Digital Commons Network^™

A Review On Convolutions Of Gamma Random Variables, Baha-Eldin Khaledi, Subhash C. Kochar

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Due to its wide range of applications, the topic of the distribution theory of convolutions of Gamma random variables has attracted the attention of many researchers. In this paper we review some of the latest developments on this problem.

Keeping It Real: Teaching And Learning In The Harry Potter Series, Mary E. N. Vaughn

Honors Theses

Scholars have noted that embedded in the plot of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are representations of teaching and learning in and outside of the classroom. In fact, much study has been dedicated to analyzing pedagogical techniques present in the series, some of which studies I will be discussing below. The novels also reflect real problems and issues in the classroom. How people react to the educational process depicted in the text grows out of popularized conceptions or misconceptions of real-world education. Considering that Rowling was an educator before becoming established as a writer, she probably has some ideas …

A Critical Edition Of Madison Cawein: Examining The Effects Of Modernism On Regional Poetry, Kristin Teston

Honors Theses

When I first began this project, I had hopes of discovering that long forgotten poet, Madison Cawein, was one of America’s early Modernist writers. However, as time progressed and as I became intimate with Cawein’s work I realized that he was, in fact, not a Modernist. Rather, Cawein’s writing reveals interesting insight on how poets steeped in traditional form were affected by the shift to the Modernist ways thinking and writing. Although, as this project will later reveal, Cawein was much opposed to the free verse style of Modernist writing his concerns about the ever changing modern world closely relate …

Reading Ability Of Third Grade Southern Dialect, Katelynn Gibson

Honors Theses

Fourth grade is a critical time period because the reading style changes from learning to read to reading to learn. Studies have shown that if a student does not have proficient reading skills, they will struggle throughout the rest of school and have a higher risk of high school dropout (“Early Warning: Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters, 2010). The Southern dialect can have an effect on reading. Goodman and Buck (1997) have stated that “the speakers of the low-status dialects of English have much higher rates of reading failure than high status dialect readers” (p. 455). …

You Make Me Feel: A Study Of The Gay Rights Movement In New Orleans, Jelisa Thompson

Honors Theses

This document is an examination of all the elements that made the social and cultural emergence of the gay community in New Orleans that I am going to term as the Gay Rights Movement. In addition to these I will examine the three events listed above and explain how each of these events and the subsequent responses from the gay community all constitute the city’s Gay Rights Movement. Furthermore I will examine how the gay community in New Orleans successfully and unsuccessfully established itself as a modern gay community in the wake of the Gay Rights Movement. In doing each …

Attitudes And Perceptions Of Early Childcare Professionals In Community-Based Programs In Regard To Inclusion Of Children With Disabilities, Catherine Parker

Honors Theses

The purpose of the study was to determine why early care and education facilities are not identified as inclusive. This study compared the differences in attitude toward inclusive programming among directors, preschool teachers, and infant/toddler teachers in early care and education facilities. This study addressed two questions in regard to the attitudes and perceptions of early childhood professionals. First, what are the attitudes of early childhood professionals toward advantages and disadvantages of inclusive classrooms and how their attitudes may differ depending on staff position? Second, what are the major obstacles identified by early childhood professionals to inclusive programming and how …

Legislative Effects On The Morbidity Rates Of Meningococcal Disease Within The United States, Ashley Brown

Honors Theses

The main focus of this research is to compare the different methods used to control the outbreak of meningococcal disease and determine which one has the greatest effect on the morbidity rates by comparing the number of annual cases before and after the passing of the law. I hypothesize that the variation in state requirements will result in a difference in the incidence of meningococcal disease in each state. I predict that states requiring the vaccine will show a significant decrease in morbidity rates after the passing of the legislation.

A Study Of John Piper’S Sermon Preparation: A Model For Pastors Who Emphasize The Supremacy Of God In Expository Preaching, Sunghyun J. Pae

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation aims to answer the question, How can the preacher complete the process of his expository sermon preparation to manifest God's glory and exalt His supremacy in preaching by studying Piper's life and methods? Based on an analysis of Piper's writings and selected sermons, this project investigates Piper's background and influences on his God-centered life and theological system. It then discuses Piper's principles and skills of biblical exegesis, and it looks into the major influence on Piper's biblical exegesis. It also describes Piper's philosophy of preaching: Piper's motivation and purpose of preaching, and it investigate great preachers who impacted …

Gendered Violence And The Ethics Of Social Science Research, Sameena A. Mulla, Heather R. Hlavka

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

The issue of ethical conduct in research settings is important and complex. As tenure-track researchers who study gendered violence, we found Clark and Walker’s discussion provocative, thoughtful, and interesting. They urge researchers to attend both to the structural dynamics of research carried out under the pressures of tenure and promotion while advocating an ethical frame that draws attention to the limited definition of risk or harm that animates typical human subjects research. Victims of violence, they argue, should not be subjected to a standardized understanding of risk. A broader framework is needed, one that brings into conversation virtue ethics with …

Efficient Uncertainty Quantification In Multidisciplinary Analysis Of A Reusable Launch Vehicle, Benjamin R. Bettis, Serhat Hosder, Tyler Winter

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The objective of this study was to apply a recently developed uncertainty quantification framework to the multidisciplinary analysis of a reusable launch vehicle (RLV). This particular framework is capable of efficiently propagating mixed (inherent and epistemic) uncertainties through complex simulation codes. the goal of the analysis was to quantify uncertainty in various output parameters obtained from the RLV analysis, including the maximum dynamic pressure, cross-range, range, and vehicle takeoff gross weight. Three main uncertainty sources were treated in the simulations: (1) reentry angle of attack (inherent uncertainty), (2) altitude of the initial reentry point (inherent uncertainty), and (3) the Young's …

Compact Metallic Rfid Tag Antennas With A Loop-Fed Method, Peng H. Yang, Yan Li, Lijun Jiang, W. C. Chew, Terry Tao Ye

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Several compact, low profile and metal-attachable RFID tag antennas with a loop-fed method are proposed for UHF RFID systems. The structure of the proposed antennas comprise of two parts: (1) The radiator part consists of two shorted patches, which can be treated as two quarter-wave patch antennas or a cavity. (2) A small loop printed on the paper serves as the feeding structure. The small loop provides the needed inductance for the tag and is connected to the RFID chip. The input impedance of the antenna can be easily adjusted by changing loop dimensions. The antenna has the compact size …

Improving The Efficiency Of Lpg Compression Ignition Engines For Passenger Cars Through Waste Heat Recovery, Alberto Boretti

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The turbocharged direct injection lean burn Diesel engine is the most efficient now in production for transport applications with full load brake efficiencies up to 40 to 45% and reduced penalties in brake efficiencies reducing the load by the quantity of fuel injected. the secrets of this engine's performances are the high compression ratio and the lean bulk combustion mostly diffusion controlled in addition to the partial recovery of the exhaust energy to boost the charging efficiency. the major downfalls of this engine are the carbon dioxide emissions and the depletion of fossil fuels using fossil diesel, the energy security …

The East Texan, 2011-12-01, Texas A&M University-Commerce

All Issues

Volume XCVI, number 11 of The East Texan, a student newspaper published at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Review Of Richard Junger's Becoming The Second City: Chicago’S Mass News Media, 1833-1898, John J. Pauly

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Borderplex Economic Outlook: 2011-2013, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Adam G. Walke

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

Localization Of Objects Using Cross-Correlation Of Shadow Fading Noise And Copulas, Mohammed Rana Basheer, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

While fading, in general, is detrimental to accurately localizing a target, fading correlation between adjacent receivers may be exploited to improve localization accuracy. Therefore, this paper presents a novel wireless localization scheme that employs a combination of cross-correlation between shadow fading noise and copula technique to recursively estimate the location of a transmitter. a stochastic filter that models multipath fading as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process followed by a Generalized Auto Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) filtering is proposed to extract shadow fading residuals from measured RSSI values. Subsequently, Student-t Copula function is used to create the log likelihood function, which acts as …

Contingency Constrained Economic Dispatch In Smart Grids With Correlated Demands, Yiyu Shi, Jinjun Xiong

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Contingency constrained economic dispatch has been an extensively studied research topic. However, most existing works assume that the load demands at all buses are given. Such an assumption works well for conventional power grids, where the load demands are relatively easy to predict. We can select a few representative demand profiles and perform economic dispatch over them. However, such a practice will no longer work in smart grids, where the load demands fluctuate dramatically. We will need a huge number of demand profiles to cover all possible scenarios, which is computationally expensive. to address the problem, we propose a parameterized …

Soft-Decision Feedback Turbo Equalization For Multilevel Modulations, Huang Lou, Chengshan Xiao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Error propagation phenomena is the major drawback for existing hard-decision feedback turbo equalizers. in this paper, we propose a new soft-decision feedback equalizer (SDFE) suitable for multilevel modulation systems employing turbo equalization. the proposed SDFE offers a low computational complexity growing only linearly with the number of equalizer coefficients, as opposed to the quadratic complexity of MMSE-Based linear turbo equalizer with time-varying coefficients (Exact-MMSE-LE). the performance and convergence property of the proposed SDFE are analyzed using extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart and verified by simulations in a severe InterSymbol interference channel set by Proakis. Results show that our approach performs …

Understanding The Association Of Biomedical, Psychosocial And Behavioral Risks With Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes, Michele Kiely, Ayman El-Mohandes, Marie G. Gantz, Dhuly Chowdhury, Jutta S. Thornberry, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty

Publications and Research

Objectives: This study investigates the relationship between diabetes, hypertension, preeclampsia, and Body Mass Index (BMI) -- the most common and interrelated medical conditions occurring during pregnancy; sociodemographic and behavioral risk factors; and adverse pregnancy outcomes in high-risk urban African American women in Washington, DC.

Methods: Data are from a randomized controlled trial conducted in 6 prenatal clinics. Women in their 1^st or 2^nd trimester were screened for behavioral risks (smoking, environmental tobacco smoke exposure, depression, and intimate partner violence) and demographic eligibility. 1,044 were eligible, interviewed and followed through their pregnancies. Classification and Regression Trees (CART) methodology was …

Library Education And Development Newsletter, Volume 5, Issue 2, Uno Library Science Education

Library Education and Development (L.E.A.D.)

This issue of the Library Education and Development Newsletter features Advice from the Frontlines from Nick Kaiser, a Student Spotlight of Kim Steinbrink, Announcements, Conferences and Professional Development, and Things to Consider: School Library Media Research: Research Articles for School Librarians.

Coloring Problems, Thomas Antonio Charles Chartier

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers several coloring problems all of which have a combinatorial flavor. We review some results on the chromatic number of the plane, and improve a bound on the value of regressive Ramsey numbers. The main work of this thesis considers the problem of whether given any n ≥ 1; one can color Z+ in such a way that for all a ϵ Z+ the numbers a, 2a, 3a, ..., na are assigned different colors. Such colorings are referred to as satisfactory. We provide a sufficient condition for guaranteeing the existence of satisfactory colorings and analyze the …

Crying Wolfish: The Upcoming Challenge To Blanket Strip-Search Policies In Florence V. Board Of Chosen Freeholders, Aaron Johnson

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

December 2011 News Releases, University Of Montana--Missoula. Office Of University Relations

University of Montana News Releases, 1928, 1956-present

No abstract provided.

No.20 - December 2011, Center Of Civil Law Studies

The Center of Civil Law Studies Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents And Masthead (V. 36, No. 1)

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Too Big To Obey: Why Bp Should Be Debarred, Rena Steinzor, Anne Havemann

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Evolving Law And Policy For Freshwater Ecosystem Service Markets, Martin W. Doyle, Todd Bendor

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Comparison Of Hip And Knee Strength And Neuromuscular Activity In Subjects With And Without Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, Lori Ann Bolgla, Terry R. Malone, Brian R. Umberger, Timothy L. Uhl

Physical Therapy Faculty Publications

Purpose/Background: Historically, patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) has been viewed exclusively as a knee problem. Recent findings have suggested an association between hip muscle weakness and PFPS. Altered neuromuscular activity about the hip also may contribute to PFPS; however, more limited data exist regarding this aspect. Most prior investigations also have not concurrently examined hip and knee strength and neuromuscular activity in this patient population. Additional knowledge regarding the interaction between hip and knee muscle function may enhance the current understanding of PFPS. The purpose of this study was to compare hip and knee strength and electromyographic (EMG) …

The Relation Between Black Hole Mass And Host Spheroid Stellar Mass Out To Z~2, Vardha N. Bennert, Matthew A. Auger, Tommaso Treu, Jong-Hak Woo, Matthew A. Malkan

Physics

We combine Hubble Space Telescope images from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey with archival Very Large Telescope and Keck spectra of a sample of 11 X-ray-selected broad-line active galactic nuclei in the redshift range 1 < z < 2 to study the black-hole-mass-stellar-mass relation out to a look-back time of 10 Gyr. Stellar masses of the spheroidal component (M _sph, ) are derived from multi-filter surface photometry. Black hole masses (M _BH) are estimated from the width of the broad Mg II emission line and the 3000 Å nuclear luminosity. Comparing with a uniformly measured local sample and taking into account selection effects, we find evolution in the form M _BH/M _sph, (1 + z)^{1.96 …}

A Review Of "Allies And Enemies: How The World Depends On Bacteria", Jerry H. Kavouras

Biology Department Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.