Digital Commons Network^™

Lesson 7: Wet Feet, Dry Feet, Kelly Stalnaker

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

This lesson covers US immigration policies toward Cuba. It covers the “Wet Feet, Dry Feet” policy and the controversy surrounding the policy. Lesson Essential Question: What obligations does the US Government have, if any, to immigrants seeking asylum in the United States?

Transit Operator Evaluation Of Three Wheelchair Securement Systems In A Large Accessible Transit Vehicle, Linda Van Roosmalen, Douglas Hobson, Patricia Karg, Emily Deleo, Erik Porach

Journal of Public Transportation

The safety, ease of use, and independent use of three wheelchair securement systems and three different types of wheeled mobility devices (WhMD), including a manual wheelchair, a powered wheelchair, and a three-wheeled scooter, were evaluated by eight vehicle operators of a large accessible public transit vehicle (LATV). The securement systems included a forward-facing four-point tiedown system, a prototype forward-facing autodocking system, and a prototype rear-facing-wheelchair passenger (RF-WP) system. The eight LATV operators transported wheelchair-seated passengers in each wheelchair securement system, after which they completed a questionnaire. Operators responded generally positively to the autodocking and RF-WP systems because they were observed …

Speleo Spiel, No. 393, November-December 2012, Alan Jackson

Speleo Spiel

Contents: Regular Bits -- Trip Reports -- Other Exciting News -- Surveys

Extracellular Matrix And Fibroblast Communication Following Myocardial Infarction, Yonggang Ma, Ganesh V. Halade, Merry L. Lindsey

Internal Medicine Faculty Publications

The extracellular matrix (ECM) provides structural support by serving as a scaffold for cells, and as such the ECM maintains normal tissue homeostasis and mediates the repair response following injury. In response to myocardial infarction (MI), ECM expression is generally upregulated in the left ventricle (LV), which regulates LV remodeling by modulating scar formation. The ECM directly affects scar formation by regulating growth factor release and cell adhesion and indirectly affects scar formation by regulating the inflammatory, angiogenic, and fibroblast responses. This review summarizes the current literature on ECM expression patterns and fibroblast mechanisms in the myocardium, focusing on the …

The Pedagogy Of Wisdom - An Interpretation Of Plato's Theaetetus, Gregory Kirk

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

My dissertation is an interpretation of Plato's Theaetetus. The Theaetetus is typically taken as the first work of epistemology, in which Socrates and Theaetetus fail to find satisfactory any of the three proposed definitions of knowledge - that it is perception, that it is true opinion and that it is true opinion with an account. I argue that the discussion of these claims is in aid of demonstrating Socrates' pedagogy, and that the examination of his method of questioning Theaetetus causes to emerge a reading of the text placing primary emphasis on the presentation of his activity as a midwife …

The Paradise Within Thee: The Undying Promise Of Transcendence In Paradise Lost, Thomas Christopher Mistler

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

John Milton's Paradise Lost in its simplest sense is a poem about disobedience, loss, and sin. Borrowing much of its inspiration and material from the Book of Genesis, the great English epic tells of the Fall of Man, or the choice of Adam and Eve to disobey God by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. The consequences of this action are, according to Milton and Christian tradition, tremendous. The very first lines of Paradise Lost emphasize this point, telling how "Man's first disobedience" brought "death into the world and all our [humanity's] woe" (I.1, 3). In my …

Anonymity And Ambiguity In Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology: Discerning The Fundamental Structure Of Incompleteness In Perceptual And Intersubjective Life, Whitney Howell

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This work explicates what I identify as the fundamental structure of incompleteness that characterizes the human experience of meaning and that, I argue, informs an ethical imperative in our relations with others. Drawing on the work of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I begin by showing how we overlook this incompleteness in perception. I argue that our experience of perceptual meaning almost always excludes its essential indeterminacy: that is, we experience meaning as coherent and complete, even though it is necessarily limited by our spatial and temporal situation. I show how what Merleau-Ponty refers to as the "anonymous" body--that which …

Early Forest Fire Detection Using Texture, Blob Threshold, And Motion Analysis Of Principal Components, Georges Fouad Moussa

Master's Theses

Forest fires constantly threaten ecological systems, infrastructure and human lives. The purpose behind this study is minimizing the devastating damage caused by forest fires. Since it is impossible to completely avoid their occurrences, it is essential to accomplish a fast and appropriate intervention to minimize their destructive consequences. The most traditional method for detecting forest fires is human based surveillance through lookout towers. However, this study presents a more modern technique. It utilizes land-based real-time multispectral video processing to identify and determine the possibility of fire occurring within the camera’s field of view. The temporal, spectral, and spatial signatures of …

The Application Of Systems Engineering Principles To Model Lithium Ion Battery Voltage, George Gibbs

Master's Theses

The objective of this project is to present a Lithium Ion battery voltage model derived using systems engineering principles. This paper will describe the details of the model and the implementation of the model in practical use in a power system. Additionally, the model code is described and results of the model output are compared to battery cell test data. Finally, recommendations for increased model fidelity and capability are summarized.

The modeling theory has been previously documented in the literature but detailed implementation and application of the modeling theory is shown. The detailed battery cell test voltage profiles are proprietary; …

Energy Trapping Of Thickness-Shear And Thickness-Twist Modes In A Partially Electroded At-Cut Quartz Resonator, Huijing He, Guoquan Nie, Jinxi Liu, Jiashi Yang

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

The thickness-shear and thickness-twist vibrations of a finite and partially electroded AT-cut quartz resonator are investigated. The equations of anisotropic elasticity are used with the omission of the small elastic constant c56 . An analytical solution is obtained using Fourier series from which the free vibration resonant frequencies, mode shapes, and energy trapping are calculated and examined.

Process And Domain Specificity In Regions Engaged For Face Processing: An Fmri Study Of Perceptual Differentiation, Heather R. Collins, Xun Zhu, Ramesh S. Bhatt, Jonathan D. Clark, Jane E. Joseph

Psychology Faculty Publications

The degree to which face-specific brain regions are specialized for different kinds of perceptual processing is debated. This study parametrically varied demands on featural, first-order configural, or second-order configural processing of faces and houses in a perceptual matching task to determine the extent to which the process of perceptual differentiation was selective for faces regardless of processing type (domain-specific account), specialized for specific types of perceptual processing regardless of category (process-specific account), engaged in category-optimized processing (i.e., configural face processing or featural house processing), or reflected generalized perceptual differentiation (i.e., differentiation that crosses category and processing type boundaries). ROIs were …

Graduate Internship Report- Selma High School, Jalisca Jean Thomason

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This internship report addresses the quality criteria of an agricultural education program and includes the supporting documents to meet the requirements of the California Department of Education specific to Selma High School. This document and the supporting evidence is intended to meet the requirements to obtain maximum funding for the Ag Incentive Grant.

Leukemia And Lymphoma Society, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Patrick Desmarteau, Brittany Hamilton, Sarah Patthoff

Robins Case Network

The mission of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is to “cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.” As a not-for-profit organization, LLS is structured differently from most for-profit companies. It’s unique structure allows it to focus on its mission, but also puts the organization in direct competition with other charitable fundraising organizations, and especially the American Cancer Society and Susan B. Komen for the Cure. Economic problems have made fundraising more difficult for all companies in the industry. LLS is also in the position of partnering with big …

O-Glcnac Transferase Invokes Nucleotide Sugar Pyrophosphate Participation In Catalysis, Marianne Schimpl, Xiaowei Zheng, Vladimir S. Borodkin, David E. Blair, Andrew T. Ferenbach, Alexander W. Schüttelkopf, Iva Navratilova, Tonia Aristotelous, Osama Albarbarawi, David A. Robinson, Megan A. Macnaughtan, Daan M.F. Van Aalten

Faculty Publications

Protein O-GlcNAcylation is an essential post-translational modification on hundreds of intracellular proteins in metazoa, catalyzed by O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) transferase (OGT) using unknown mechanisms of transfer and substrate recognition. Through crystallographic snapshots and mechanism-inspired chemical probes, we define how human OGT recognizes the sugar donor and acceptor peptide and uses a new catalytic mechanism of glycosyl transfer, involving the sugar donor α-phosphate as the catalytic base as well as an essential lysine. This mechanism seems to be a unique evolutionary solution to the spatial constraints imposed by a bulky protein acceptor substrate and explains the unexpected specificity of a recently …

Lattice Modules Over Rings Of Bounded Random Variables, Karl-Theodor Eisele, Sonia Taieb

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Bose-Einstein Condensation: A Transition To Chaos Result, Stefania Ugolini

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

The Feynman Integrand For The Charged Particle In A Constant Magnetic Field As White Noise Distribution, Wolfgang Bock, Martin Grothaus, Sebastian Jung

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

An Estimation Of Economic Models With Recursive Preferences, Xiaohong Chen, Jack Favilukis, Sydney C. Ludvigson

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper presents estimates of key preference parameters of the Epstein and Zin (1989, 1991) and Weil (1989) (EZW) recursive utility model, evaluates the model’s ability to fit asset return data relative to other asset pricing models, and investigates the implications of such estimates for the unobservable aggregate wealth return. Our empirical results indicate that the estimated relative risk aversion parameter ranges from 17-60, with higher values for aggregate consumption than for stockholder consumption, while the estimated elasticity of intertemporal substitution is above one. In addition, the estimated model-implied aggregate wealth return is found to be weakly correlated with the …

Mathematical Institutional Economics, Martin Shubik

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

An overview is given of the utilization of strategic market games in the development of a game theory based theory of money and financial institutions.

Wealth Effects Revisited 1975-2012, Karl E. Case, John M. Quigley, Robert J. Shiller

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We re-examine the links between changes in housing wealth, financial wealth, and consumer spending. We extend a panel of U.S. states observed quarterly during the seventeen-year period, 1982 through 1999, to the thirty-seven year period, 1975 through 2012Q2. Using techniques reported previously, we impute the aggregate value of owner-occupied housing, the value of financial assets, and measures of aggregate consumption for each of the geographic units over time. We estimate regression models in levels, first differences and in error-correction form, relating per capita consumption to per capita income and wealth. We find a statistically significant and rather large effect of …

Conservation Needs Of Nearshore Seabirds In The Southeastern U.S. Addressed Through Habitat Use Surveys And Assessments Of Health And Mercury Concentrations, Lisa Eggert

All Dissertations

Seabirds encounter a range of natural and anthropogenic stressors in the nearshore environment and are ideal candidate species for long-term monitoring of changes to coastal systems. The mitigation of threats to nearshore seabirds requires management of essential coastal habitat and monitoring population health and trends. In this dissertation, I first evaluated intertidal habitat use for a suite of coastal species as it relates to management practices at a seabird nesting island in South Carolina. Specifically, my objectives were (1) to determine intertidal areas of high bird abundance, (2) to examine course-scale habitat characteristics and human use of intertidal areas associated …

Preventing Misuse And Disuse Of Automated Systems: Effects Of System Confidence Display On Trust And Decision Performance, Margaux Price

All Dissertations

Complex decision-making may be aided by forms of automation known as decision-support systems (DSS). However, no DSS is completely reliable and so it is imperative that users know when they should and should not trust it (calibration of trust). Previous research has shown that providing users with information about the DSS's confidence in its own advice ('system confidence') can help improve the calibration of user's trust of automation and actual system reliability on a trial by trial basis. The current study examined how the nature of the presentation of system confidence information affected user's trust calibration. The first study examined …

Cost Innovation: Schumpeter And Equilibrium. Part 2: Innovation And The Money Supply, Martin Shubik, William D. Sudderth

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The control structure over money and real assets is considered in the process of cost innovation. The work here contrasts with the first part of this paper where the emphasis was on the physical aspects of innovation. Here the emphasis is primarily on the money supply aspects of innovation. We conclude with observations on evaluation and the locus of control in the process of innovation.

Talking Chalk: Defacing The First Amendmen In The Public Forum, Marie A. Failinger

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Leadership Development Training: Its Impact On Middle Managers In Law Enforcement, David P. Wedlick

Education Doctoral

The purpose of this study was to explore leadership development training as it relates to the attributes and skills of middle managers in law enforcement agencies. The Skills Approach theory will be discussed relating to how middle managers in a county in New York State, with no middle management leadership development training, assume their positions. A qualitative method was used to capture data about the need for leadership development training versus the attributes and skills law enforcement middle managers already possess. The result of this study revealed that leadership development for this county is cultivated, not through formal training, but …

Employee Work Attitudes Post Merger And Acquisition, Adam Sorenson

Theses and Dissertations

The airline industry has faced a devastating past decade with a loss of $60 billion, and 150,000 jobs, the worst financial performance among any major industry, along with 186 bankruptcies over the last 30 years (The proposed United-Continental merger, 2010). Mergers and acquisitions have been the most recent remedy to the financial turmoil and instability. However, 70-80% of mergers fail to produce the benefits originally anticipated, often due to employee concerns (Selden & Colvin, 2003). The purpose of this research is to conduct a quantitative study on job satisfaction and organizational commitment with employees from a major airline after recently …

The Utah Model: Lessons For Regional Planning, Brenda C. Scheer

Brookings Mountain West Publications

Utah has become an unlikely leader in regional planning through a voluntary partnership of key leaders, agencies, local government, and the general public. Given that regional planning efforts around the nation have generally evoked strong reactions from residents concerned about losing local control, the success of Envision Utah—the organization that emerged as a key driver of regional planning in Utah—in building a consensus around regional growth management holds lessons for other regions.

Envision Utah adopted several strategies that have distinguished Utah’s regional planning efforts from other regions and given rise to what can be called the “Utah model” of collaborative …

What Are The Effects On Parish Relations When Adding Digital Communication To Catholic Ministry?, Kristina Collmann Costello

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This qualitative study sought to understand the effects on parish relations when those leading Catholic ministry efforts added digital communication to their programs. This study, based on Buber’s philosophy that it is a person’s full commitment and presence in a dialogue that contributes to intimacy, will aim to illustrate that the level of richness in a dialogue relies more on the quality of the information, or messages shared, than the medium used to conduct the dialogue. The study is grounded in the Social Information Processing Theory and the Social Presence Theory. The data for this study was garnered through personal …

Examination Of Employee Work-Life Balance Within Healthy Organizational Cultures, Cari Ann Lyle

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the work-life balance of employees within the U.S. communications industry, specifically focusing on how employees can build collaborative relationships with their colleagues while maintaining active lifestyles outside the office. The effects of a healthy work-life balance on organizational culture has become a popular topic in American organizations during the past decade, and this research used focus groups and interviews to help determine how leaders can encourage employees to prioritize their professional and personal obligations. Study participants were asked questions developed around Edgar Schein’s organizational culture research, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and communication theories about balance and …

Listening To Organizational Change: Exploring Dialogue During Sensemaking, Dianna L. Stratton

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This qualitative study explored the role of dialogue during sensemaking and how that affects receptivity to organizational change. The philosophical framework for this study comes from Buber’s (1958) I and Thou dialogue theories concerning the value of existential acknowledgement. Both communication and organizational study theories grounded this research. Bohm (1996) and Isaacs’ (1999) dialogue theories converge with Weick’s (1995) sensemaking theories as a means to explore the role of listening during organizational change. Data was obtained through ethnographic observation and interview. A cultural research framework provided the means to explore the relationships between dialogue, sensemaking and organizational change. The results …