Digital Commons Network^™

Analysis Of Social Networks In A Virtual World, Gregory Thomas Stafford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As three-dimensional virtual environments become both more prevalent and more fragmented, studying how users are connected via their avatars and how they benefit from the virtual world community has become a significant area of research. An in-depth analysis of virtual world Social networks is needed to evaluate how users interact in virtual worlds, to better understand the impact of avatar Social networks on the virtual worlds, and to improve future online Social networks.

Our current efforts are focused on building and exploring the Social network aspects of virtual worlds. In this thesis, we build a Social network of avatars based …

Zinc Oxide Nanorod Based Ultraviolet Detectors With Wheatstone Bridge Design, Arun Vasudevan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research work, for the first time, investigated metal semiconductor-metal (MSM) zine oxide (ZnO) nanorod based ultra-violet (UV) detectors having a Wheatstone bridge design with a high

responsivity at room temperature and above, as well as a responsivity that was largely independent of the change in ambient conditions. The ZnO nanorods which acted as the sensing element of the detector were grown by a chemical growth technique. Studies were conducted to determine the effects on ZnO nanorod properties by varying the concentration of the chemicals used for the rod growth. These studies showed how the rod diameter and the deposition …

"There Were High Hopes And High Projections:" Examining The Social Construction Of Target Populations In The Policy Design Of The Arkansas Lottery Legislation, Kristopher D. Copeland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lottery policies have been created by many states to generate additional funds to support public initiatives, such as higher education scholarships. In 2009, Arkansas adopted a lottery to generate higher education scholarships. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the Arkansas state lottery policy design process to better understand how the Social construction of higher education students and other citizens became embedded within the policy. The Social construction of target populations theory (Ingram & Schneider, 1993), guided three research questions regarding how policy actors in Arkansas Socially constructed citizens while designing lottery legislation, how these Social constructions …

Perceived Impact Of Character Education Program At A Midwest Rural Middle School: A Case Study, Sandra Jean Goss

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Today there exist a concern for the safety and success of students in the public education system. Families, educators, and community members are concerned with the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of students in an environment where incidents of violence are growing. Events like the school shootings at Jonesboro, Arkansas, and at Columbine High School left our nation concerned with the problems within the school system. Many believe that character education can be an effective solution. The purposes of this study are to describe key elements of one school's character education program, and to determine the impact that this program …

Compared To What? The Effectiveness Of Synthetic Control Methods For Causal Inference In Educational Assessment, Clay Stephen Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Synthetic control methods are an innovative matching technique first introduced within the economics and political science literature that have begun to find application in educational research as well. Synthetic controls create an aggregate-level, time-series comparison for a single treated unit of interest for causal inference with observational data. However, the strict statistical assumptions associated with matching methods for causal inference raise concerns for unobserved bias related to some data models and availability. The small but increasing set of existing synthetic controls studies with student achievement measures as the outcome of interest suggest that research is warranted into the effectiveness of …

Investigation Of The Effects Of Rapid Thermal Annealing On Mbe Grown Gaasbi/Gaas Heterostructures For Optoelectronic Devices, Perry C. Grant

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High efficiency optoelectronic devices rely on high quality materials making up the device structure. The scope of this thesis investigates the effectiveness of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at improving the material quality of GaAsBi/GaAs heterostructures. During the fabrication of a device, the contacts of the device had the rapid thermal annealing process accomplished to produce ohmic contacts and this research explored if this annealing treatment degraded the quantum wells that made up the active region of a device. To investigate these effects, a system to measure the photoluminescence of the material system was constructed utilizing Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The …

Congruent And Incongruent Effects Of Ethnic Music On Ethnic Menu Item Selection, Ryan David Muniz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated what impact ethnic music had on ethnic menu item selection. College students were randomly divided into three groups and listened to one randomly assigned sound treatment in sensory booths. Three hundred and five participants completed the questionnaire with measures of expected price value and willingness to pay value. One of the groups listened to an Italian folk music, the second group listened to a Thai folk music, and the third group listened to a restaurant background noise in order to examine if the music will impact each participant menu items selection and perceived price values. The result …

An Open Source, Line Rate Datagram Protocol Facilitating Message Resiliency Over An Imperfect Channel, Christina Marie Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) is the transfer of data into buffers between two compute nodes that does not require the involvement of a CPU or Operating System (OS). The idea is borrowed from Direct Memory Access (DMA) which allows memory within a compute node to be transferred without transiting through the CPU. RDMA is termed a zero-copy protocol as it eliminates the need to copy data between buffers within the protocol stack. Because of this and other features, RDMA promotes reliable, high throughput and low latency transfer for packet-switched networking. While the benefits of RMDA are well known and …

Identifying Emerging Researchers Using Social Network Analysis, Syed Masum Billah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Finding rising stars in academia early in their careers has many implications when hiring new faculty, applying for promotion, and/or requesting grants. Typically, the impact and productivity of a researcher are assessed by a popular measurement called the h-index that grows linearly with the academic age of a researcher. Therefore, h-indices of researchers in the early stages of their careers are almost uniformly low, making it difficult to identify those who will, in future, emerge as influential leaders in their field. To overcome this problem, we make use of Social network analysis to identify young researchers most likely to become …

The Relationships Between `Push' And `Pull' Factors Of Millennial Generation Tourists To Heritage Tourism Destinations: Antebellum And Civil War Sites In The State Of Arkansas, Kayla Diane Kesterson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated `push' and `pull' motivational factors which influence Millennial Generation tourists' decisions to visit heritage tourism destinations and their knowledge of Civil War and Antebellum heritage sites within the state of Arkansas. A descriptive, six-section survey was distributed to Millennial students from varying degree fields at three universities within Arkansas. Four hundred twenty-four participants completed the questionnaire with measures of demographic information, visitation and frequency to heritage tourism sites, push factors, pull factors, heritage tourism sites in Arkansas, and historic preservation participation.

The results of this study showed that although Millennial students do not visit heritage sites frequently, …

Effect Of Modified Starch On Bake-Only Chicken Nuggets, Sarah Purcell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The food industry has become increasingly focused on healthier items. Fried foods especially are actively pursuing non-fried alternatives to attract health conscience consumers. This study investigated the bake-only chicken nugget formulation in attempts to provide characteristics of fried items. Starch was hydrolyzed by amyloglucosidase to create a porous structure that had the ability to absorb oil. Oil was plated into the enzyme-treated starch and blended into nugget formulation, and the coated nuggets were steam-baked until fully cooked. The enzyme-treated starches showed a decrease in gelatinization range and pasting viscosities for all starch types. The addition of oil-plated enzyme modified starch …

Apakah Kreativitas Dan Sikap Terhadap Ilmu Ekonomi Meramalkan Partisipasi Politik Mahasiswa? Peran Mediasi Efikasi Politik Pada Mahasiswa Di Malang, Jawa Timur, Juneman Abraham, Diantini Ida Viatre

Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia

This research aims to find the psychological mechanism of students’ political participation. The research was designed with predictive correlational design and the data analysis technique was path analysis. The dependent variable was political participation intention. The predictor variables were creativity and students’ attitude toward economics. The mediator variables were the necessary political experience and political efficacy. One hundred and four students of Department of Psychology, FPPsi, Malang State University, participated (Mage = 19.50 years old; SDage = 2.397 years). The research found that creativity and attitude toward economics are significant predictors for students’ political participation intention and this prediction is …

Synthesis And Characterization Of A New Cyano-Substituted Tris(Pyrazolyl)Borate And Its Thallium(I) Complex, Bozumeh Som

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A new cyanoscorpionate - tris(4-cyano-3,5-diphenylpyrazolyl)borate (Tp^Ph2,4CN) has been synthesized and characterized. The thallium complex of this ligand TlTp^Ph2,4CN has also been prepared and characterized by FT-IR, ¹H NMR, and single-crystal X-ray-diffraction. The complex TlTp^Ph2,4CN crystalized in the monoclinic space group C2/c with unit cell a = 14.6697(10) Å, b = 13.9493(10) Å, c = 19.3347(12) Å, and b= 91.761(2)°. Structural comparison of TlTp^Ph2,4CN with analogous complexes demonstrated the effects of both steric and electron-withdrawing substituents on coordination geometry and the electronic properties of the metal ion. There were short contacts between the cyano groups …

Framing Of Business In China: East Vs. West, Xueyi Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

China is one of the largest and most promising markets for new global business ventures. This exploratory research investigates the current news-related themes regarding business in China by comparing news originating from eastern countries to western countries. This study applied agenda-setting and framing theoretical frameworks. A mixed-method approach of both qualitative and quantitative content analyses was used to generate key themes and their related concepts. The results indicate some thematic similarities as well as differences in agenda and news framing between eastern and western news samples. This exploratory study contributes to agenda-setting and framing literature as well as by creating …

Instructor And Student Perceptions Of Online Courses: Implications Of Positioning Theory, Miriam S. Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The increase in online course delivery in higher education has implications for students and instructors. In fall 2002, 1.6 million students took at least one online course and this number increased by the fall of 2012 to 6.7 million. The increase in the rate of enrollment in online courses in higher education provides an opportunity to examine the strategies and technologies used in course design and delivery and student engagement in the online culture. Two of the key factors in creating student engagement are the instructor's interaction with students and the course design and delivery itself. An examination of students’ …

Feminising Schools In The Emirate Of Abu Dhabi, Uae: Cause For Concern!, Martina Dickson, Johann Le Roux

Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies

Schools in the UAE have been undergoing radical educational reform over the past six years. Government schools are currently gender segregated from grade 1 and staffed by either male or female teachers, but not by both genders in the same school. In 2011 the Abu Dhabi Educational Council (ADEC) announced plans to completely feminise primary schools in the emirate. Emirati male teachers represent a small minority, but one which potentially has a very powerful significance, both culturally and educationally. This paper intends to explore male pre-service teachers’ perceptions of this issue. Six male Emirati pre-service teachers were interviewed. Our findings …

Understanding Undergraduate Students' Perceptions Of International Teaching Assistants, Asma Anis Khan

Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed method study was to better understand undergraduate students' perceptions of international teaching assistants (ITAs) at a major research institution. For the purpose of this inquiry data were collected from surveying a sample of 436 of undergraduate students from different colleges and at different class levels. Survey data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Through the qualitative analysis of the open-ended survey data, undergraduate students' perceptions were derived from their responses, which resulted in themes both established in previous research (e.g., language), and original ideas (e.g., learning to understand ITAs language). Qualitative analysis of the survey …

Organizations, Religion, And Legal Mobilization: The Case Of Christian Conservative Legal Advocacy, Daniel Bennett

Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of a social movement based on the organizations that define that movement, with specific attention to Christian conservative legal organizations (CCLOs) and their advocacy for the Christian Right in American politics. I ask, how do these organizations differ from one another in their advocacy efforts? How is this movement industry structured with respect to organizational networks? And how do the differences and variation among these organizations affect the dynamics among these groups? That is, how do organizations interact in the confines of a shared movement? This study addresses the literatures on law and society, religion …

Investigating The Impact Of Orientation And Detected Characteristics Of First-Time Online Students On Their Success Rate In A Community College Setting, Reginald C. Akpom

Dissertations

It is evident that the failure rate is higher among online students than in-class students at Hopkinsville Community College. An analysis of the academic records of students who enrolled in online courses for the first time at Hopkinsville indicated a 13% higher withdrawal and failure rate than those who took in-class courses over the same period between 2000 and 2010. Colleges are taking potentially all of the necessary steps to reduce the student failure rates among online students because high withdrawal and failure rates often reflect badly on the quality of education by the providing institutions (C. Segura, personal communication, …

Brief Structured Observation Of Medical Student Hospital Visits, J Rush Pierce Jr, L Noronha, N P. Collins, E Fancovic

Hospital Medicine

Students' clinical, communication, and professionalism skills are best assessed when faculty directly observe clinical encounters with patients. Prior to 2009, third-year medical students at our institution had one observed clinical encounter by clinic-based faculty during a required internal medicine clerkship. These observations averaged 45 minutes, feedback was not standardized, and student and faculty satisfaction was low. Methods: Two hospital-based faculty members redesigned a shorter, standardized exercise during which a faculty member observed the student making rounds on a hospitalized patient that they were actively following. On a checklist, faculty recorded observations about communication (8 items), physical examination (5 items), and …

A Simple Integration Of Social Relationship And Text Data For Identifying Potential Customers In Microblogging, Guansong Pang, Shengyi Jiang, Dongyi Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Identifying potential customers among a huge number of users in microblogging is a fundamental problem for microblog marketing. One challenge in potential customer detection in microblogging is how to generate an accurate characteristic description for users, i.e., user profile generation. Intuitively, the preference of a user’s friends (i.e., the person followed by the user in microblogging) is of great importance to capture the characteristic of the user. Also, a user’s self-defined tags are often concise and accurate carriers for the user’s interests. In this paper, for identifying potential customers in microblogging, we propose a method to generate user profiles via …

A Secure And Effective Anonymous User Authentication Scheme For Roaming Service In Global Mobility Networks, Fengtong Wen, Willy Susilo, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In global mobility networks, anonymous user authentication is an essential task for enabling roaming service. In a recent paper, Jiang et al. proposed a smart card based anonymous user authentication scheme for roaming service in global mobility networks. This scheme can protect user privacy and is believed to have many abilities to resist a range of network attacks, even if the secret information stored in the smart card is compromised. In this paper, we analyze the security of Jiang et al.’s scheme, and show that the scheme is in fact insecure against the stolen-verifier attack and replay attack. Then, we …

Towards A Hybrid Framework For Detecting Input Manipulation Vulnerabilities, Sun Ding, Hee Beng Kuan Tan, Lwin Khin Shar, Bindu Madhavi Padmanabhuni

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Input manipulation vulnerabilities such as SQL Injection, Cross-site scripting, Buffer Overflow vulnerabilities are highly prevalent and pose critical security risks. As a result, many methods have been proposed to apply static analysis, dynamic analysis or a combination of them, to detect such security vulnerabilities. Most of the existing methods classify vulnerabilities into safe and unsafe. They have both false-positive and false-negative cases. In general, security vulnerability can be classified into three cases: (1) provable safe, (2) provable unsafe, (3) unsure. In this paper, we propose a hybrid framework-Detecting Input Manipulation Vulnerabilities (DIMV), to verify the adequacy of security vulnerability defenses …

An Agent-Based Simulation Approach To Experience Management In Theme Parks, Shih-Fen Cheng, Larry Junjie Lin, Jiali Du, Hoong Chuin Lau, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we illustrate how massive agent-based simulation can be used to investigate an exciting new application domain of experience management in theme parks, which covers topics like congestion control, incentive design, and revenue management. Since all visitors are heterogeneous and self-interested, we argue that a high-quality agent-based simulation is necessary for studying various problems related to experience management. As in most agent-base simulations, a sound understanding of micro-level behaviors is essential to construct high-quality models. To achieve this, we designed and conducted a first-of-its-kind real-world experiment that helps us understand how typical visitors behave in a theme-park environment. …

The Connection, Volume 8, Issue 01, Winter 2013, Sally Davis, Linda Beltran, Mary Hanrahan

Newsletters

The Connection is published by the Prevention Research Center (PRC), Prevention & Population Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. The purpose of The Connection is to provide reports and updates on programs of the PRC and those of its Community Advisory Council and other partners.

Higher-Order Petrov-Galerkin Methods For Analysis Of Antennas, Xueying Zhang

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

A temporally and spatially high-order accurate Petrov-Galerkin finite-element method is applied to the analysis of several antenna configurations. The method obtains numerical solutions of Maxwell's equations in the time domain using implicit time stepping and introduces energy into the domain using a Gaussian pulse to allow frequency-domain parameters to be computed over a range of frequencies with a single time-dependent solution. Verification cases for a monopole antenna and a microstrip patch antenna are used to examine the accuracy of the algorithm. Effects of varying antenna parameters on subsequent performance metrics are discussed based on the results from the simulations. Post-processing …

Validation Of Interpolative Interfaces For Rotorcraft Applications, Adam L. Cofer

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The study uses computational methods to simulate fluid flow on the NASA ROBIN helicopter model and on a simplified rotor geometry previously tested at Mississippi State. The ROBIN model and the rotor are run using an unstructured grid. Results from the Tenasi flow solver are compared against both simulated and wind tunnel data. Tenasi is an unstructured, Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver developed at the SimCenter: National Center for Computational Engineering, located at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Steady-state results for the isolated ROBIN fuselage and unsteady results for both fuselage and rotor systems are computed. In the unsteady …

Fake News, Real Hip: Rhetorical Dimensions Of Ironic Communication In Mass Media, Paige L. Broussard

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This paper explores the growing genre of fake news, a blend of information, entertainment, and satire, in main stream mass media, specifically examining the work of Stephen Colbert. First, this work examines classic definitions of satire and contemporary definitions and usages of irony in an effort to understand how they function in the fake news genre. Using a theory of postmodern knowledge, this work aims to illustrate how satiric news functions epistemologically using both logical and narrative paradigms. Specific artifacts are examined from Colbert’s speech in an effort to understand how rhetorical strategies function during his performances.

Animals Speaking In The Fiction Of Jin And Malamud, Matt Prater

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Animals Speaking in the Fiction of Jin and Malamud" Matt Prater discusses "The Jewbird" by Bernard Malamud and "A Composer and His Parakeets" by Ha Jin as transcultural texts which involve non-human animals as major characters. Jin and Malamud examine differing representations of animal language and how these representations connect to the politics of both interspecies and transnational relationships. By applying critical animal studies and transnational discourse and by charting the interlinking of other-ings by theorists such as Carol Adams and Susan Kappeler, Prater attempts to show that animals figure into transcultural and transnational discourses in ways …

Intertextuality In Kurosawa's Film Adaptation Of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Saera Yoon

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Intertextuality in Kurosawa's Film Adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Idiot" Saera Yoon analyzes the role intertextuality plays in the adjustments Akira Kurosawa made when he translated the classic novel by Dostoevsky onto screen. Kurosawa's 白痴 (Hakuchi), a film adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, has been the subject of mixed reviews. While some consider the film a successful adaptation that captures the spirit of the original, others criticize Hakuchi for its overly faithful rendition of the novel. What has been missing is an investigation of Kurosawa's filmic strategy. Yoon examines the transposition of a chronotope …