Digital Commons Network^™

Versatile Fpga Architecture For Skein Hashing Algorithm, David Webster

Theses

Digital communications and data storage are expanding at fast rates, increasing the need for advanced cryptographic standards to validate and provide privacy for that data. One of the basic components commonly used in information security systems is cryptographic hashing. Cryptographic hashing involves the compression of an arbitrary block of data into a fixed-size string of bits known as the hash value. These functions are designed such that it is computationally infeasible to determine a message that results in a given hash value. It should also be infeasible to find two messages with the same hash value and to change a …

Retention Elections 2.010, James Sample

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Counter-historically, the highest profile judicial election campaigns of the first judicial elections cycle following the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission were retention and ballot measure, rather than contested elections. Retention elections, in which voters cast their ballots either in favor of returning the incumbent judge to office for another term or for her removal, were intended to balance the values of judicial impartiality and accountability to the public.

In Iowa, judicial retention elections-contests normally well beneath the radar even in Des Moines-became a national flashpoint for same sex marriage debates and, more to the point, …

Addressing The Gender Gap In Federal Law Enforcement Professions: The Motivational Attraction Of Women In Computing, Maegan Stanek

Theses

Nationwide, federal law enforcement agencies seek candidates with specialized skill sets and more advanced educational knowledge for employment. In view of this, it was proven, after much open source research into federal agencies' qualification requirements, that those who possess a background in select areas, specifically computer science, have a better opportunity for employment with federal law enforcement agencies, particularly in the computing sector; although, in many cases, work experience can be substituted for a college degree [7]. For this reason, many women are not involved in, nor apply for, computing professions within federal law enforcement agencies. A significant step in …

Plato’S Theory Of Democratic Decline, Brenner M. Fissell

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

While democracy is derided for a variety of reasons in Plato’s thought, his most damning critique of that regime type does not involve an observation about democracy qua democracy, but of the transition that it so easily engenders: the decline to tyranny. Regimes are composed of individuals and groups, though, and Plato is anxious to ascribe culpability for the degradation. Two actors are the primary focus of his analysis — the political leaders and the demos. At times he emphasizes the puissance of the demos, but in other passages he suggests it is the leaders who are most authoritative. This …

Stratigraphy And Petroleum Production Potential Of The Spearfish Formation In North Central North Dakota, Nnaemeka C. Anyanwu

Theses and Dissertations

The Spearfish oil play is unconventional requiring the use of horizontal wells that are fracture stimulated to deliver economic flow rates. However, fraccing into the underlying water has been a source of significant production problems for operators. The key to developing the area is to keep the individual fracs large enough to stimulate the tight Spearfish sands but not to let them propagate into the underlying water zone.

The Spearfish Formation of the Black Hills has been traced into the subsurface of the Williston Basin in western North Dakota from bore holes at the northern margin of the outcrop area …

Identifying Potential Geothermal Resources From Co-Produced Fluids Using Existing Data From Drilling Logs : Williston, North Dakota, Anna M. Crowell

Theses and Dissertations

With the current need for technology that will allow for environmentally-friendly power generation, geothermal power has become an attractive resource given its low environmental impact and potential cost savings. One specific resource is co-produced water from oil wells that are not currently producing, but can yield formation waters that are both high enough in temperature and fluid volume to operate the turbines of binary geothermal power systems. The data required to identify sites, i.e. bottom-hole temperatures (BHT), latitude, longitude, total depth of hole (TD) in meters, the identification number, and the amount of water produced in gallons, can be mined …

Freeing The Press From Editorial Discretion And Hegemony In Bona Fide News: Why The Revolution Must Be Televised, Akilah N. Folami

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Broadcast journalism's foundational role of informing and engaging the American public in order to further America's self-governing democracy is in crisis. Corporate broadcast owners' efforts to maximize profits and increase advertising revenue during traditional network news and related public affairs programming have led to the closing of many investigative and correspondent television news bureaus and have arguably hastened the devolution of broadcast journalism into a depoliticized spectacle filled with political and celebrity, gossip-driven infotainment. Furthermore, as viewers have abdicated their reliance on broadcast journalism as their primary source of political knowledge, they have also disengaged from professional broadcast journalists' dispassionate, …

Reconfiguring Phenomena Of Presence, Erika Strickland

Theses

Not included

Audience Feedback As An Influence On Graphic Design Problem Solving, Christopher Petrides

Theses

User-generated feedback is arguably the most efficient tool to evaluate a specific product or service. Even though it is widely used to evaluate and subsequently improve video game design, it is not commonly used for graphic design applications. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how user-generated feedback can be utilized to improve existing graphic design applications. Specifically, three types of feedback collection vehicles were selected for use in graphic design: personal observation, evaluation polls, and existing video game design feedback. In order to demonstrate the advantage of using user generated feedback, information collected through the feedback collection vehicles …

Why Misdemeanors Matter: Defining Effective Advocacy In The Lower Criminal Courts, Jenny Roberts

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Most individuals accused in our nation’s criminal courts are not charged with murder, rape, drug sales, or even less serious felonies. The vast majority of charges are in the lower courts, for misdemeanors such as marijuana possession, driving with a license suspension for failure to pay tickets, assault, disorderly conduct, or public intoxication. Misdemeanor adjudications have exploded in recent years, with one recent study estimating that the volume of misdemeanor cases nationwide has risen from five to more than ten million between 1972 and 2006. At the same time, violent crime and the number of felony cases across the country …

A Case Study: Transitioning From A Five-Day School Week To A Four-Day School Week, Brian Duane Duchscherer

Theses and Dissertations

For over a century, most PK-12 schools across the United States have been using the same format of five days of school a week for approximately 9 months a year. The discussion of a four-day school week is being considered as many school districts try to balance their budgets each school year. Some schools in the past 30 years have begun changing to a four-day school week. The four-day school week can create controversy within a community, concerns among parents and students, and benefits for the school district as well as for parents and students. The researcher studied one rural …

Perceptions Of Five Low-Income Parents On School Readiness, Roanne Eugenia Malm

Theses and Dissertations

This small-scale qualitative study explored the perceptions of five low-income mothers regarding their child's readiness for kindergarten. The study has the potential to help early childhood advocates and other stakeholders (a) understand how low-income environments influence school readiness, (b) understand the aspirations low-income parents have for their children, (c) discover ways to improve the transition to school for economically disadvantaged children, and (d) engage parents in a more equitable manner--ultimately helping all children start kindergarten with success.

Parents selected for this study had a child age 4-5 who was the oldest child in the family, on a Head Start waiting …

Impact Of Netbook Computers On One District's Social Studies Curriculum, Joel Schleicher

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data to determine the overall impact of a pilot netbook initiative in five social studies classrooms. The researcher explored the impact on teaching and learning social studies with the primary source of curriculum delivery through one-to-one netbook computer access by students. It also focused on student perception of engagement, productivity, and learning of social studies curriculum through the utilization of a netbook computer in place of a traditional textbook in a social studies classroom.

The research and data collection, through the Grand Forks Public Schools Social Studies …

Rit Influenza Virus Database And Evidence For Differential Selection Pressures On Geographically Distinct Human Influenza A/H3n2 Virus Populations, Bindhu Satheeshkumar

Theses

Increasing amounts of data available from influenza virus genome sequencing projects have necessitated the need for centralized repositories for the collection, integration, and dissemination of these data to researchers for further research. The RIT Influenza Virus Database, a complete genome database for influenza viruses, has been created with a web interface so that users could query for viruses of interest and download complete genome sequences and metadata of isolates. The interface of the database is publicly accessible at http://bucatini.bioinformatics.rit.edu/bindhuURMC/. Even though it is known that influenza viruses are under constant evolution at the surface glycoproteins to develop drug resistance or …

Low Vision Assistance With Mobile Devices, Mark Stump

Theses

Low vision affects many people, both young and old. Low vision conditions can range from near- and far-sightedness to conditions such as blind spots and tunnel vision. With the growing popularity of mobile devices such as smartphones, there is large opportunity for use of these multipurpose devices to provide low vision assistance. Furthermore, Google's Android operating system provides a robust environment for applications in various fields, including low vision assistance. The objective of this thesis research is to develop a system for low vision assistance that displays important information at the preferred location of the user's visual field. To that …

Attitudes Toward Psychological Tele-Health: Current And Future Psychologists' Opinions Of Internet-Based Interventions, Jonathan Perle

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past 20 years, with the development and expansion of computer- and internet-based services (e.g., psychoeducational, intervention, and testing programs), the integration of technology with the treatment of mental health disorders has sparked one of the most debated topics in the mental health profession. With no clear end for this debate in sight, many believe that clinicians wish to reach a consensus and adopt a universal stance on computer-based psychological services so that discussion and research can be shifted to make meaningful contributions for the future. Although paramount, many licensed psychologists have yet to state their stance of whether …

The Specter Of Nature, Stephanie Clark

Theses

The Specter of Nature is a photographic series that examines the tenuous boundaries between culture and Nature. Through this thesis, I address how, within culture, Nature is defined, distorted, fantasized and then realized through various forms of representation. To this end, Nature historically serves as a backdrop in culturally constructed fantasies and storytelling, as well as historically playing a role in the development of a female identity. The Specter of Nature,examines these concerns through staged photographs of settings created from fabrics and cutouts of decorative papers. By cutting along the patterns embedded in materials such as wrapping papers, wallpapers, scrapbooking …

Effects Of Su-8 Cross-Linking On Flip-Chip Bond Strength When Assembling And Packaging Mems, Nathan E. Glavitz, Lavern A. Starman, Ronald A. Coutu Jr., Richard L. Johnson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

New methods to assemble, integrate, and package micro devices are always needed in attempts to simplify and expedite fabrication methods to maximize throughput. Our paper focuses on assessing SU-8 as a viable material for packaging and flip chip bonding processes for MEMS and micro devices. In this paper, we vary the level of cross- linking through post exposure bake (PEB) times and assess rectangular ring test structures bonding strength following flip chip bonding through applied tensile loads. In addition, we performed initial assessments on the etching resiliency of varied cross-linking of SU-8. From initial results, the bonding strength is maximized …

Nano-Electromechanical Zero-Dimensional Freestanding Nanogap Actuator, Jun Hyun Han, Norimasa Yoshimizu, T.J. Cheng, Michael Ziwisky, S.A. Bhave, A. Lal, Chung-Hoon Lee

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Micromachined free standing nanogap with metal electrodes is presented. The gap size is as small as 17 nm, and can be reduced further with electrostatic or piezoelectric actuation. The nanoscale gap is fabricated by industrial standard optical lithography and anisotropic wet chemical Si etching. Electron transport between the metal electrodes with optical stimulus enhancing photon-electron coupling (plasmon) is presented.

Home Literacy Factors Affecting Emergent Literacy Skills, Robyn Valerie Cassel

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify factors in the home literacy environment using the Stony Brook Family Reading Survey (SBFRS) in order to understand the extent to which these factors predict phonemic awareness and other basic reading skills, as assessed by selected subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ III). The present study used archival data to examine the home literacy habits of a sample of parents and preschool children ages 3-5 years (range in months= 36-67) from a private and a public preschool with a combination of high- and low-income backgrounds and various ethnicities. Using exploratory factor analyses …

Investigation Of In-Situ Stresses In Rocks Via Acoustic Emission And The Kaiser Effect., Derrick J. Blanksma

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

This paper is a proposal for designing the Kaiser In‐Situ Stress (KISS) System. The KISS System’s goal is to determine in‐situ stresses in rock formations and other subsurface rocks by means of compression‐induced Acoustic Emission (AE) and the Kaiser effect. The KISS System is a non‐destructive method of in‐situ stress determination and has received much attention in the past. To fully understand AE, the Kaiser Effect and how it relates to stress determination this paper will present the necessary theoretical background, past experimentation and results from the authors own experimentation to investigate the plausibility of AE and the Kaiser Effect …