Digital Commons Network^™

Design And Development Of An Energy Efficiency Knowledge Center (Eekc), Seyed Mohammad Jalali

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at West Virginia University has worked with more than 430 manufacturing companies over 17 years to identify energy and productivity saving opportunities for small and medium sized companies. The savings, which keep adding up year after year, are appreciable but do not fully capture the potential impacts of the IAC Program. The implementation rate of the recommendations has been only about 40% on average. This rate was expected to be improved with a knowledge center.;Energy Efficiency Knowledge Center (EEKC) is a regional system which includes the development and deployment of technical resources to assist industrial …

A Dutch Woman In An English World: The Legacy Of Alida Livingston Of New York, Melinda M. Mohler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In 1674, at the conclusion of the Third Dutch War, the Treaty of Westminster placed the Dutch New Netherlands permanently under English control. For the many businesswomen of Dutch heritage who resided in the New Netherlands during the late seventeenth century, this shift in colonial power resulted in a drastic loss of economic freedom and, in many cases, brought an end to their public business ventures. As Dutch businesswomen increasingly retreated from the public sphere, their need to document daily activities dwindled and records of their personal lives all but disappeared. A study of the correspondence of Alida Schuyler Livingston …

Understanding Transnational Advocacy Groups: A Case Study Of The Effectiveness Of The Committee To Protect Journalists In The Promotion Of Press Freedom In The Philippines, Mayuri Mukherjee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Given the increasingly crucial role of the media in forming popular opinion, policymaking and the conduct of democratic institutions, there has been a severe, often lethal, backlash against individuals who exercise this power through their craft. This study examines the effectiveness of international advocacy groups in protecting journalists and promoting press freedom through a case study of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-governmental international advocacy group, in getting justice for killed journalists in the Philippines -- one of the world's most deadliest places for journalists. The study attempts to provide a detailed insight into how transnational advocacy groups work …

Comparison Of A Work-Based Window Method To Nte Method For Reporting In-Use Emissions, Nathan Music

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Heavy-duty on-road diesel engines currently sold in the United States are subjected to emission certification over the Federal Test Procedure and Supplemental Emissions Test in an engine test cell as well as in-use testing in real world environments using portable emissions measurement systems (PEMS). The current method for analyzing in-use emissions is based on the Not-To-Exceed (NTE) region of engine operation. With this method, emissions are reported only when the engine is operating in the NTE region for a minimum of thirty seconds. The downfall to this method is that any engine operation outside of this region is neglected. An …

Department Chairs' Perceptions Of Part-Time Faculty Status In Maryland Public And Private Higher Education Institutions, Daniel L. Moorehead

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The growing use of part-time, non-tenure track faculty in higher education has become a nationwide phenomenon. The college-teaching part-time instructor is one who is working for low pay, has little job security, and has few benefits. College part-time instructors' employment is in a contingent state. They do not have the job protection provided to tenured professors because they are usually hired for only the upcoming term with no guarantee of being hired for any future terms.;The purpose of this study was to describe the status of part-time faculty in Maryland public and private four-year colleges and universities as perceived by …

Controlled Drug Substance Use In West Virginia: An Investigation Into Doctor Shopping, Pharmacy Shopping, And Prescription Histories, Gretchen L. Peirce

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

One objective was to compare the proportion of doctor and pharmacy shoppers between living and deceased users of controlled drug substances (CDS) in West Virginia. A second objective was to identify factors that predict the odds a subject is classified as a shopper. A third objective was to determine factors that predict the odds of dying from CDS use. A final objective was to identify factors that predict the odds of deceased subjects not having verified prescriptions for CDS detected upon autopsy.;A secondary data research study was conducted. The Controlled Drug Substance Monitoring Program and the Forensic Drug Database were …

A Comparison Of White-Collar Offenders And Non-White-Collar Offenders On The Psychological Variables Of Personality, Criminal Thinking, And Psychopathy, Laurie Ragatz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The first purpose of this study was to replicate Walters and Geyer (2004) by examining how white-collar offenders differ from non-white-collar offenders on criminal thinking styles and lifestyle criminality. The second purpose was to examine the psychopathic characteristics of white-collar offenders in comparison to non-white-collar offenders. The third purpose was to explore the psychopathology of white-collar offenders compared to non-white-collar offenders. The study sample included 48 white-collar only offenders (offenders that only committed white-collar crime), 89 white-collar versatile offenders (offenders that have previously committed non-white-collar crime), and 89 non-white-collar offenders. Groups were matched on age and ethnicity. All participants completed …

Go-Ahead Men: Yankee Westerners Test Masculine Bonds In The Early American Republic, Charlotte Cathy Rodabaugh

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Colonial New England fathers normally launched sons' careers, often aided by other male relatives. However, economic developments in the early American republic rendered sons' expectations less sure even as Americans began celebrating the concept of the self-made man and pressured young men to distinguish themselves. Even worse, they asserted that success or failure signaled more about the man than about his particular circumstances. This study delves into some close male relationships through which were negotiated these tensions between cultural expectations and reality. Scholars describe the rise of a distinctly Northern, middle-class manhood, but this project isolates how the relationships that …

Beyond Protest: Ethics Of Reconciliation In Post-Apartheid South African White Writing, Sohinee Roy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Beyond Protest: Ethics of Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South African White Writing examines the politics and poetics of reconciliation in South Africa by comparing the defining (or, at least the initiating) document the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (TRC) with the ways in which concepts of "racial harmony" are presented in the post-apartheid novels of white authors like J.M.Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Antje Krog, and Andre Brink. South Africa's complex racial history dating back to the colonial times, the consequent internalization of imposed racial identities within resistance movements, and the institutionalization of racist practices through state policies mean that its effort to …

Franjo Tudjman's And Slobodan Milosevic's Operational Code And Leadership Trait Analysis, Arian Spahiu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia played a prominent role in the Yugoslav politics and European politics during the 1990s, but the literature on them has advanced confusing interpretations of the two leaders whose political actions affected international politics. This dissertation is the first attempt at developing replicable measures of their psychological characteristics to inform our understanding of the role these two leaders played in Yugoslav and European politics. This dissertation examines the role of Tudjman's and Milosevic's psychological characteristics through at-a-distance analysis of their speeches, for Tudjman to the Croatian Parliament in the 1990s, and for …

Theoretical Model Of Nurse Outcomes: Associations Among Nurse Characteristics, Psychological Empowerment, Generation, Quality Of Work Life, And Rn Job Satisfaction, Amy M. Sparks

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background: Currently, nurse researchers have yet to clearly understand all of the factors related to registered nurse job satisfaction. Ruggiero (2005) posits that 62-67% of the variance in RN job satisfaction remains unexplained in nursing literature. Nurse characteristics, generation, psychological empowerment, and quality of work life have been found to impact RN job satisfaction. The literature lacks a comprehensive conceptual framework, which theoretically links each of these influential factors to RN job satisfaction.;Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relative influence of nurses' characteristics, psychological empowerment, generation, and quality of work life on RN job satisfaction. Another …

Estonia's Memory Politics In The Context Of European Integration, Marina Suhhoterina

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study examines the process of European integration of Estonia from the perspective of memory politics. The main assumption of the research is that the Estonian political elite often refers to the Soviet past of the country and its reflection in Estonian national memory to frame and guide the political discourse of European integration. In order to test this hypothesis, I analyze the speeches delivered by the leading representatives of the Estonian political elite in the process of post-Soviet transformation. The findings of the study reveal development that is seemingly a paradox. Members of Estonian political elite have attempted to …

Long-Term Performance Of Buried Pipes Under Flowable Fill And Granular Stone Backfill, Sai Bharath Kumar Varre

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Underground conduits have been used to improve living standards of people since the development of civilization. Buried pipes are used in various applications such as highway drainage, sewerage and conveyance systems. Time dependent properties such as creep associated with thermoplastic (HDPE and PVC) and concrete materials may reduce the expected design life of pipes under field conditions. The objective of this research work was to examine the long term performance of buried pipes used in highway applications by using the finite element method. The variables investigated in this research include types of pipe material, pipe diameter, fill height, pipe backfill …

An Investigation Of Diesel Pm Particle Morphology Using Tem And Sem, Ganesh Vedula

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research investigates the effect of engine load and combustion mode on the size, shape and microstructure of PM particles of two diesel engines using a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS), and electron microscopes including scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The effect of engine load on the morphology of PM particle was investigated using a 2004 MACK MP7-355E heavy-duty diesel engine. The effect of combustion mode on the morphology of the PM particles was preliminarily examined using 2005 Opel 1.9 L light-duty diesel engine. The SEM images were processed using ImageJ V: 1.44o software to obtain …

Gender Recognition And Appearance Description In Unconstrained Images Of Human Body, Qin Wu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Gender recognition has many useful applications, ranging from business intelligence, through to image search and social activity analysis. Traditional research on gender recognition focuses on face images in a constrained environment. In this work, we propose a novel problem of gender recognition in articulated human body images acquired from an unconstrained environment in the real world. Our empirical study answers the question of whether gender recognition can be performed in articulated body images, and discovers important issues such as which body parts are informative, how many body parts are needed to combine together, and what representations are good for articulated …

A Phylogenetic Assessment Of Breeding Systems And Floral Morphology Of North American Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae), J. Andrew Mcdonald, Joshua R. Mcdill, Debra R. Hansen, Beryl B. Simpson

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

A phylogenetic investigation of 68 species and two varieties of tropical and temperate North American Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae) using sequence data from the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) with parsimony and Bayesian analyses revealed multiple origins of autogamy. By assessing breeding systems and floral morphological characters in the context of this phylogeny, we estimate 16 independent origins of autogamy and 4 subsequent reversions to xenogamy. Transitions to autogamy are associated with reduced pollen-ovule ratios, decreased anther-stigma distance, and small flower size. Although the relationship between floral traits and breeding systems has been described in previous studies, this is the first investigation …

Photo Composition, Stephen Sagers, Ron Patterson

All Current Publications

Photography is the art of capturing an image with a camera to produce satisfying artwork. There are several elements that go into a well-composed photograph.

The Nehemiah Story: Paying Close Attention At A Biblical Revival Meeting, Gerald A. Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Protecting Immigrant Workers Through Interagency Cooperation, Jayesh Rathod

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Stephen Lee’s Monitoring Immigration Enforcement offers a promising prescription for resolving the long-standing tension between the workplace enforcement priorities of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and the efforts by the Department of Labor (“DOL”) to protect the rights of immigrant workers. Lee convincingly describes - often with the aid of rich historical examples - the origins of the chronic imbalance of power between DHS and the DOL, and the limitations of past efforts to synchronize the work of the respective agencies. Lee’s proposal for interagency coordination, in the form of ex ante monitoring by the DOL of worksite enforcement …

Paul Verkuil's Projects For The Administrative Conference Of The U.S. 1974-1992, Jeffrey Lubbers

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

I am really happy to be part of this tribute to Paul Verkuil. It may surprise those in the audience to learn that I am bringing some needed diversity to today's proceedings - I am the only other Dutch American on the program! But perhaps my twenty years at the "Administrative Conference" also qualifies me to say a few words about how thrilled I am that we have it back - "ACUS 2.0" we can call it, complete with a website this time- and that Paul is at its helm. And I want to thank Paul for bringing me back …

Acus 2.0 And Its Historical Antecedents, Jeffrey Lubbers

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Secret Inventions, Jonas Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Patent law - and innovation policy more generally - has traditionally been conceptualized as antithetical to secrecy. Not only does the patent system require inventors to publicly disclose their inventions in order to receive a patent, but various patent doctrines are designed to encourage inventors to forego trade secrecy. This Article offers a critique of the law’s preference for patents. In particular, this Article examines whether and under what circumstances the law should prefer patents over secrets, and vice versa.

As an initial step towards a theoretically-supported system of inventor incentives, this Article constructs a framework that attempts to balance …

Comcast/Nbcu: The Fcc Provides A Roadmap For Vertical Merger Analysis, Jonathan Baker

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The FCC’s analysis of the Comcast-NBCU transaction fills a gap in the contemporary treatment of vertical mergers by providing a roadmap for courts and litigants addressing the possibility of anticompetitive exclusion. The FCC identified the factors any judicial or administrative tribunal would likely consider today in analyzing whether a vertical merger would lead to anticompetitive input or customer foreclosure, and a range of economic methods potentially relevant to applying that template to the facts of a transaction. Notwithstanding the difference between administrative adjudication under a public interest standard and judicial decision-making under the Clayton Act, the legal framework and economic …

'Accountability' As 'Legitimacy': Global Governance, Global Civil Society And The United Nations, Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay is a contribution to a symposium on international NGO accountability. It distinguishes between "internal" accountability for NGOs (fiduciary standards, fiscal and internal governance controls, etc.) and "external" accountability (the legitimacy with which they act in the international world, and the legitimacy which they confer upon others, and why). The essay focuses upon the latter, external accountability, and argues that the transformation of international NGOs into "global civil society" signaled an ideological move with regards to legitimacy in the global community, one which asserted claims of "representativeness" and not merely interest or expertise. The essay criticizes this legitimacy move, …

Legal Education And Civility, Mark Niles

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Security Council Resolution 1973 On Libya: A Moment Of Legal & Moral Clarity, Paul Williams, Colleen Popken

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Earned Sovereignty: The Future Of Sovereignty-Based Conflict Resolution, Paul Williams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

On The Use Of Log-Transformation Vs. Nonlinear Regression For Analyzing Biological Power-Laws, Xiao Xiao

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

Power-law relationships are among the most well-studied functional relationships in biology . Recently the common practice of fitting power-laws using linear regression on log-transformed data (LR) has been criticized, calling into question the conclusions of hundreds of studies. It has been suggested that nonlinear regression (NLR) is preferable, but no rigorous comparison of these two methods has been conducted. Using Monte Carlo simulations we demonstrate that the error distribution determines which method performs better, with LR better characterizing data with multiplicative lognormal error and NLR better characterizing data with additive normal error. Analysis of 471 biological power-laws shows that both …

An Ethnographic Study Of In-Service And Pre-Service Teacher Collaboration In The Development And Execution Of Mathematics Lessons, Jessica Munns

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

While much is known about effective strategies for teaching mathematics, less is understood about how to lead new teachers to employ research-based practices in their work. To address this issue we followed a Methods of Teaching Secondary and Middle School Mathematics course at Utah State University where collaboration between inservice and pre-service teachers was emphasized. This report documents examples of the implementation of research-based teaching practices by collaborative groups during the course. The structure of collaboration followed a lesson study model involving research and planning, execution and observation, and reflection and revision of lessons. Preservice and in-service teachers met twice …

Development And Implementation Of A Bayesian Model For Sediment Transport In Fluvial Systems, Mark Schmelter

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

Recent studies in the field of fluvial sediment transport underscore the difficulty in reliably estimating transport model parameters, collecting accurate observations, and making predictions due to measurement error and conceptual model uncertainty. There is a pressing need to develop models that can account for measurement error, conceptual model uncertainty, and natural variability while providing probability-based predictions as well as a means for conceptual model discrimination. The model presented in this research employs an excess shear sediment transport equation for a uni-size sediment bed developed in a Bayesian statistical framework. This statistical model provides a means to rigorously estimate distributions of …