Digital Commons Network^™

Re-Evaluating Vfx Workflows: Animating Vehicle Dynamics, Charles Duong

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

No abstract provided.

College Of Health Sciences Newsletter, December 2014, Irvin B. Harrell (Ed.)

Ellmer College of Health Sciences Newsletters

December 2014 issue of Old Dominion University's College of Health Sciences Newsletter.

Buscando Identidad A Través De Medios Masivos, Andrew Ireland

The Kennesaw Tower Undergraduate Foreign Language Research Journal

During the latter half of the twentieth century, many Latin American authors experimented with innovative techniques and creative narrative methods that challenged the reader and attempted to comment on the current events of the time. This “New Literature” had several unifying characteristics, one of which is the use of mass media to comment on the theme of identity. Using several books from this Latin American post-Boom movement, this paper aims to show the use of communication tools – movies, biographies, radio, and photographs – to illustrate the struggle and search for characters’ real identities as a major recurrent theme. In …

Faculty Notes - John Carroll University, John Carroll University

Faculty Notes - John Carroll University

December 2014, Volume 7, Issue 4

December 2014, Issue 6, James Madison University Uhc Marketing Team

Potty Mouth

No abstract provided.

Analysis And Improvement Of The Security Building At Pg&E Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Alyssa Carter, Natalie Christa, Phuong Anh Pham Dinh

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

A new Security building was recently designed and built at the Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP).This building’s staff and equipment are responsible for performing routine inspections on all personnel entering the facility in order to prevent security-related incidents from occurring at the nuclear power plant. Similar to airport security procedures, the DCPP security building routine inspections include the use of x-ray machines, metal detectors, and explosive detectors.

The Power Plant periodically experiences pre-planned, preventive maintenance outages, that last 4-6 weeks. During an outage, a power plant reactor is shut down for maintenance, repair, and re-fueling. …

Facilitating Natural Conversational Agent Interactions: Lessons From A Deception Experiment, Ryan M. Schuetzler, Mark Grimes, Justin Scott Giboney, Joesph Buckman

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This study reports the results of a laboratory experiment exploring interactions between humans and a conversational agent. Using the ChatScript language, we created a chat bot that asked participants to describe a series of images. The two objectives of this study were (1) to analyze the impact of dynamic responses on participants’ perceptions of the conversational agent, and (2) to explore behavioral changes in interactions with the chat bot (i.e. response latency and pauses) when participants engaged in deception. We discovered that a chat bot that provides adaptive responses based on the participant’s input dramatically increases the perceived humanness and …

Modernization Of The Walker River Irrigation District Water Gauges, Stuart Styles, Robert C. Bryan, Kenneth C. Spooner

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

The Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) and Walker River Irrigation District (WRID) collaborated on WRID’s Water Gauge Improvement Project with support from the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of Interior in Carson City, Nevada. This paper presents a summary of the proposed plan and implementation for improving water gauges in WRID with strategic engineering recommendations for new hardware and control equipment; water management strategies; flow measurement devices; and integration of a new district-wide SCADA system. Field investigations and engineering analyses were carried out by the ITRC in 2009 to inspect existing WRID infrastructure, to review current operational procedures, and …

Pacific Plug & Liner Crop Shrinkage Evaluation, Jillian Balli

Horticulture and Crop Science

Crop Shrinkage has a major impact on a company’s bottom line. There are many ways to combat shrinkage. This report focuses on shrinkage reduction by adjusting buffer planting numbers to reflect the actual number of plants lost in production. Inaccurate buffer can cause the cost of production to be inaccurate as well. This report evaluates crop shrinkage of a greenhouse located in Watsonville, CA called Pacific Plug & Liner.

Corporate Event Planner’S Marketing Strategy: An Assessment Of Effective Website Design, Hayley V. Bauarschi

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

Marketing is a key element in a company’s development. Remaining in the public eye helps ensure business as well as generate new clients. A continuous marketing tool companies use to remain visible is a website. In order to be effective, a website needs to engage and encourage users to connect with a company. The purpose of this study was to analyze the visual appeal and aesthetic design of websites for selected corporate event planning companies. The researcher studied certain components that reflect a successful website and then created a matrix based off research to collect data. The data helped to …

Paradise Found? Food Transportation Regulation: A Detour Through Regulatory Purgatory, William Nash

Journal of Food Law & Policy

On January 31, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("NPRM") that would set requirements for shippers, carriers and receivers of food transported in intrastate and interstate commerce. The NPRM marks a potentially important step in a long history of the (non-)regulation of food transportation. In Parts I and II, this paper will provide some context of the history of food transportation, as well as the major incidents that placed the food transportation industry on the regulatory map. In Parts III and IV, the paper will consider the history of food transportation regulation from …

Journal Of Food Law & Policy - Fall 2014, Journal Editors

Journal of Food Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Let's Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Transparency: Food And Technology In The Information Age, Scarlettah Schaefer

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Food and technology have had a long and tempestuous relationship. Current methods of food production and processing in the industrialized world depend heavily on technological developments. However, all technologies are not created equal. Some can produce food that is safer, more sustainable, more nutritious, or longer lasting. Some can have the opposite effect: increasing opportunities for adulteration, increasing the difficulty in detecting food fraud, and contributing to both foreseeable and unforeseeable health or ecological costs. Increasingly sophisticated technologies often become less apparent to the average consumer. For example, consider irradiated meat or genetically modified foods as opposed to freezer storage …

Toward A Just Food Regime: Consumption, Ideology, And Democratic Strategy, Adam B. Lichtenberger

Journal of Food Law & Policy

United States agricultural policies incentivize the growth and consumption of industrial foods. Industrial foods are linked to a host of social and ecological ills. However, agricultural policies are insulated from political criticism, in part, by the myth that consumers freely and rationally choose industrial foods. This neoliberal myth is congruous with the American preferences for "stealth democracy." That is, the neoliberal myth is an elegant, but ultimately erroneous, reconciliation of conflicting political preferences: Americans do not want to be involved in politics, but they also do not want the political process to be used by special interests or politicians to …

The Cadet Training Program Versus The Student Certification Program: A Study Of It- Support Training Programs At Western Kentucky University, Michael Courtney Moore

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Technology is a critical component of modern-day success. Advancements in technology have improved communication between individuals and companies. Technological advancements have allowed students to earn college degrees online. People who habitually use technology expect a high level of performance and support. As new technologies are implemented, such as complex web services or new operating systems, the dependence for information technology (IT) support grows in demand. Even learning curves can be cumbersome without proper assistance from IT professionals. Companies and institutions must accommodate user needs by implementing fast, efficient, and friendly support. In order to offer optimal customer support, representatives must …

The Mechanisms Of Nmda Receptor Activation, Rashek Kazi

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

Glutamate-gated ion channels embedded within the neuronal membrane are the primary mediators of fast excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system. The ion channel of these glutamate receptors contains a pore-lining transmembrane M3 helix surrounded by peripheral M1 and M4 helices. In the NMDA receptor (NMDAR), opening of the ion channel pore requires rearrangements of these helical elements, but there is currently no functional model for how this occurs. To address how agonist binding is transduced into pore opening in NMDARs, we manipulated the coupling between the ligand binding domain (LBD) and the M3 helix of the ion channel …

Rhetoric And The Way To Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Heidegger, Nanda Golden

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

By developing Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Plato, Aristotle, and the Greek rhetorical tradition, this dissertation argues that rhetoric, understood as the discipline that best knows how to lead others with everyday speech, is crucial for rousing the desire to choose the philosophical life. This work focuses primarily on three texts: Plato's Phaedrus, Aristotle's Rhetoric, and Heidegger's 1924 lecture Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy. It fleshes out Heidegger's concept of rhetoric by mapping it on to the development of Greek rhetorical theory, showing how rhetoric's philosophical potential comes to be realized and why Plato and Aristotle's philosophical investigation of rhetoric must …

The Substance Of Health: Aristotle, Deleuze And Guattari On The Dynamic Materiality Of The Living Body And Its Influence On Medical Concepts And Practices, Rachel Elaine Tillman

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

Western medicine relies on a mechanistic conception of matter as passive and inert. Yet matter, and especially living matter, is actually dynamic and agential. This has transformative implications both for our quest to understand what health is and for determining what kinds of practices best promote health. I draw on a diverse set of philosophical thinkers to articulate a dynamic conception of living bodily matter that can enable us to define health more robustly and promote it more effectively. First I discuss the theoretical framework put forth by contemporary feminist accounts of materiality (" new feminist materialisms" or " material …

Neutral Current Pi-Zero Production Rate Measurement On-Water Using The Pi-Zero Detector In The Near Detector Of The T2k Experiment, Karin Elisabeth Gilje

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

The T2K Experiment is a long-baseline neutrino experiment that stretches 295 km from the east to the west coast of Japan (Tokai-Mura to Kamioka). One of the major goals of the experiment is a measurement of theta_{13} and (if theta_{13} is non-zero) potentially CP violation in the lepton sector. This is performed by searching for nu_e appearance in a nu_mu beam from the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The far detector, Super Kamiokande (SK), is a water Cherenkov detector. One of the dominant background for SK in the oscillation measurement is the uncertainty on the cross section of the …

Polyaniline/Cellulose Acetate Composite And Its Ammonium Ion Sensing Applications, Lei Li

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

Conducting polymers have been investigated for years, since their discovery in 1977. Among them, polyaniline exhibits high electrical conductivity, leading to versatile applications, such as sensors, actuators, and catalysts. In this thesis, emeraldine salt polyaniline (ES-PANI) and cellulose acetate (CA) have been employed to produce composite fiber and films by three different methods: electrospinning, drop coating, and spin coating. The morphology and size of produced composites were studied by SEM. The results showed that the diameter of electrospun composite fiber decreases to nanosize, generating a nanofiber matrix that immobilize polyaniline particles. Sensing experiments were carried out at room temperature. Three …

High Throughput Electrospinning Of High-Quality Nanofibers Via An Aluminum Disk Spinneret, Guokuo Zheng

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

In this work, a simple and efficient needleless high throughput electrospinning process using an aluminum disk spinneret with 24 holes is described. Electrospun mats produced by this setup consisted of fine fibers (nano-sized) of the highest quality while the productivity (yield) was many times that obtained from conventional single-needle electrospinning. The goal was to produce scaled-up amounts of the same or better quality nanofibers under variable concentration, voltage, and the working distance than those produced with the single needle lab setting. The fiber mats produced were either polymer or ceramic (such as molybdenum trioxide nanofibers). Through experimentation the optimum process …

Squamous Cell Carcinoma Antigen 1 (Scca1) Promotes Mammary Tumorigenesis By Inducing The Unfolded Protein Response (Upr) And Il-6 Signaling, Namratha Sheshadri

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

SCCA1 is a member of the serine/cysteine protease inhibitor (serpin) family whose intracellular targets include lysosomal cathepsins L, S and K. Its expression correlates with resistance to cell death resulting from lysosomal membrane permeabilization and cathepsin release in response to radiation and chemotherapy. Elevated SCCA1 expression has been reported in a wide array of cancers including squamous cell carcinomas of the lung, head and neck, skin, cervix, as well as hepatocellular carcinoma. Our laboratory recently found that increased expression of SCCA1 also correlates with high-grade, poorly differentiated breast carcinoma and poor prognosis. However, despite SCCA1's clear relevance in human cancer, …

Microglia In The Healthy And Diseased Central Nervous System, Luisa Torres

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

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in the death of neurons, disruption of neuronal connections, demyelination, and inflammation. There are three phases of SCI: Acute (from the time of impact to the first few days post-injury), secondary (hours to weeks), and chronic (months to years). Currently, little can be done to modify the acute phase. Efforts to intervene have focused on the subsequent phases to both promote healing and prevent further damage. In this study I show that the small molecule inhibitor Pifithrin-μ (PFT-μ significantly reduced lesion volume and decreased the presence of inflammatory cells (microglia and macrophages) in the lesion …

The Degradation Of Pigments In The Water Column And Sediments Of The Bermuda Rise, Ashley B. Cohen

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

The export of particulate carbon from the surface ocean into deeper water and to the seabed is a critical component of the carbon cycle. The concentrations and compositions of particulate pigments collected at different depths and sinking at different settling velocities can be used as a proxy for biologically mediated processes important to the early degradation of OM. By knowing what processes the compositional and quantitative changes in the particulate pigments represent, the POM cycle of the BaRFlux area can be better understood. It is important to understand the POM cycle because deposition of OM to the seabed is the …

Unmasking The Nation: Disputing Of National Myths In The Work Of Cristina García | Unmasking The Nation: Disputing Of National Myths In The Work Of Cristina Garcã­A, Jaimee Lyn Christinat

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

This thesis examines the ways in which Dreaming in Cuban, Monkey Hunting and A Handbook to Luck, three novels by Cristina Garcia, contradict and deconstruct popular national myths. In each novel, characters move between nations at key moments in each nation's history. Tracking these individuals' movements within a larger geopolitical framework allows for a new understanding of subaltern migration patterns. In each chapter, a specific aspect of movement is studied illustrating ways in which subaltern people are motivated and/or coerced to move from one nation or another, how their story becomes coopted by the larger national myth and where their …

Millennium Accidents, Breaking Narratives In Pedro Almodã³Var And Alejandro Gonzã¡Lez Iã±Ã¡Rritu | Millennium Accidents, Breaking Narratives In Pedro Almodóvar And Alejandro González Iñárritu, Anna S Shilova

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

Millennium Accidents is an attempt to show the relation between the shattered, fragmented and decentralizing nature of contemporary, globalized reality and the texts it produces. In my research I aim to reveal the changes in the building and development of a story as a narrative and cognitive phenomenon. Economic globalization and the high-tech revolution have led to a modification of our mental, emotional and social functioning, converting the whole world into a huge network. Consequently, narrative-- be it verbal or iconic--shows the same metamorphosis as it generates multiple plots, neglects temporal and spatial conventions, and moves beyond national identities. Six …

Between Here And There: The Ambiguous Ecologies Of Charles Simonds, Scott Volz

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

At the start of the 1970s, Charles Simonds began constructing miniature architectural ruins, what he calls dwellings, on the streets of New York City. They were fragile, temporary, and site specific. Occupying windowsills, wall crevices, and street gutters, the dwellings transformed their spaces from liminal to distinct. Over the course of the decade, Simonds built hundreds of dwellings in the Lower East Side alone, and they consequently developed a strong connection to the neighborhood. This essay addresses the dwellings as sites of makeshift ecologies. Looking at the reflexive relation between Simonds' sculptures and deteriorated living conditions in the Lower East …

Investigation Into The Impacts Of Foreign Ruling Elites In Traditional State Societies: The Case Of The Kassite State In Babylonia (Iraq), Helen Malko

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

This thesis focuses on the study of foreign ruling minorities in traditional state societies. It investigates how the Kassites, as a foreign ethnic group, were able to control and maintain political power over the Babylonian majority for four centuries. It examines Kassite-Babylonian cultural interaction both on state and domestic levels as reflected in the material cultural and historical records. This study uses two contrasting ethnohistorical models of foreign ruling elites of the Arabs in Spain and the Mamluks in Egypt to evaluate the mechanisms employed by the Kassites to maintain power and the nature of their interaction with the Babylonian …

Structural And Optical Characterization Of Semiconductors For Solar Water Splitting, Andrew Charles Malingowski

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

Finding a clean and renewable source of energy that can compete commercially with fossil fuels is one of the great challenges facing the world today. Photoactive semiconductors that can be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas by absorbing visible light are one means of harvesting the sun's abundant energy and storing it as chemical fuel. Although several photoactive semiconductor systems have demonstrated water splitting, one is yet to be found that has a high enough H2 production efficiency to be a commercially viable source of renewable energy. Water splitting using a photoactive semiconductor is a complex process …

The Role Of Parental Involvement In The Social Development Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Emile Mulder

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

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by deficits in social interaction. Research with ASD children has dramatically underrepresented fathers, who have only recently been considered as targets for parenting interventions and research. Parenting research with typically developing (TD) children has found that parental involvement (of mothers and fathers) is associated with child social development. Extending such findings to the ASD field is important as social development is a primary concern within this population. The present study sought to do so through an internet questionnaire targeting mothers and fathers. Specifically, this study examined associations between mother involvement, father involvement and their …