Digital Commons Network^™

Comparing Levels Of School Performance To Science Teachers' Reports On Knowledge/Skills, Instructional Use And Student Use Of Computers, Rebecca. Kerr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this descriptive quantitative and basic qualitative study was to examine fifth and eighth grade science teachers' responses, perceptions of the role of technology in the classroom, and how they felt that computer applications, tools, and the Internet influence student understanding. The purposeful sample included survey and interview responses from fifth grade and eighth grade general and physical science teachers. Even though they may not be generalizable to other teachers or classrooms due to a low response rate, findings from this study indicated teachers with fewer years of teaching science had a higher level of computer use but …

Conscious And Non-Conscious Bases Of Social Judgement, Susan D. Sullivan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Research on social judgment typically emphasizes one of three processes that enable unequivocal understanding of events with ambiguous causality. In the social influence perspective, people are susceptible to the interpretations offered by others. In the explicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with their consciously held attitudes and values. In the implicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with unconscious biases. The model investigated in the present study assumes that these processes vary in salience depending on people's mindset. Participants with low versus high implicit racial bias toward Blacks read a narrative concerning this altercation under either a …

Creating Mindfulness With Sensual Functional Handmade Ceramics, Alexandria. Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

I create opportunities for nourishment that are physical, emotional and spiritual with my functional porcelain vessels. They reference the human body's sensual curves, dimples, and bulges, establishing the experience of eating as a metaphor for the sensual experience of human interaction. The tactility is heightened by the variety of glazes dancing around the vessels, from satiny smooth and skin-like, to wet and dripping. Handmade vessels connect the users not only more deeply to the food that provides them nourishment, but also connects them more deeply to one another, and to the maker of the work. The slow, deliberate work of …

Data Mining Heuristic-¬Based Malware Detection For Android Applications, Naser Peiravian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The Google Android mobile phone platform is one of the dominant smartphone operating systems on the market. The open source Android platform allows developers to take full advantage of the mobile operation system, but also raises significant issues related to malicious applications (Apps). The popularity of Android platform draws attention of many developers which also attracts the attention of cybercriminals to develop different kinds of malware to be inserted into the Google Android Market or other third party markets as safe applications. In this thesis, we propose to combine permission, API (Application Program Interface) calls and function calls to build …

Cumulative Trauma Among Adult Mayas Living In Southeast Florida, Eugenia I. Millender

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The toxic combination of social, psychological, environmental, cultural, and physiological trauma Mayas living in Southeast Florida face daily places them at higher risk for mental and physical disorders (Marmot & Wilkinson, 2006; WHO, 2010, September). The burden of disease is not limited to mental disorder comorbidities; psychological stress can also induce or exacerbate chronic medical diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension (Brunner & Marmot, 2006; Sridhar, 2007). ... The continuation of this disregard will add to the health disparity of this nation by delaying assessment, treatment, and development of interventions. The purpose of this study was to explore cumulative …

Design And Analysis Of Hybrid Titanium-Composite Hull Structures Under Extreme Wave And Slamming Loads, Md Hafizur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

A finite element tool has been developed to design and investigate a multi-hull composite ship structure, and a hybrid hull of identical length and beam. Hybrid hull structure is assembled by Titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) frame and sandwich composite panels. Wave loads and slamming loads acting on both hull structures have been calculated according to ABS rules at sea state 5 with a ship velocity of 40 knots. Comparisons of deformations and stresses between two sets of loadings demonstrate that slamming loads have more detrimental effects on ship structure. Deformation under slamming is almost one order higher than that caused by …

Development Of Emotional Intelligence In At-Risk Female Adolescents, Monica. Nicoll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that a cognitivebehavioral based psycho-educational group counseling program would increase at-risk female adolescent emotional intelligence (EI). The EI research reviewed and discussed entailed a competency building program composed of affirmations, meditation guided imagery, individual therapy sessions, group therapy, psychodrama, journaling, and parent handouts. The study was based upon theories related to the development of EI in at-risk youth, and the outcome research related to the effectiveness of emotional interventions for enhancing positive social-emotional development of at-risk adolescents. ...T his study investigated whether a group therapy process that encompasses programmatic components …

Activity Analysis And Detection Of Falling And Repetitive Motion, Clyde Carryl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This thesis examines the use of motion detection and analysis systems to detect falls and repetitive motion patterns of at-risk individuals. Three classes of motion are examined: Activities of daily living (ADL), falls, and repetitive motion. This research exposes a simple relationship between ADL and non-ADL movement, and shows how to use Principal Component Analysis and a kNN classifier to tell the 2 classes of motion apart with 100% sensitivity and specificity. It also identifies a more complex relationship between falls and repetitive motion, which both produce bodily accelerations exceeding 3G but differ with regard to their periodicity. This simplifies …

Acoustic Tracking Of An Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Using A Passive Ultrashort Baseline Array And A Single Long Baseline Beacon, Kyle L. Seaton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This thesis discusses a new approach to tracking the REMUS 100 AUV using a modified version of the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) ultrashort baseline (USBL) acoustic positioning system (APS). The REMUS 100 is designed to utilize a long baseline (LBL) acoustic positioning system to obtain positioning data in mid-mission. If the placement of one of the transponders of the LBL field is known, then tracking the position of the REMUS 100 AUV using a passive USBL array is possible. As part of the research for this thesis, the FAU USBL system was used to find a relative range between the …

An Examination Of How Middle School Science Teachers Conduct Collaborative Inquiry And Reflection About Students’ Conceptual Understanding, Christine Todd-Gibson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This qualitative case study examined how middle school science teachers conducted collaborative inquiry and reflection about students’ conceptual understanding, and how individual teachers in the middle school science group acted and made reflections in response to their collaborative inquiry. It also examined external influences that affected the teachers’ ability to engage in collaborative inquiry. Observational, written, and interview data were collected from observations of teachers’ face-to-face meetings and reflections, individual interviews, a focus group interview, and online reflections. The results of this study revealed that collaborative inquiry is a form of professional development that includes answering curricular questions through observation, …

Any (Body) Who Will Listen, Gavin Feller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This thesis explores how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has used media technology as part of its missionary communication strategy. Particular attention is paid to the Internet as a space for religious practice and how the LDS Church has sought to extend its media practices and missionary efforts online. By utilizing new media technology to find individuals interested in hearing its message, the LDS Church faces new challenges to its traditional face-to-face missionary program, its centralized hierarchy of control and its ongoing struggle for identity within American Christian culture. Throughout its history, the LDS Church's missionary …

Attitudes And Perspectives About Backyard Food Gardening, John G. Zahina-Ramos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

As cities grew throughout the past century, the availability of locally grown food declined, mostly because urban expansion occurred at the expense of adjacent agricultural land. As a result, city dwellers turned to commercial food market systems that import food from distant production areas. Private greenspace, which is one of the largest land cover types in cities, offers the potential for substantial agricultural production. Because urban food production on private land, such as backyards, requires the willing participation of landowners, resident's feelings about and experience with food growing are important to understand. The demographic groups that were most likely to …

Attack Of The Compilator, Franklin. Babrove

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Geoffrey Chaucer's narrator persona in The Legend of Good Women (LGW) goes through a transformation, starting off in the Prologue to the LGW as a naèive compilator who is subordinate to his literary sources, or auctores, and eventually becoming an auctor himself by the end of the Legends. To gain an authoritative voice, Chaucer's narrator criticizes auctoritee as it pertains to the antifeminist tradition and its misrepresentation of women as inherently wicked, in the process using certain rhetorical devices and other literary strategies to assert control over his sources for the Legends, as well as over the text as a …

Attitudes Towards Multilanguage Use Among Latino And Asian Immigrants In The United States, Cuong T. Le

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This study was designed to measure the relation of education and ethnic identity to attitudes towards bilingualism in two different ethnic groups, Asian and Latinos in the United States. In order to do this, an instrument was developed to measure attitudes towards bilingualism. No significant relations were found among education or ethnic identity and attitudes towards bilingualism in either group, but analyses revealed several other significant relationships. The two subscales of ethnic identity, MEIM-R Commitment and Exploration, were related to each other both within Asian and Latino groups and in all participants combined. In the combined sample, education levels of …

Assessing Goal Intent And Achievement Of University Learning Community Students, Carole F. Pfeffer-Lachs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this study was to assess the goal intent and achievement of university students, during the Fall 2011 semester, at Blue Wave University, a high research activity public institution in the southeast United States. This study merged theories of motivation to measure goal setting and goal attainment to examine if students who chose to participate in a learning community program set goals at different levels than the students who chose not to join a learning community program. This study investigated if there was a difference in motivation, by studying goal intent and goal achievement of Freshman Learning Community …

Automatic Parking Lot Occupancy Computation Using Motion Tracking, Torres Francisco Alberto Justo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Nowadays it is very hard to find available spots in public parking lots and even harder at facilities such as universities and sports venues. A system that provides drivers with parking availability and parking lot occupancy will allow users find a parking space much easier and faster. This thesis presents a system for automatic parking lot occupancy computation using motion tracking. The use of computer vision techniques and low cost video sensors makes it possible to have an accurate system that allows drivers to find a parking spot. Video bitrate and quality reduction and its impact on performance were studied. …

How Did Rggi Do It? Political Economy And Emissions Auctions, Bruce R. Huber

Journal Articles

Among the major emissions trading schemes in operation around the world, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) stands alone: this CO₂ cap-and-trade program among nine northeastern states is the only such scheme to rely primarily on auctions to distribute emissions allowances. The standard practice - distributing allowances for free on the basis of historical emissions - elicits begrudging but politically crucial support from some regulated emitters. Like carbon taxation, allowance auctioning has long been considered economically superior to its alternatives but politically infeasible.

How did the RGGI states manage to defy conventional wisdom and institute a program so reliant …

(Still) A “Real And Substantial” Mess: The Law Of Jurisdiction In Canada, Tanya J. Monestier

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Pornographics Of Japanese Negrophilia, Jd Mackintosh

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

In 1974, a bizarre story, ‘Jigoku ni ochita wakamonotachi’ (‘Young Men Fallen into Hell’), appeared in the Japanese homo magazine Adon. It described in pornographic detail the sado-masochistic torture of Japanese men captured and forced to perform in a black circus troupe in American-occupied Japan. ‘Jigoku’ was unremarkable except that, in its stylised ‘pornographics’, it uniquely – for the homo imagination – configured sexual desire as a Japanese–black inter-racial intercourse. This article explores this imagination through a close reading of ‘Jigoku’. It traces a post-war ‘genealogy’ of blackness (Russell 2006), which finds affinity of meaning and value cutting across sub-cultural …

The Armendárizes: A Transnational Family In New Mexico And Mexico, Samuel E. Sisneros

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Although the Armendáriz surname is uncommon in New Mexico today, the Armendáriz family was important in New Mexico during the early to mid-1800s, with key political, diplomatic, and social links to Texas; California; Washington, D.C.; and Mexico. The lives of the Armendárizes attest to the long and constant movement of people, trade, and politics along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (the Royal Road of the Interior) and to theformation of a binational region. From Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez border and Chihuahua City to Mexico City, the Armendáriz family legacy demonstrates that New Mexico has …

Quantification Of Alkali Metals In Biomass Feedstocks, Tabitha J. Evans

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Turning Stealth Liposomes Into Cationic Liposomes For Anticancer Drug Delivery, Vijay Gyanani

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Targeting the anticancer agents selectively to cancer cells is desirable to improve the efficacy and to reduce the side effects of anticancer therapy. Previously reported passive tumor targeting by PEGylated liposomes (stealth liposomes) have resulted in their higher tumor accumulation. However their interaction with cancer cells has been minimal due to the steric hindrance of the PEG coating. This dissertation reports two approaches to enhance the interaction of stealth liposomes with cancer cells. First, we designed a lipid-hydrazone-PEG conjugate that removes the PEG coating at acidic pH as in the tumor interstitium. However, such a conjugate was highly unstable on …

Financing Preferences And Capital Structure Among Successful Malaysian Smes, Shafie Mohamed Zabri

Plymouth Business School Theses

The increasing importance of economic contributions of small and medium-sized sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world, especially in developing countries, motivated a better understanding of financial practices among SMEs. Financial support is among the factors affecting the success of SMEs. However, studies on the financial practices among successful SMEs in Malaysia are still limited. An understanding of the financial practices of this particular group of SMEs is essential in developing a supportive financial framework to achieve national agenda for improving SMEs sustainability and increasing the overall SMEs’ contributions to the Malaysian economy. This research investigates the financial practices among successful …

The Mediating Role Of Entrepreneurial Leadership: An Investigation Of The Competitiveness Of Smes In The Uk South-West Food And Drink Manufacturing, Lise Hunter

Plymouth Business School Theses

ABSTRACT It has long been argued that Social Capital, a concept represented by the value embedded in the social relationships of individuals or collectives constitute strategic resources for individuals and organisations. Social networks are thus perceived by businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, as a means to access those resources, for example gaining privileged access to strategic information that could secure financial resources. In reality, and because of the inherent characteristics of Social Capital, entrepreneurs or business owner/managers who effectively use resources available within social networks are driven by a clear and compelling vision and sustained by a set of …

Fluid Fractals: Leadership At The Apex Of Local Authority In England, Smita Tripathi

Plymouth Business School Theses

Purpose: This thesis aims to explore the complex phenomenon of leadership at the apex of democratically elected local authority in England. It makes sense of the social construction of leadership as perceived and enacted by senior appointed officers (hereinafter officers), elected members (hereinafter members) and key stakeholders – the voices from the apex and their understandings and interpretations. Design/methodology/approach: The thesis examines leadership literature through the paradigm of constructivism-interpretivism, making sense of transcripts of the semi-structured interviews with officers, members and stakeholders engaged in local authority work. Dominant/mainstream theories of leadership offer limited help to understanding the relational, processual constructions …

A Realist Review Of Interventions And Strategies To Promote Evidence-Informed Healthcare: A Focus On Change Agency, Brendan Mccormack, Joanne Rycroft-Malone, Kara Decorby, Alison M. Hutchinson, Tracey Bucknall, Bridie Kent, Alyce Schultz, Erna Snelgrove-Clarke, Cheyl Stetler, Marita Titler, Lars Wallin, Valerie Wilson

School of Nursing and Midwifery

No abstract provided.

Exercise Referral For Drug Users Aged 40 And Over: Results Of A Pilot Study In The Uk, Caryl M. Beynon, Amy Luxton, Rhiannon Whitaker, N. Tim Cable, Lucy Frith, Adrian H. Taylor, Lu Zou, Peter Angell, Scott Robinson, D Holland, S Holland, Mark Gabbay

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Risk Assessment In Mental Health: Introducing A Traffic Light System In A Community Mental Health Team., S. Croucher, Graham R. Williamson

School of Nursing and Midwifery

AIMS: To reports a study in which action research approach was utilised to introduce a new system of risk assessment, based on traffic lights, into a community mental health team. BACKGROUND: Risk management is a serious concern in community mental healthcare where there is less direct, real-time supervision of clients than in other settings, and because inadequate management of risk can have fatal consequences when service users are a risk to themselves and/or others. DESIGN: An action research design was undertaken, using three phases of Look, Think and Act. METHODS: Data were collected between January and March of 2012. In …

Plymouth Family Intervention Project Longitudinal Review: 2008-2013, Z James, T Green

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Relative Sensitivity Of Two Marine Bivalves For Detection Of Genotoxic And Cytotoxic Effects: A Field Assessment In The Tamar Estuary, South West England., Lorna J. Dallas, Victoria V. Cheung, Andrew S. Fisher, Awadhesh N. Jha

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The input of anthropogenic contaminants to the aquatic environment is a major concern for scientists, regulators and the public. This is especially relevant in areas such as the Tamar valley in SW England, which has a legacy of contamination from industrial activity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Following on from previous laboratory validation studies, this study aimed to assess the relationship between genotoxic and cytotoxic responses and heavy metal concentrations in two bivalve species sampled from locations along the Tamar estuary. Adult cockles, Cerastoderma edule, and blue mussels, Mytilus edulis, were sampled from five locations in the Tamar and …