Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing And Modeling Student Academic Practices And Performance In First-Year Mathematics Courses In Higher Education, Kim Ward, Chantal Larose

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objectives: This research brief explores literature addressing developmental education to identify successful interventions in first-year math courses in higher education. Our goal is to describe the relationship between students’ academic practices and their final course grade in their first-year math courses. Method: Data on 3,249 students have been gathered and analyzed using descriptive statistics and predicative analytics. We describe the Math program, which includes a supplemental support component, and the environment under which it was created. We then examine the behavior between students’ participation in supplemental support and their academic performance. Results: We used classification and regression tree algorithms to …

The Legacy Of Cotton: A Geographical Perspective On The Influence Of Traditionalist Politics In Mississippi, William Edward Stephen Cottrell

Theses and Dissertations

It was hypothesized that the socialspatial dialectic (location, education, politics and race) contributes to Mississippi’s low livability ranking. Regression models were employed using race, student funding rates, high school graduation rates, property tax, and voter turnout in the 82 counties as variables. The research found evidence that Blacks have lower graduation rates than Whites and property tax has a significant effect on voter participation at the gamma = .001 level. Social capital disadvantage seems to reside within both races with voter participation, property tax rates, and school funding being more pronounced with Whites. Results suggest that political capital should not …

Peripheral And Placental Immunology In The Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (Fiv)-Infected Cat Model, Crystal Elizabeth Boudreaux

Theses and Dissertations

We are using the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)-infected cat to model HIV mother-to-child-transmission (MTCT). Vertical transmission of either virus may result not only in infected offspring, but also failed pregnancy.In HIV infections, maternal hematological and virological parameters predict MTCT.We hypothesized that such parameters would likewise be predictors of FIV vertical transfer. We inoculated ten cats with FIV-B-2542; 10 cats were uninoculated. Cats were allowed to breed naturally. Fetuses were delivered at approximately week 3 (early) gestation by cesarean section. Fetal and placental tissues were collected.Blood samples were collected from the day of inoculation through delivery. We quantified CD4:CD8 T cell …

Distance Education In Natural Resources: A National Study Of Inhibitors And Motivators For Participation In Distance Education Programs, Jodi Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

Distance education is an innovative delivery method that is gaining a great deal of attention on university campuses across the United States, as well as worldwide. While this attention may seem to be newfound, the earliest record of the practice of distance education traces back to Biblical times and was later referred to as correspondence. Land-grant institutions in the United States were among the first to offer correspondence courses to students who may otherwise not have been able to attend traditional university classes. While online education programs and courses across the United States have grown, from 1.6 million students enrolled …

Dr. Johnson's Novel Influence: Jane Austen Illuminates Concordia Discors, Heather Ann Tucker

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate Jane Austen’s illumination of Samuel Johnson’s moral precepts in seeking harmony in choice of life. Austen explores the various decisions of her characters and the effects of those choices on happiness through the use of free indirect discourse. Austen and Johnson both contend that marriage is a potential source of great happiness in an individual’s choice of life, and concordia discors between spouses offers the highest form of contentment in marriage. Johnson believed that the novelist had a moral duty to his or her reader to present characters with attainable virtue. Austen’s …

Creating Resilient, Sustainable Local Governments: Merging Human Resource Management And Emergency Management, Stacey Cole Mann

Theses and Dissertations

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Goodman and Mann (2008) found that many locales along the Mississippi Gulf Coast did not have plans that addressed human resources (HR) issues in the aftermath of a disaster, and many vital employees were not included in the emergency planning process. The authors concluded that if involved in planning, HR managers could address typical HR issues such as compensation, retention, recruitment, and task re-orientation that become more difficult following a disaster. The purpose of this study was to examine the level of involvement of HR departments in the emergency planning process as well as …

Assessing The Impact Of Reading First Programs On Student Achievement In K-3 Classrooms In Selected Mississippi Schools, Angel Lakease Day-Meeks

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the implementation and impact of Reading First programs in 8 elementary schools across the state of Mississippi. The study assessed how principals, literacy coaches, and kindergarten through third grade teachers perceived the implementation of the Reading First program at their respective schools. Data from these three groups of research participants were analyzed to determine if there were differences in perceptions regarding program implementation. This study also examined if there was a relationship between participants’ judgment about implementation and second and third grade students reading scores on the Mississippi Curriculum Test (MCT). This study employed descriptive, survey, causal-comparative, …

Success Rates Of Ged Credential Recipients And High School Graduates: A Comparative Study Of Southeast Kentucky Community And Technical College Students, James Victor Adams

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to investigate whether there was a statistically significant difference in collegiate success rates of GED credential recipients and high school graduates in community colleges. Data obtained from the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) PeopleSoft system at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (SKCTC) were used. The specific research questions investigated were as follows: 1. Is there a significant difference in academic success in the community college as measured by overall grade point average (GPA) of GED credential recipients as compared to high school graduates? 2. Is there a significant difference in academic …

Examining The Praxis Ii For Initial Licensure In French, German, And Spanish: Perspectives Of Foreign Language Faculty Members And Teacher Candidates, Kelly Marie Moser

Theses and Dissertations

In compliance with NCLB, states receiving Title I funding were to ensure that all teachers of core subject areas, including foreign languages, were highly qualified by the end of the 2005-2006 academic year. Given that 44 states assess teacher quality through The Praxis Series tests, and 32 of these rely on one of the Praxis II subject-matter tests to gauge foreign language competency (ETS, 2010a), research examining the perspectives of teacher candidates and faculty members regarding these licensure tests is needed. The purposes of this study were to (a) examine the perspectives of teacher candidates and faculty members regarding the …

Exploring The 'Moment Of Knowing' And Double-Consciousness In Nella Larsen's Passing, Carina Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

This essay explores early twentieth century African American literature to investigate issues related to identity formation. It uses W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk and Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks to introduce and define the socio-psychological concept of the moment of knowing, an original component of this work. The concept is composed of two occurrences: alienation and self-alienation, which can be observed and examined in nonictional and fictional texts. Within the framework of multicultural theory, the moment of knowing along with double-consciousness are explored in a close reading of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing. In conclusion, the …

A Case Study Of The State Takeover Of The Sunflower County School District, Paula Allen Vanderford

Theses and Dissertations

The performance of the nation‟s public schools continues to be a concern of policymakers, educators, and parents. Stakeholders cite the lack of academic achievement, disruptive student behavior, and failure to provide students with a safe and orderly school environment as evidence of being unsuccessful. To ensure school districts, schools, administrators, teachers, and students meet acceptable performance standards, states are implementing a variety of accountability policies. Two of the more controversial accountability approaches are state takeovers of local school districts and the reconstitution of schools. At least 29 states have enacted policies that allow the takeover of a school district. Changes …

Research Brief: "Toward A Theory Of Discontinuous Career Transition: Investigating Career Transitions Necessitated By Traumatic Life Events", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes a scholarly article of the same name. It reviews research which evaluates the impact of trauma on a veterans' career trajectory and path, and the circumstances in which veterans successfully transition or do not.

Intelligent Methods For Smart Microgrids, Joydeep Mitra, Niannian Cai, Mo Yuen Chow, Sukumar Kamalasadan, Wenxin Liu, Wei Qiao, Sri Niwas Singh, Anurag K. Srivastava, Sanjeev K. Srivastava, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ziang Zhang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper summarizes ongoing research in the application of intelligent methods to the design, modeling, simulation and control of microgrids including optimal design of microgrids, and centralized and decentralized control. © 2011 IEEE.

Innovative Smart Grid Control Technologies, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The smart electric power grid will evolve into a very complex adaptive system under semi-autonomous distributed control. It will be spatially and temporally complex, non-convex, non-linear and non-stationary, with lots of variability and uncertainties beyond what the traditional power system experiences today. the distributed integration of intermittent sources of energy and energy storage to a power grid further adds complexity and challenges to modeling, control and optimization of the grid. Innovative control technologies are needed to handle the growing complexity of a smart grid, maximize the penetration of renewable energy, and provide maximum utilization of available energy storage, especially plug-in …

Intelligent Sense-Making For Smart Grid Stability, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The power systems of the future - smart grids - will see an increase in both renewable energy sources and load demand, thus increasing the need for fast dynamic reconfiguration of system parameters to handle energy and load dispatches. Power systems will need to be monitored continuously to maintain stability under normal and abnormal operating conditions and when facing disturbances. a combination of system state prediction, dynamic power flow, system optimization, and solution stability checking will allow for a more reliable, affordable, efficient and clean power grid. the optimization and control systems on a smart grid will require a computational …

Should Distribution Systems Engineering Be Taught At The Undergraduate Level?, Badrul Chowdhury, Anil Pahwa

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Although there are some exceptions, a distribution systems course is not part of a typical undergraduate curriculum. the course is usually taught at the graduate level. Teaching a distribution systems course requires the student to have a background in balanced three-phase power system modeling such as that obtained from a first power systems analysis course. the requirement to add breadth to an undergraduate curriculum often precludes the notion of depth in any one area unless a student takes the depth courses as technical or free electives. an argument could be made that a distribution systems course does not contain much …

On-Line Voltage Stability Load Index Estimation Based On Pmu Measurements, K. Joseph Makasa, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new method for estimation of Voltage Stability Load Index (VSLI) for a power system using data from optimally located phasor measurement units (PMU) is presented in this paper. Optimal PMU placement was carried out considering islanding operating conditions. vs.LI is estimated using a kind of recurrent neural network known as the Echo State Network (ESN). the development ESN is computational efficient and provides accurate estimation. Results of optimal PMU placement for normal and islanded operating conditions, and ESN estimation of vs.LI on the IEEE 14 bus system is presented. © 2011 IEEE.

Computational Intelligence For Control Of Wind Turbine Generators, Wei Qiao, Jiaqi Liang, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper summarizes past and ongoing research in the area of the application of computational intelligence (CI) for control of wind turbine generators (WTGs). Several intelligent design approaches and control strategies, including optimal design of WTG controllers using particle swarm optimization (PSO) and mean-variance optimization (MVO) algorithms and adaptive critic design-Based coordinated optimal adaptive control for wind plants and shunt FACTS devices, are presented for dynamic performance and fault ride-through enhancement of WTGs and the associated power grid. the effectiveness of these intelligent design approaches and control strategies are demonstrated by nonreal- and real-time simulations in PSCAD/EMTDC and RSCAD/RTDS, respectively. …

Structures, Energetics And Vibrational Frequency Shifts Of Hydrated Pyrimidine, J. Coleman Howard, Nathan I. Hammer, Gregory S. Tschumper

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

More than 70 unique micro-hydrated structures of pyrimidine, ranging in size from 1 to 7 water molecules, have been characterized with the B3LYP density functional and the 6-311++G(2df,2pd) triple-ζ split-valence basis set. Explicitly correlated MP2-F12 single-point computations were performed on each structure with a correlation consistent triple-ζ basis set to estimate the relative and dissociation energies at the MP2 complete basis set (CBS) limit. Many of these new structures have significantly lower energies than those previously reported (by as much as 12.66 kcal mol-1). For clusters with 1 and 2 water molecules, the MP2-F12 relative and dissociation energies are virtually …

Chimes: December 9, 2011, Calvin College

Chimes

Campus Fair Trade sale promotes justice by Amanda Elliott

Acton translates Kuyper by Ryan Devries

Choirs worship with LaGrave by Grace Ruiter

Scientists fight bacterial resistance by Jon Hielkema

Paradise Fears impressive by Jess Koster

Soccer team finishes second in the nation by Mark Zylstra

The Seven Hymns Of Revelation 4, 5 And 7, Mark S. Krause

Leaven

No abstract provided.

Praise As Resistance: A Reading Of Mary's Song (Luke 1.46-55), Kindalee Pfremmer De Long

Leaven

No abstract provided.

Restoration Churches And Movements In Europe: Great Challenges And New Opportunity, Yann Opsitch

Leaven

No abstract provided.

The Church Of Christ In Malaysia, Ong Kok Bin

Leaven

No abstract provided.

In The Shadow Of The Vatican: Churches Of Christ In Italy, Elizabeth Whatley

Leaven

No abstract provided.

The Stone-Campbell Movement In Canada, Claude Cox, Stan Litke

Leaven

No abstract provided.

The Stone-Campbell Movement In Latin America And The Caribbean, Carmelo Alvarez

Leaven

No abstract provided.

The Message Of Hosea 1-3: A Harlot's Wages, R. Mark Shipp

Leaven

No abstract provided.

The Steadfast Love Of The Lord, Thomas H. Olbricht

Leaven

No abstract provided.

A Reading Resource On Micah For Ministers And Teachers, John T. Willis

Leaven

No abstract provided.