Digital Commons Network^™

Viewing Bennett's Hierarchy From A Different Lens: Implications For Extension Program Evaluation, Rama Radhakrishna, Cathy F. Brown

Journal of Extension

This article describes the use of Bennett's hierarchy in Extension program evaluation over the last 35 years. The authors discuss how the hierarchy can be linked to assess program outcomes and related costs for each level of the hierarchy and conclude that as one moves up the hierarchy, the evidence of program impact is stronger. The authors suggest a four-step framework for identifying costs for each type of outcomes—short, intermediate, and long term.

Equivalence: A Crucial Financial Concept For Extension, Consumer, And Investor Education, Thomas J. Straka

Journal of Extension

Equivalence is a fundamental concept that is the basis of personal financial planning. Any Extension consumer financial education program would need the concept to explain financial products that involve a series of payments over some length of time (pensions, fixed annuities, and mortgages). A table of annuity factors is presented that can be used in financial planning situations to explain the impact of interest rate and time length on the cash received from these financial products. A set of examples is included to illustrate use of the table.

Midwave Infrared Quantum Dot Avalanche Photodiode, David A. Ramirez, Jiayi Shao, Majeed M. Hayat, Sanjay Krishna

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

We report the first demonstration of a GaAs based avalanche photodiode (APD) operating in the midwave infrared region . In the device, called the quantum dot avalanche photodiode, an intersubband quantum dots-in-a-well detector is coupled with an APD through a tunnel barrier. Using this approach, we have increased the photocurrent and reached a conversion efficiency of 12%, which is one of the highest reported conversion efficiencies for any quantum dot detector.

Profiling Community Gardeners, Thomas W. Blaine, Parwinder S. Grewal, Ashley Dawes, Darrin Snider

Journal of Extension

A profile of participants in an Extension urban community gardening program reveals that the program is successful in bringing together a large number of people from diverse income and age groups. Community gardening contributes to a change in diet among 3/f4 of both new and continuing gardeners. Time spent in the garden per week is a function of number of years in the program, income, diet, whether the gardener donates produce to charity, and time taken to respond to the survey. Inclusion of the latter variable provided for control of potential non-response bias.

Habitat-Based Management Planning For Land Stewards, Juliana Barrett, John Rozum

Journal of Extension

We offer a habitat-based management planning tool as the critical next step, after acquisition, in sustaining the ecological value of conservation lands, including a methodology for the identification of common habitats. Many land trusts and municipalities have acquired large portfolios of properties that are now permanently protected. Even though the land is protected from future development, surrounding land use pressures, invasive species, and other factors may cause drastic changes to these properties. Management of these areas is often necessary to sustain or improve particular habitats or to manage for specific species.

The Essential Structure Of Compulsive Buying: A Phenomenological Inquiry, Letty Workman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

While many jokes and sales of specialty merchandise have been made that make light of consumers who frequently shop and buy (e.g., "When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping," or "I am a shopaholic"), for 18 million Americans suffering from compulsive buying, the process of shopping and buying has caused their lives to literally go out of control. The outcomes of this disease for individuals, families, and business are all negative. In a marketing era of social responsibility, if marketers either knowingly or unknowingly encourage increased consumption among compulsive buyers, potential negative outcomes stand to impact others well …

Assessing Linkages Among Landscape Characteristics, Stream Habitat, And Macroinvertebrate Communities In The Idaho Batholith Ecoregion, Andrew C. Hill

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Understanding the composition of lotic communities and the landscape processes and habitat characteristics that shape them is one of the main challenges confronting stream ecologists. In order to better understand the linkages among landscape processes, stream habitat, and biological communities and to understand how accurately our measurements represent important factors influencing biological communities, it is important to test explicit hypotheses regarding these linkages. Increasing our understanding of aquatic communities in a hierarchical context and recognizing how well our measurements represent factors structuring aquatic communities will help managers better evaluate the influence of land management practices on aquatic ecosystems, direct conservation …

Toward The Validation Of Depth-Averaged, Steady-State Simulations Of Fluvial Flows Using Three-Dimensional, Steady-State, Rans Turbulence Models, Pedro Abdiel Mateo Villanueva

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Calculations of fluvial flows are strongly influenced by geometry complexity and large overall uncertainty on every single measurable property, such as velocity and shear. Moreover, a considerable portion of the data obtained from computational simulations arose from two-dimensional, steady-state models. The present work states a different approach to perform computer-based simulations and analyze fluvial flows. For the first part, the suitability of OpenFOAM to be used as the main CFD solver to analyze fluvial flows is studied. Initially, two well documented channel configurations are computationally studied using OpenFOAM. Finally, these results are compared to the output obtained from one of …

Residential Landscape Water Check Programs: Exploring A Conservation Tool, Diana T. Glenn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In response to drought and regional growth in the arid western United States, urban water demand management is increasingly important. Single family residences use approximately 60% of their water consumption to irrigate landscapes often in excess of plant water requirements. This study utilized a quasi-experimental design to investigate outdoor water consumption and assess the effectiveness of a landscape water check conservation program. Study objectives included describing a contextualized landscape system to reveal variables influencing water use, identifying better ways to evaluate landscape water use, and more effectively targeting and delivering water conservation programs.

The study was conducted during the 2004 …

The Usu Tree Inventory Website: A Case Study Of An Interactive Online Woody Plant Education Resource, Benjamin W. Harris

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The USU tree inventory website is an interactive, online tree education resource that I developed to allow students and community members to locate, identify and learn about trees on the USU campus. Students in two USU courses that teach woody plant material used the website during one semester and were surveyed about their experience. Less than half of the students accessed the website, but those that did found it useful as a supplement to traditional instruction. Most students were likely to recommend the website to another person and to use the website in the future.

Xpath-Based Template Language For Describing The Placement Of Metadata Within A Document, Vijay Kumar Musham

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

In the recent years, there has been a tremendous growth in Internet and online resources that had previously been restricted to paper archives. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tools can be used for digitalizing an existing corpus and making it available online. A number of federal agencies, universities, laboratories, and companies are placing their collections online and making them searchable via metadata fields such as author, title, and publishing organization. Manually creating metadata for a large collection is an extremely time-consuming task, and is difficult to automate, particularly for collections consisting of documents with diverse layout and structure. The Extract project …

Study On Intumescent Flame Retarded Polystyrene Composites With Improved Flame Retardancy, Hongdian Lu, Charles A. Wilkie

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

The flame retardancy and thermal stability of ammonium polyphosphate/tripentaerythritol (APP/TPE) intumescent flame retarded polystyrene composites (PS/IFR) combined with organically-modified layered inorganic materials (montmorillonite clay and zirconium phosphate), nanofiber (multiwall carbon nanotubs), nanoparticle (Fe₂O₃) and nickel catalyst were evaluated by cone calorimetry, microscale combustion calorimetry (MCC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Cone calorimetry revealed that a small substitution of IFR by most of these fillers (≤2%) imparted substantial improvement in flammability performance. The montmorillonite clay exhibited the highest efficiency in reducing the peak heat release rate of PS/IFR composite, while zirconium phosphate modified with C₂₁H_{26 …}

Health Care In The United States: A Right Or Commodity?, Aaron Lloyd

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Decentralized State Feedback And Near Optimal Adaptive Neural Network Control Of Interconnected Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems, Shahab Mehraeen, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, first a novel decentralized state feedback stabilization controller is introduced for a class of nonlinear interconnected discrete-time systems in affine form with unknown subsystem dynamics, control gain matrix, and interconnection dynamics by employing neural networks (NNs). Subsequently, the optimal control problem of decentralized nonlinear discrete-time system is considered with unknown internal subsystem and interconnection dynamics while assuming that the control gain matrix is known. For the near optimal controller development, the direct neural dynamic programming technique is utilized to solve the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation forward-in-time. The decentralized optimal controller design for each subsystem utilizes the critic-actor structure …

Newbery Award Winning Books 1975–2009: How Do They Portray Disabilities?, Melissa Leininger, Tina Taylor, Mary Anne Prater, Melissa Allen Heath

Faculty Publications

Newbery books represent quality literature that has a profound social-emotional impact on its readers, yet these books have not been systematically evaluated for their portrayal of characters with disabilities. Thirty-one Newbery Award and Honor books from 1975–2009 were identified and portrayed 41 main or supporting characters with disabilities. These books were evaluated using the Rating Scale for Quality Characterizations of Individuals with Disabilities in Children’s Literature. Results indicate the representation of Newbery characters with disabilities is not proportionate to the current U.S. population of students with disabilities. Further, racial representation portrayed in these books is not representative of the diverse …

Olfactory Mate Choice And Potential Chemical Signals Of The White-Throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia Albicollis), Peter Sebastian

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chemical odor signals are well documented in mammals, and yet almost nothing is known about the use of chemical odor signals in birds due to the traditional view that birds have a no sense or a poor sense of smell. Recent studies have revealed the traditional view to be unfounded, but more work is necessary to 1) expand our knowledge of avian olfaction in passerine species and 2) determine whether birds utilize chemical signals. The aim of this thesis was to 1) test for olfactory-based choice in a passerine species, and examine the chemical composition of preen oil for potential …

Environmental Conditions Of Green Valley Lake, Jennifer Bellamy

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Green Valley Lake, western Indiana, has experienced periodic inputs of acid mine drainage (AMD) from the abandoned Green Valley Coal Mine. The lake serves as a state fishing area, and AMD inputs may affect the aquatic ecosystem and human health. The purpose of this research is to determine to what extent the sediments in Green Valley Lake are acting as sinks for metals and if they may impact water quality. Water and bottom sediment samples were taken throughout the lake to evaluate spatial variability of contamination and to determine how the metal concentrations compared to Post Archean Average Shale (PAAS) …

Self-Discrepancies, Symbolic Self-Completion, And The Role Of Possessions In The Transition From High School To College, Ashlee Lochbaum

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to explore some of the ways that possessions may be used symbolically to aid adjustment in first-semester freshmen who are transitioning to college. Based on prior literature, the transition to college is often accompanied by self-discrepancies which may be alleviated through symbolic self-completion using possessions. Overall, 219 students participated in this study. Results indicate that first-semester freshmen, as well as upperclassmen students, rely on the symbolic use of possessions in both managing negative affect and symbolizing the ideal college student identity. Furthermore, managing affect through the use of feeling regulators was found to …

Senior Athletic Training Students' Perceptions And Self-Reported Behaviors Of Evidence-Based Practice, Gregory P. Schneider

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Title: Senior Athletic Training Student‟s Perceptions and Self-Reported Behaviors of Evidence-Based Practice Context: Entry-level athletic training education is currently transitioning to include evidence-based practice (EBP) into their curriculums to continue to establish athletic training as a prestigious allied health profession. Objective: To determine senior athletic training student (SATS) perceptions of EBP and examine the self-reported behaviors of EBP to gain insight into the instructional methods currently used to educate athletic training students in EBP as the method of delivering care to patients. Design: Grounded theory study Setting: Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education accredited undergraduate athletic training programs. Participants: …

The Current Situation Of Supply Chain Management And Technology Structure At Al-Hassan Industrial Estate In Jordan, Mahmoud Alodeh

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: countries all over the world have competed to develop their economies through different methods. One of the ways is enhancing Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM). The Jordanian government is one of the governments that found out that if it needs to improve the Jordanian economy it has to improve the supply chain management (SCM) in almost every aspect of life. Problem: The current status of the use of information systems for LSCM at Al-Hassan Industrial Estate (AIE), and the current enterprises’ policies for LSCM were not known. Purpose: The study aimed to answer the following questions: What are …

2-D Path Planning For Direct Laser Deposition Process, Swathi Routhu, Divya Kanakanala, Jianzhong Ruan, Xiaoqing Frank Liu, Frank Liou

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The zigzag and offset path have been the two most popular path patterns for tool movement in machining process. Different from the traditional machining processes, the quality of parts produced by the metal deposition process is much more dependent upon the choice of deposition paths. Due to the nature of the metal deposition processes, various tool path patterns not only change the efficiency but also affect the deposition height, a critical quality for metal deposition process. This paper presents the research conducted on calculating zigzag pattern to improve efficiency by minimizing the idle path. the deposition height is highly dependent …

Large Group Delay In A Microwave Metamaterial Analog Of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency, Lei Zhang, Philippe Tassin, Thomas Koschny, Cihan Kurter, Steven M. Anlage, C. M. Soukoulis

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We report on our experimental work concerning a planar metamaterial exhibiting classical electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Using a structure with two mirrored split-ring resonators as the dark element and a cut wire as the radiative element, we demonstrate that an EIT-like resonance can be achieved without breaking the symmetry of the structure. The mirror symmetry of the metamaterial's structural element results in a selection rule inhibiting magnetic dipole radiation for the dark element, and the increased quality factor leads to low absorption (<10%) and large group index (of the order of 30).

Transient Fluid Flow Phenomena During Continuous Casting: Part I-Cast Start, Yufeng Wang, Lifeng Zhang

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This work presents a three-dimensional numerical simulation of transient fluid flow phenomena during continuous casting of steel. in the Part I, the process of cast start was investigated. Cast start involved the filling process and the caster start process. in the filling process, molten steel was continuously filled into the mold cavity with surrounding mold walls and a dummy bar head at the bottom. to simulate the interface between the molten steel and the air, an algorithm of volume of fluid has been employed. in the cast start process, the dummy bar was gradually dragged out with a low casting …

A Simple Model To Calculate Dendrite Growth Rate During Steel Continuous Casting Process, Mujun Long, Lifeng Zhang, Fei Lu

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the current paper, the relationship between the casting speed and the dendrite growth during steel continuous casting process was studied; and a simple mathematical model to calculate the primary dendrite growth rate according to the casting speed was developed. the model was used to predict the distribution of the dendrite growth rate along width direction and casting direction during a continuous casting process, indicating a dendrite growth rate of 0.1-3.0 mm/s, which is much higher than that in regular ingot casting. the dendrite growth rate fluctuates along casting direction because of the different cooling intensity in each zone of …

Introducing Creativity In The Ensemble Setting: National Standards Meet Comprehensive Musicianship, Charles E. Norris

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article explores realistic ways with which ensemble conductors can facilitate the conceptual acquisition of their students via creative activities. Creativity, as included in the National Standards, is presented through the “eyes” of comprehensive musicianship.

The Effect Of Taxes On Multinational Debt Location, Matteo P. Arena, Andrew H. Roper

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

We provide new evidence that differences in international tax rates and tax regimes affect multinational firms' debt location decisions. Our sample contains 8287 debt issues from 2437 firms headquartered in 23 different countries with debt-issuing subsidiaries in 59 countries. We analyze firms' marginal decisions of where to issue debt to investigate the influence of a comprehensive set of tax-related effects, including differences in personal and corporate tax rates, tax credit and exemption systems, and bi-lateral cross-country withholding taxes on interest and dividend payments. Our results show that differences in personal and corporate tax rates, the presence of dividend imputation or …

Provide Visual Structure For Students With Asd, Tina Taylor

Faculty Publications

World renowned animal scientist and autism self-advocate Temple Grandin said, "People on the autism/Asperger spectrum have uneven skills. They are often good at one type of learning and bad at another. Educators need to work on building up the area of strength." She explains that three cognitive areas of strength are those who are visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, and word thinkers. Visual thinkers are more inclined to think in pictures rather than words. They may excel in graphic design, industrial design, animation, geometry, or trigonometry. Pattern thinkers have abstract visual thoughts where they can see patterns and relationships between numbers. …

Recent Development Of Via Models: Hybrid Circuit And Field Analysis, Yaojiang Zhang, Jun Fan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Via-plate interaction can be modeled as lumped circuits for vias and a two-dimensional field problem for the plate domain. the accuracy of the improved intrinsic via model and the conventional physics-Based via model is investigated by comparing them with either analytical formula or numerical simulations for a via in a circular plate pair with various edge boundary conditions. It is found that the intrinsic via model matches very well with both the analytical formula and numerical solutions in all the examples studied. However, the physics-Based via model is only an acceptable approximation at low frequencies and its accuracy is not …

Applying Feature Selective Validation (Fsv) As An Objective Function For Data Optimization, Siming Pan, Hanfeng Wang, Jun Fan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Feature Select Validation (FSV) is a widely used validation method for data comparison. FSV provides a quantitative standard to describe the similarity between two sets of data. in this paper, the application of the FSV technique is extended to data optimization. the raw data obtained from simulations or measurements are often non-ideal for further processing. Several techniques, such as data perturbation, can be used to improve the data quality in certain aspects. However, after modifications the new data could be very different to the original one. using FSV as an objective function for the optimization process is discussed in this …

Efficient Mid-Frequency Plane Inductance Computation, Fan Zhou, Albert E. Ruehli, Jun Fan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In power distribution networks (PDN), the modelling of the mid-frequency inductance for Zpp type plane pairs is very important. It is a key step for the placement of the decoupling capacitors. This paper gives an efficient approach for the calculation of the inductance for different capacitor placements. the PEEC based formulations takes advantage of the opposite currents in the planes. This leads to compute time reductions and memory savings for both the element calculation and the matrix solve step. We also use a formulation where placement of capacitors leads to only small changes in the circuit matrix. Comparisons with other …