Digital Commons Network^™

Air Demand In Low-Level Outlet Works, Jason Arthur Larchar

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Most dams have a low-level outlet that consists of a closed conduit through the dam with a slide gate or valve to regulate flow. These outlets are used mainly for irrigational purposes but also for flushing the reservoir and controlling the reservoir elevation. When discharging through the low-level outlet works, negative pressures can develop on the downstream side of the gate creating a potential for cavitation damage and vibration. To minimize these effects, air vents (vented to the atmosphere) are installed on the downstream side of the gate to limit downstream pressure to something above vapor pressure (i.e., near atmospheric …

Newlywed To Established Marriage: A Longitudinal Study Of Early Risk And Protective Factors That Influence Marital Satisfaction, Daniel Alfred Moen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This current study took questionnaire information from couples as newlyweds through five years of marriage in an attempt to discover the most significant predictors of marital satisfaction.

This study also used additional information from these couples to help understand how problem issues change from newlywed to established marriage (five or more years of marriage). This study found that experiencing a difficult transition to marriage as newlyweds was the only significant predictor of marriage satisfaction five years later. Meaning, couples who experienced a difficult transition to marriage as newlyweds tended to report lower levels of marital satisfaction five years later in …

The Relationship Of Acculturation And Acculturative Stress In Latina/O Youths’ Psychosocial Functioning, Marsha Tafoya

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study was conducted to better understand how acculturation and acculturative stress are related to self-esteem, depression, substance use, and substance use problems in 206 Latina/o youth. Acculturation is the social and psychological process of change that occurs when an individual or group comes in contact with a different culture. The acculturation process can be positive, improving one’s life chances in the new culture, or it could be negative due to the challenging nature of change and adaptation to new cultural and social expectations. This difficulty creates a type of stress, called acculturative stress that has been found to be …

Jackson, Mississippi, Contested: The Allied Struggle For Civil Rights And Human Dignity, Matthew David Monroe

Master's Theses

Utilizing monthly reports and correspondence of civil rights organizations, in addition to newspaper coverage, oral histories; and memoirs, this study shows that a grassroots, community-driven movement mobilized in Mississippi's capital to challenge institutionalized discrimination. Yet, racial identity did not dictate exclusively how White and Black Mississippians responded to the unfolding Civil Rights Movement. Conflicting and shifting motivations shaped the nature, extent, and pace by which Blacks and Whites challenged or protected status quo discrimination. The Jackson Movement began as early as 1955 and sustained protest activity into the 1960s. By the summer of 1965, Jackson's Black community secured most of …

Whole Body Vibration In Anterior Cruciate Ligament Rehabilitation, Sara Ruby Vargas

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

There has been an increasing prevalence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. In the literature describing ACL rehabilitation program flexibility, muscle strength, proprioception, and postural stability have been identified as reoccurring struggles that have arisen during rehabilitation. Whole Body Vibration (WBV) has been investigate as a rehabilitation tool that can be used when recovering from an ACL injury. Research has suggested that WBV can be used to increase flexibility, improve muscular strength, increase proprioception, and improve postural stability. The purpose of this review is to gather the WBV protocols used in previous research and apply them to ACL rehabilitation. An …

Nonlinear Aerodynamic Corrections To Blade Element Momentum Model With Validation Experiments, Robert S. Merrill

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

Blade element momentum theory is well suited for propeller analysis during the early stages of design. The analytic blade element momentum model is presented along with a proposed nonlinear improvement. The analytical model makes small angle assumptions which are known to be inaccurate under some conditions. The nonlinear model avoids these assumptions. The results of the analytical and nonlinear models are compared against each other. The differences between these are most prevalent on lower pitch propellers at high advance ratios. A wind tunnel validation test is outlined. Results of the validation test and other published data from the University of …

Closed-Loop Attitude Control Using Fluid Dynamic Vectoring On An Aerospike Nozzle, Nathan Erni

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

Attitude control of a prototype satellite bus using fluid mechanical vectoring on an aerospike nozzle is demonstrated. The design achieves thrust vectoring by injecting propellant asymmetrically into the unconstrained aerospike exhaust plume near the nozzle base. The prototype system uses cold-gas thrusters to both spin-up and de-tumble the test article. The system is configured with axially directed annular flows that produce large longitudinal thrusts and smaller secondary lateral-injection flows for side thrusts. Both open and closed-loop attitude control, with and without main aerospike annular flow active, are demonstrated. Proportional, integral, derivative (PID) regulation is used for closed-loop attitude control. When …

Enhancing Inettest By Improving The Programming Question And Group Grading, Sushil Dosi

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

This report describes an improvement to the Utah State University iNetTest testing system. The iNetTest system allows instructors and/or students to: • Create/take tests with rich sets of question types (multiple choice, essay, true/false, computational programming question, etc.); • Monitor the test takers for cheating; • Auto-grade for many types of questions, as well as group grade for all question types; and • Send scores to students via either email or SMS. Specifically, this report discusses the design and development of an improved computational programming question for the iNetTest system. For programming questions, iNetTest allows for the use of various …

A Model For Rapid Charging Events On International Space Station, Debrup Hui

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

Surface charging by plasma can be a serious issue for any spacecraft. Though significant charging is not observed in all spacecrafts at all times, it only requires a single episode of extreme charging to result in serious damage. The International Space Station (ISS) is an interesting platform to study these charging effects because of its size and relatively high voltage systems. Of the many kinds of charging observed on ISS, the rapid charging events during solar eclipse exit in a low-density ionosphere is not yet understood. This report is an investigation to understand this phenomenon. This report proposes a simple …

Report On Advances In The Field Of Artificial Intelligence Attributed To Captcha, Craig M. Schow

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

A CAPTCHA is a specialized human interaction proof that exploits gaps between human and computer recognition abilities. By design, the hardness of a CAPTCHA is based on the difficulty of advancing the underlying artificial intelligence [AI] technology to a level that eliminates any exploitable gap. Due to this fact computer scientists have concluded that the widespread use of CAPTCHA would accelerate research in the underlying fields of AI eventually leading to near-­‐human capabilities in certain AI systems. Despite these predictions no attempt has been made to identify advances in AI which can be attributed to the use of CAPTCHA.

The …

Optimization Of Crime Control Resources In A Society, Steven S. Thompson

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

This paper looks at the economics of crime control through the Phillips-Votey Societal Cost Function model and mathematically proves that there is a socially optimal point at which society should be devoting resources towards the prevention of crime. This allows the society to minimize the social cost of crime given a theoretical cost constraint. This paper take the model further by conducting comparative analysis to determine the effect that changes in the functional form of crime generation, and crime prevention will have on society as represented in the model. This paper also looks at the counter intuitive effect that growth …

Peddlers Of Hate: The Existence Of Norm Entrepreneurs As A Necessary Precursor To Genocide, Lauren Elise Fairbanks

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

Over the course of the 20th century genocide has been responsible for the murder of more than 170 million people; it is has proven to be four times deadlier than war (Voth, 2007). Although it often appears spontaneous, Genocide is instead a result of certain preconditions. Studies into the causes of genocide ought to aid in the formation of methods intended to keep violence from occurring. Unfortunately, seemingly different factors such as economic crisis, resource scarcity, institutional weakness, and ethnic resentment prove difficult to classify as the ultimate cause. Instead these conditions work collectively to create an atmosphere that is …

Algebraic Properties Of Killing Vectors For Lorentz Metrics In Four Dimensions, Jesse W. Hicks

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

Four-dimensional space-times with symmetry play a central role in the theory of general relativity. In 1961, in the book Einstein Spaces, A.Z. Petrov gave a complete local classification of four-dimensional space-times based upon their local isometry group, that is, their Lie algebra of Killing vector fields. In this report we discuss algebraic and geometric properties of these Lie algebras. A database of these properties has been computed for the five-dimensional Lie algebras of Killing vectors found in Petrov. As an application of our work, we present dieomorphisms between a few pairs of these Lie algebras of Killing vectors.

Development, Implementation, And Evaluation Of A Social Skills Training Intervention In A Rural Special-School Setting For Students With Mild/Moderate Disabilities, Sheree Duncan

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

Given the critical degree to which a person’s level of social competence influences one’s academic, mental, social, and interpersonal success, it is imperative that schools facilitate the learning of social skills. The purpose of this study was to design, implement and evaluate a social skills training intervention for students with mild disabilities (and behaviors that adversely affect their participation in a general curriculum or resource settings) in a rural special school setting. A review of literature guided the design and evaluation of the intervention. According to analysis of data on student behavior, the social skills training intervention did not consistently …

Engineering Model To Calculate Mass Flow Rate Of A Two-Phase Saturated Fluid Through An Injector Orifice, Brian J. Solomon

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

An engineering model is developed to calculate mass flow rate of nitrous oxide, a self-pressurizing saturated oxidizer commonly used in hybrid rocket motors. While use of N_{2}0 cannot be accurately modeled using traditional ideal gas, compressible, or incompressible flow assumptions. To obtain accurate mass flow rate this one-dimensional analysis includes both incompressible fluid and homogeneous equilibrium mass flow rate models. Mass flow calculations from the two models are independently weighted and summed to obtain representative two-phase mass flow rate. Fluid properties are iterated in time by keeping track of fluid enthalpy and are propagated across the injector using either isentropic …

Reduced Gravity Landing Research Vehicle Design, Sarah Isert

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Human and robotic missions beyond low earth orbit (LEO) are key components of NASA's currently emerging strategy for space exploration. These missions will inevitably include humancrewed lunar and planetary surface landings. Trips to near-earth asteroids are also in the incipient planning stages. A permanent presence on the surface of an extra terrestrial body like Mars or the Moon will require many landings by both human-crewed and robotic spacecraft.

Planetary and lunar surface landings are inherently dangerous undertakings, and successful landings are indeed rare events. Since the end of the Apollo era with the completion of the Apollo 17 mission in …

Optimization Of A Low Reynold's Number 2-D Inflatable Airfoil Section, Todd A. Johansen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A stand-alone genetic algorithm (GA) and an surrogate-based optimization (SBO) combined with a GA were compared for accuracy and performance. Comparisons took place using the Ackley Function and Rastrigin's Function, two functions with multiple local maxima and minima that could cause problems for more traditional optimization methods, such as a gradient-based method. The GA and SBO with GA were applied to the functions through a fortran interface and it was found that the SBO could use the same number of function evaluations as the GA and achieve at least 5 orders of magnitude greater accuracy through the use of surrogate …

Trafficking Of Women In Nepal: An Intersectional Analysis Of Organizational Narratives, Bhavana Mahat

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Nepal, sex trafficking is usually associated with poverty, illiteracy and gender discrimination. To better understand the discursive dimensions of sex trafficking, this research examines the organizational narratives of the Nepalese anti-trafficking workers using the analytical framework of intersectionality. This study finds that the anti-trafficking workers' organizational narratives are influenced by both personal and institutional narratives. In their personal narratives, anti-trafficking workers recognize the multiple forms of discrimination shaping the victims' experiences, but the intersectional discriminations are rarely addressed in the anti-trafficking programs or services implemented by the non-profit organizations. After having identified sex-trafficking victims as experiencing discrimination based on …

Environmental Influences On Juvenile Fish Abundances In A River-Dominated Coastal System, Laure Carassou, Brian Dzwonkowski, Frank J. Hernandez, Jr., Sean P. Powers, William M. Graham, Kyeong Park, John Mareska

University Faculty and Staff Publications

We investigated the influence of climatic and environmental factors on variations in juvenile abundances of marine fishes in a river-dominated coastal system of the north-central Gulf of Mexico, where an elevated primary productivity sustains fisheries of high economic importance. Fish were collected monthly with an otter trawl at three stations near Mobile Bay from 1982 to 2007. Fish sizes were used to isolate juvenile stages within the data set, and monthly patterns in juvenile fish abundance and size were then used to identify seasonal peaks for each species. The average numbers of juvenile fish collected during these seasonal peaks in …

Perceptions Of Professional Practice And Work Environment Of New Graduates In A Nurse Residency Program, Marilyn Meyer Bratt, Holly M. Felzer

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

New nurses continue to face challenging work environments and high expectations for professional competence as they enter practice. Nurse residency programs are gaining prominence as a mechanism to ease new graduates’ transition to practice. This study examined new graduates’ perceptions of their professional practice competence and work environment throughout a yearlong nurse residency program. Employing a repeated measures design, data were collected at baseline, at 6 months, and at 12 months. Results showed that job satisfaction was significantly lowest at 6 months and highest at 12 months. Job stress was found to be lowest at 12 months and organizational commitment …

Anti-Catholicism V. Al Smith: An Analysis Of Anti-Catholicism In The 1928 Presidential Election, Michael Rooney

Verbum

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph.

"With few exceptions, the details of past presidential elections are largely forgotten over the course of history. As specific campaigns and elections become more distant from contemporary society, people tend to focus on the larger picture of what that election produced, mainly, who actually became the president. And for the majority of the American public, the presidential election of 1928 is no exception to this. But as Allan Lichtman suggests in his book Prejudice and the Old Politics: The Presidential Election of 1928, ―Presidential elections are central events of …

My Childhood Memories Of Life In Palestine, Wegdan Ashkar

Verbum

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Love, Amy Burgett

Verbum

No abstract provided.

God Is Here, Heather Kime

Verbum

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph.

"Mother Teresa once said, ―I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much.‖ I often think of this quote when I am struggling with daily obstacles. When the day is over and I reflect on the obstacles God gave me I always realize that He gave them to me to make me a stronger person. God knows what I can handle and will only give me those obstacles that I can get through. There are obstacles that are …

Amaryllis, Emily Barbero

Verbum

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph.

"Greek mythology explains the origins of the Amaryllis flower through a story of love. A beautiful maiden named Amaryllis falls in love with a shepherd named Alteo, on a mountainside. Alteo had the strength of Hercules and the beauty of Apollo with a passion for flowers. He claimed he would only fall in love with a girl who could bring to him a new type of a flower that he had never seen before. Determined to win his love, Amaryllis traveled to the Oracle of Delphi for guidance. The …

"Better Together", Husain Bawany

Verbum

No abstract provided.

What Was Sherlock Holmes' Alma Mater? Elementary: St. John Fisher College, Tim Madigan

Verbum

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph.

"As the recent Robert Downey, Jr. movie has clearly demonstrated, interest in all things relating to Sherlock Holmes remains strong. This is just as true at St. John Fisher College as anywhere else, where the immortal detective stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are taught in literature courses by Lisa Jadwin of the Department of English, and where Holmes‘ skills at deduction are discussed in philosopher David White‘s Basic Logic classes. Several other professors, including Donald Muench and Gerry Wildenberg in Mathematics, and Charles Natoli and yours truly in …

Image: "Holmes' Lunch At Fisher", No Author

Verbum

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, No Author

Verbum

This is the full issue of Volume 9, Issue 1 of Verbum, published in Fall 2011 by the REST Club at St. John Fisher College. Articles from this issue are available as separate PDFs at http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/verbum/vol9/iss1/

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 …