Digital Commons Network^™

Looping Mathematics Instruction At The High School Level: An Examination Of Success Indicators, John M. Lachance Jr.

Dissertations

Success in high school and high school mathematics has long-term implications for students‟ college and career readiness and achievement. As the United States and many other nations examine ways to enhance the high school experience for young people and increase student achievement in mathematics every aspect of instruction needs close examination to determine best practices. This study helped determine the outcomes of looped instruction for high school students in the content area of mathematics and a comprehensive examination of success indicators for students in high school mathematics including standardized test scores, grades, common assessment scores, and attendance, discipline, as well …

Reflections On Electricity, Modernization, & Identity In The New South, Matthew Henderson

All Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between the rhetoric of Southern reformers and the technology being adopted across South Carolina and Georgia at the end of the 19th century. The ideology of the New South, one that juxtaposed modern industry and old traditions, was fundamentally shortsighted in its failure to recognize how new technology would alter Southern institutions. Electric lights and power were widely viewed as neutral tools the South could employ to compete with Northern critics and achieve widespread hopes for modern prosperity. Because of this understanding of technology, one that is epitomized in the fanfare and optimism of the …

A New Approach To Dynamic Modeling Of Continuum Robots, Nivedhitha Giri

All Theses

ABSTRACT
In this thesis, a new approach for developing practically realizable dynamic models for continuum robots is proposed. Based on the new dynamic models developed, a novel technique for analyzing the capabilities of continuum manipulators to be employed in various real world applications has also been proposed and developed.
A section of a continuum arm is modeled using lumped model elements (masses, springs and dampers). It is shown that this model, although an approximation to a continuum structure, can be used to conveniently analyze the dynamics of the arm with suitable tradeoff in accuracy of modeling. This relatively simple model …

A Methodology For Estimating And Comparing The Lifecycles Of High-Build And Conventional Waterborne Pavement Markings On Primary And Secondary Roads In South Carolina, Joseph Robertson

All Theses

Highway pavement markings constitute a vital component of roadway transportation systems and provide crucial visual cues for the basic driver task of following the road. In 2008, the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) initiated a multi-year study to evaluate pavement markings on non-interstate primary and secondary roads in South Carolina. This thesis discusses development of a methodology for estimating and comparing the lifecycles of high-build and conventional waterborne pavement markings based on retroreflectivity levels. The methodology was developed using nearly 3 years of field data from 66 sites throughout South Carolina. This thesis provides an overview of data collection …

Potential Of Three Brassica Cover Crops For Biofumigation In The Field And The Relationship Between Soil Myrosinase And Biofumigation Efficacy, Zachariah Hansen

All Theses

A greenhouse study was set up in January 2011 to investigate the effect of soil myrosinase concentration and Bacillus spp. on the release efficiency of isothiocyanates (ITCs) from freeze-dried `Pacific Gold' mustard leaf tissue after incorporation into soil. Seventeen diverse soil samples collected from various regions of South Carolina were used in the study. A correlation analysis was conducted to determine if soil myrosinase was positively correlated with ITC concentrations after mustard incorporation. ITC concentrations were then analyzed with soilborne Bacillus spp. populations, bean emergence, disease incidence, and shoot weight to identify significant correlations. Finally, the effect of freeze-dried `Pacific …

Do The Ethics Of Authorship Matter?: Exploring The Implications Of The Office Of Research Integrity's Narrow Definition Of Research Misconduct, Caroline Linvill

All Theses

Over the past 25 years, federal government entities have become involved in defining and regulating misconduct in scientific research. Consistently, these definitions of research misconduct forbid three key actions--falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism--but do not take into account other professional communication issues, mainly authorship. This lack of acknowledgement and regulation of authorship--particularly from the Office of Research Integrity, the nation's highest research ethics body--seems to imply and communicate that the ethics of authorship are not important in science. However, this thesis demonstrates, through rhetorical, historical and interview research, that authorship ethics do matter to scientists; in fact, authorship is a leading …

Fault-Tree Model For Bridge Collapse Risk Analysis, Caitlyn Davis-Mcdaniel

All Theses

Bridges are vital components of the United States surface transportation infrastructure and, moreover, support the growth of our nation's economy. However, over the past few decades the design capacity and service condition of many bridges in the U.S. has been challenged. Numerous incidents of bridge collapse call for an urgent need to develop a systematic method of assessing the failure risks and identifying the initiating events that can lead to a bridge collapse. This thesis presents a process of bridge failure risk analysis through fault-tree modeling and identification of specific countermeasures, to minimize failure risk, related to structural health monitoring …

Teacher Collaboration And Student Achievement, Cordie E. Wimberley

Dissertations

This study was conducted to explore the relationship between teacher collaboration and student achievement. The pedagogical model espoused by Howland and Picciotto (2003b) defined teacher collaboration as a pedagogy that involves two or more teachers who regularly discuss teaching and learning, including learning activities, lesson plans, assignments, pacing, course design, evaluating, and revising the program. Five hundred twenty three school districts were invited to be part of this study. Then, 100 public school districts were randomly selected from 201 responses to an online survey addressed to Professional Development Chairpersons in Missouri. School districts were divided into two groups, collaborative and …

Plcs: Student Outcomes Evaluation In Midwest High School, Kelly E. Dickinson

Dissertations

This study was an evaluation of student outcomes following a five year implementation of PLCs at Midwest High School in the U.S. Three research questions were addressed: (1) Has student achievement increased during the course of implementing PLCs? If so, is there evidence that this is a result of a contribution from PLC implementation from 2006-2011? (2) Have teacher attitudes toward curriculum rigor, public image, quality of education, and post-high school preparedness changed during the implementation of PLCs from 2006-2011? (3) Is the staff, in April 2011, a mature PLC? For research question one, eight hypotheses resulted in the evaluation …

Evaluation Of Sponsorship Activation Strategies Employed By A Minor League Baseball Team, Velina Boteva

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

A common challenge for corporations engaging in sport sponsorship activities lies in the evaluation of these activities. Some of the struggle is in the multitude of objectives that can be pursued through developing sponsorship relationships. Typical objectives include increasing brand awareness and recognition (Cornwell, Humphreys, Maguire, Weeks, & Tellegen, 2006), increasing sales (Choi, Stotlar, & Park, 2006) accessing specific target markets (Doherty & Murray, 2007), developing goodwill (Meenaghan, 2001), and positioning the brand (Ferreira, Hall, & Bennett, 2008). With so many differing objectives, it can be difficult to identify and/or develop standard rules, measurement scales, or generally accepted techniques that …

A Comparison Of Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus Carolinensis) Nesting Behavior Among Habitats Differing In Anthropogenic Disturbance, Elizabeth Williams

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Eastern gray squirrels inhabit a large range of heterogeneous habitats and climates, and live with various levels of anthropogenic disturbance. Previous studies have examined this species in unmodified and modified surroundings; however, a comparison of populations between these habitats has yet to be published. Their widespread occurrence coupled with their success in urban areas and the invasive nature of introduced populations, suggests this species is behaviorally flexible. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of anthropogenic disturbance and development on gray squirrel nesting behavior by comparing variables related to nesting habitat preference among habitats of differing levels …

Synopsis Of Methods Used To Map Historical Vegetation In Oregon And Washington, Based On General Land Office Survey Notes, John Christy, Edward Alverson

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

Mapping historical vegetation in Oregon and Washington has been ongoing since about 1993. It is based primarily on General Land Office (GLO) surveyors' descriptions of vegetation, recorded between 1851 and about 1940. For areas along the coast and the lower Columbia River, topographic maps ("T-sheets") of the U.S. Coast Survey (later called U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, and more recently the National Geodetic Survey)—based on field work conducted between 1852 and 1889—have been integrated whenever possible with GLO data because of their superior cartography and land cover symbology. For more detailed descriptions of mapping methods, see Christy and Alverson (2011) …

A Comparison Of Student Performance In Single-Sex Education And Coeducational Settings In Urban Middle Schools, Craig Erico Ogden

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Since amendments to NCLB in 2004, public schools have not only established single-sex schools, but have also established single-sex classrooms within coeducational schools. Most of these modifications were adopted as a means to provide support to lowachieving students, many of who reside in urban settings. Proponents of single-sex instruction state that mostly African Americans, Hispanics, and females benefit most from this type of instructional setting because single-sex environments help to reduce gender stereotypes students encounter in coeducational settings. Opponents of single-sex instruction believe that accomplishments achieved in single-sex environments can be achieved in coeducational environments if the proper teaching strategies …

African American Male Students' Perceptions Of Factors That Contribute To Their Academic Success, Gertrude Rolland

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study sought to understand African American high school males' perceptions of factors contributing to academic success. The researcher gathered information by interviewing students and collecting their demographic profile data. This qualitative research method enabled the researcher to learn directly from students what factors African American male students associated with academic success as well as challenges to academic success and solutions for achieving academic success. Participants were three junior and three senior African American high school male students attending a rural high school in Georgia. Data collection occurred during the spring semester of 2011. Each participant was asked 16 questions …

Supporting Quality Teaching With Recognition, Hans A. Andrews

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Abstract

Value has been found in providing recognition and awards programs for excellent teachers. Research has also found a major lack of these programs in both the USA and in Australia. Teachers receiving recognition and awards for their teaching have praised recognition programs as providing motivation for them to continue high-level instruction. Motivational theories provide a solid foundation for these programs. Teacher educators should find ‘recognition’ as an important part of their curriculum in terms of teaching the research behind motivational theories. They can also encourage K-12 schools to provide recognition to the excellent teachers working with university teacher educators …

Young Adults With Mental Illness In North San Diego County - Yami: Appendixes A-C, Ellen Frudakis, Jessica Hanson York, Evan Holland, Colleen Kollar Smith, Vi Nguyen

Program Design and Evaluation

Young Adults With Mental Illness in North San Diego County - YAMI: Appendixes A-C

Stochastic Policy Search For Variance-Penalized Semi-Markov Control, Abhijit Gosavi, Mandar Purohit

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The variance-penalized metric in Markov decision processes (MDPs) seeks to maximize the average reward minus a scalar time the variance of rewards. in this paper, our goal is to study the same metric in the context of the semi-Markov decision process (SMDP). in the SMDP, unlike the MDP, the time spent in each transition is not identical and may in fact be a random variable. We first develop an expression for the variance of rewards in the SMDPs, and then formulate the VP-SMDP. Our interest here is in solving the problem without generating the underlying transition probabilities of the Markov …

Executable System Architecting Using Systems Modeling Language In Conjunction With Colored Petri Nets In A Model-Driven Systems Development Process, Renzhong Wang, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This work proposes an executable system architecting paradigm for discrete-event system modeling and analysis through integration of a set of modeling tools, executable formalisms, analytical tools, and animation tools. the essential step is converting SysML-Based specifications into colored Petri nets through a conversion scheme proposed here. Such a paradigm permits rigorous static and dynamic system analysis, as well as formal verification of the behavior and functionality of the SysML-Based design. This paper also compares the capabilities of the proposed executable system architecting paradigm with other executable formalisms. Further, it discusses the basic principles of executable architecture specification and analysis for …

Methodology For Behavioral-Based Malware Analysis And Detection Using Random Projections And K-Nearest Neighbors Classifiers, Jozsef Hegedus, Yoan Miche, Alexander Ilin, Amaury Lendasse

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In This Paper, a Two-Stage Methodology to Analyze and Detect Behavioral-Based Malware is Presented. in the First Stage, a Random Projection is Decreasing the Variable Dimensionality of the Problem and is Simultaneously Reducing the Computational Time of the Classification Task by Several Orders of Magnitude. in the Second Stage, a Modified K-Nearest Neighbors Classifier is Used with Virus total Labeling of the File Samples. This Methodology is Applied to a Large Number of File Samples Provided by F-Secure Corporation, for Which a Dynamic Feature Has Been Extracted during Deep guard Sandbox Execution. as a Result, the Files Classified as False …

Review Of The Website The Nuremberg Trials Project, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the website The Nuremberg trials project.

Justices Denied: The 2010 Iowa Supreme Court Retention Election, Andrew John Clopton

Honors Program Theses

States vary widely in their judicial selection systems, with some seeking more judicial accountability and others preferring more independence. Most states, including Iowa, strike a perceived balance between independence and accountability with the implementation of the Missouri (Merit) Plan. With gubernatorial nomination from selected candidates chosen by a committee, judges must only directly face the electorate every few years. Retention elections provide near certainty that a judge will continue to serve. In 2010, the Iowa electorate shattered the norms because all three Supreme Court justices failed to retain their seats. We examine county-level voter characteristic variables and construct a model …

Eigenvalue Distributions Of Mimo Rayleigh-Product Channels With Arbitrary-Power Co-Channel Interference And Noise, Yongpeng Wu, Shi Jin, Xiqi Gao, Chengshan Xiao, Matthew R. Mckay

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper studies the eigenvalue distributions of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Rayleigh-product channels in the presence of both co-channel interference and thermal noise. We first present exact expressions for the marginal ordered eigenvalue distributions of the channel Gram matrix when multichannel beamforming is employed, from which we obtain exact results of the outage probability on each eigenmode. Our results apply to a wide class of multichannel systems which transmit on the eigenmodes of the MIMO channel, allowing for transmission on any numbers of eigen subchannels, with any numbers of antennas, any numbers of scatterers in the environment, and any numbers of …

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 …

Clara And Roman, Doug Burg

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

Directional Limits On Persistent Gravitational Waves Using Ligo S5 Science Data, J. Abadie, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The gravitational-wave (GW) sky may include nearby pointlike sources as well as stochastic backgrounds. We perform two directional searches for persistent GWs using data from the LIGO S5 science run: one optimized for pointlike sources and one for arbitrary extended sources. Finding no evidence to support the detection of GWs, we present 90% confidence level (C.L.) upper-limit maps of GW strain power with typical values between 2 - 20 x 10^-50 strain² Hz^-1 and 5 - 35 x 10^-49 strain²Hz^-1sr^-1 for pointlike and extended sources, respectively. The latter result is the …

Thermal Correction To The Molar Polarizability Of A Boltzmann Gas, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Mariusz Puchalski, Peter J. Mohr

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Metrology in atomic physics has been crucial for a number of advanced determinations of fundamental constants. In addition to very precise frequency measurements, the molar polarizability of an atomic gas has recently also been measured very accurately. Part of the motivation for the measurements is due to ongoing efforts to redefine the International System of Units (SI), for which an accurate value of the Boltzmann constant is needed. Here we calculate the dominant shift of the molar polarizability in an atomic gas due to thermal effects. It is given by the relativistic correction to the dipole interaction, which emerges when …

Capacitance Calculation For A Shared-Antipad Via Structure Using An Integral Equation Method Based On Partial Capacitance, Hanfeng Wang, Albert E. Ruehli, Jun Fan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An integral equation method used for capacitance extraction for axially symmetric geometries is extended in this paper to calculate the via-plane capacitances in shared-antipad via structures, by changing the circular ring cells to arc ones. the proposed method is validated with a commercial finite element method-based tool for a typical structure used in modern high-speed printed circuit design. © 2011 IEEE.

On The Linear Precoder Design For Mimo Channels With Finite-Alphabet Inputs And Statistical Csi, Weiliang Zeng, Chengshan Xiao, Mingxi Wang, Jianhua Lu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper investigates the linear precoder design that maximizes the average mutual information of multiple-input multiple-output channels with finite-alphabet inputs and statistical channel state information known at the transmitter. This linear precoder design is an important open problem and is extremely difficult to solve: First, average mutual information lacks closed-form expression and involves complicated computations; Second, the optimization problem over precoder is nonconcave. This study explores the solution to this problem and provides the following contributions: 1) a closed-form lower bound of average mutual information is derived. It achieves asymptotic optimality at low and high signal-to-noise ratio regions and, with …