow testing of motivated learning on typical reinforcement learning benchmarks with large dimensionality of the state/action spaces.

A Boosting Framework For Visuality-Preserving Distance Metric Learning And Its Application To Medical Image Retrieval, Yang Liu, Rong Jin, Lily Mummert, Rahul Sukthankar, Adam Goode, Bin Zheng, Steven C. H. Hoi, Mahadev Satyanarayanan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Similarity measurement is a critical component in content-based image retrieval systems, and learning a good distance metric can significantly improve retrieval performance. However, despite extensive study, there are several major shortcomings with the existing approaches for distance metric learning that can significantly affect their application to medical image retrieval. In particular, "similarity" can mean very different things in image retrieval: resemblance in visual appearance (e.g., two images that look like one another) or similarity in semantic annotation (e.g., two images of tumors that look quite different yet are both malignant). Current approaches for distance metric learning typically address only one …

The Design And Implementation Of An Extensible Brain-Computer Interface, Scott Burns

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

An implantable brain computer interface: BCI) includes tissue interface hardware, signal conditioning circuitry, analog-to-digital conversion: ADC) circuitry and some sort of computing hardware to discriminate desired waveforms from noise. Within an experimental paradigm the tissue interface and ADC hardware will rarely change. Recent literature suggests it is often the specific implementation of waveform discrimination that can limit the usefulness and lifespan of a particular BCI design. If the discrimination techniques are implemented in on-board software, experimenters gain a level of flexibility not currently available in published designs. To this end, I have developed a firmware library to acquire data sampled …

Statistical Design And Imaging Of Position-Encoded 3d Microarrays, Pinaki Sarder

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

We propose a three-dimensional microarray device with microspheres having controllable positions for error-free target identification. Here targets: such as mRNAs, proteins, antibodies, and cells) are captured by the microspheres on one side, and are tagged by nanospheres embedded with quantum-dots: QDs) on the other. We use the lights emitted by these QDs to quantify the target concentrations. The imaging is performed using a fluorescence microscope and a sensor. We conduct a statistical design analysis to select the optimal distance between the microspheres as well as the optimal temperature. Our design simplifies the imaging and ensures a desired statistical performance for …

Arsenic Removal From Drinking Water By Electrocoagulation, Wei Wan

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Exposure to arsenic through drinking water poses a threat to human health. Electrocoagulation is an emerging water treatment technology that involves electrolytic oxidation of anode materials and in-situ generation of coagulant. Electrocoagulation is an alternative to using chemical coagulants for arsenic removal and thus is beneficial for communities with better access to electricity than to chemicals.

Synthesis Of Complex Plasmonic Nanostructures For Applications In Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy And Biomedicine, Claire Cobley

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This research centers around techniques to engineer the properties of noble-metal nanostructures for applications in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy: SERS) and biomedicine. Many of these potential applications are made possible by the strong localized surface plasmon resonance: LSPR) of noble-metal nanostructures, which is heavily influenced by the particle's morphology. The first part of this work focuses on the solution-phase synthesis of Ag nanostructures. In this section, I demonstrate the synthesis of Ag nanostructures with two different morphologies that are interesting for fundamental SERS studies: anisotropically truncated octahedrons and large, single-crystalline spheres. In both syntheses, control over etching was critical to morphological …

Magnetic Resonance Imaging And Surface-Based Analysis Techniques To Quantify Growth Of The Developing Brain, Andrew Knutsen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Human brains, and those of most higher mammals, are gyrencephalic: folded) to accommodate a large cortical surface within the limited volume of the skull. Abnormal folding of the cerebral cortex in humans is associated with a number of neurological dysfunctions and diseases such as schizophrenia and Williams syndrome. To understand the mechanism of gyrification, and to illuminate the underlying causes of abnormal folding, objective, quantitative methods to characterize normal and abnormal development must be developed. The ferret is an excellent model in which to study the development of convolutions in the brain because folding occurs post-natally over a period of …

A Study Of Published Journal Articles On Brain-Based Learning From 1985 To 2009, Janece Shaffer

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Educators are required to implement scientifically-based research interventions in their classrooms, but teachers and administrators may not be aware of the current laws and requirements of NCLB legislation. NCLB (2001) requires that educators implement research-based interventions. Brain-based learning programs have been implemented in classrooms throughout the country, even though the research base for such programs may be inadequate. This study presents the results of educational database searches for empirical studies involving brain-based or brain-compatible learning published in educational journals between 1985 and 2009. A total of 77 articles on brain-based learning were published during this time period but only 5 …

Far-Field Optical Nanoscopy Based On Continuous Wave Laser Stimulated Emission Depletion, C. Kuang, Wei Zhao, Guiren Wang

Faculty Publications

Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy is one of the breakthrough technologies that belong to far-field optical microscopy and can achieve nanoscale spatial resolution. We demonstrate a far-field optical nanoscopy based on continuous wave lasers with different wavelengths, i.e., violet and green lasers for excitation and STED, respectively. Fluorescent dyes Coumarin 102 and Atto 390 are used for validating the depletion efficiency. Fluorescent nanoparticles are selected for characterizing the spatial resolution of the STED system. Linear scanning of the laser beams of the STED system along one line of a microscope slide, which is coated with the nanoparticles, indicates that a …

Structural Health Monitoring With Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors—Predictive Modeling And Simulation, Victor Giurgiutiu

Faculty Publications

This paper starts a review of the state of the art in structural health monitoring with piezoelectric wafer active sensors and follows with highlighting the limitations of the current approaches which are predominantly experimental. Subsequently, the paper examines the needs for developing a predictive modeling methodology that would allow to perform extensive parameter studies to determine the sensing method’s sensitivity to damage and insensitivity to confounding factors such as environmental changes, vibrations, and structural manufacturing variability. The thesis is made that such a predictive methodology should be multi-scale and multi-domain, thus encompassing the modeling of structure, sensors, electronics, and power …

Structural Health Monitoring With Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors--Predictive Modeling And Simulation, Victor Giurgiutiu

Faculty Publications

This paper starts a review of the state of the art in structural health monitoring with piezoelectric wafer active sensors and follows with highlighting the limitations of the current approaches which are predominantly experimental. Subsequently, the paper examines the needs for developing a predictive modeling methodology that would allow to perform extensive parameter studies to determine the sensing method’s sensitivity to damage and insensitivity to confounding factors such as environmental changes, vibrations, and structural manufacturing variability. The thesis is made that such a predictive methodology should be multi-scale and multi-domain, thus encompassing the modeling of structure, sensors, electronics, and power …

Affirmative Action Plan 2010, Office Of Equal Opportunity, Ethics, & Access

Affirmative Action Plans

Illinois State University Affirmative Action Plan