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2014

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Emotional Intelligence, Coping Styles, And Psychopathology, Letizia Boin Jan 2014

Emotional Intelligence, Coping Styles, And Psychopathology, Letizia Boin

Masters Theses

Despite its relatively recent origins, Emotional Intelligence (EI), which is the ability to perceive, understand, and manage one's emotions, has been shown to contribute to a variety of outcomes, including academic achievement and relationship satisfaction. Considerable support has been gathered to implicate EI in the development of mental illness such as depression and social anxiety. It has been theorized that a potential pathway in which EI affects mental health is by contributing to the development of coping styles. Stress and coping literature reports enough empirical evidence to suggest that broadly speaking, problem-focused coping is 'adaptive' while avoidant coping is 'maladaptive.' …

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Building And Maintaining Legitimacy Online: Unicef's Use Of Facebook, John Kraps Jan 2014

Building And Maintaining Legitimacy Online: Unicef's Use Of Facebook, John Kraps

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

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Increasing Cooking And Nutritional Knowledge Of Food Pantry Clients Via Cookbook Intervention, Joshua Kleczynski Jan 2014

Increasing Cooking And Nutritional Knowledge Of Food Pantry Clients Via Cookbook Intervention, Joshua Kleczynski

Masters Theses

This study was designed to assess eating habits, cooking habits, and nutritional knowledge of food pantry clients. As a whole, the average American consumes a less-than-optimal intake of nutrients. This, combined with the elevated national food insecurity rate of 14.5%, produces an advantageous situation to educate food pantry clients about healthy lifestyle practice through cooking. This study utilized a quasi-experimental design including a pre-assessment, intervention, post-assessment design. Forty-nine participants were included in study, and either received a cookbook (intervention group) or were a control subject and only completed surveys. Results revealed that the cookbook intervention did not elicit any behavior …

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Exploratory Factor Analysis Of Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptom Clusters, Rachel A. Maxwell Jan 2014

Exploratory Factor Analysis Of Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptom Clusters, Rachel A. Maxwell

Masters Theses

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a distressing condition that involves a preoccupation with a perceived defect(s) in appearance. Despite the importance of early identification, it is often misdiagnosed. The literature suggests that issues with diagnosis may be because BDD is typically defined by the single symptom of dysmorphic concern (i.e., over concern with an imagined or slight defect in physical appearance). Dysmorphic concern is insufficient to fully characterize the disturbance. This study used exploratory factor analysis to identify symptom clusters from four well-known BDD measures completed by 457 undergraduate students. The extracted content suggested the following symptoms: (a) Dysmorphic Concern, …

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Fear Of Negative And Positive Evaluation Across Social Evaluative Situations, Jarvis Howe Jan 2014

Fear Of Negative And Positive Evaluation Across Social Evaluative Situations, Jarvis Howe

Masters Theses

Fear of negative and fear of positive evaluation are both important in understanding social evaluative anxiety. Fear of negative evaluation has been linked with social anxiety, public speaking anxiety, and test anxiety; whereas fear of positive evaluation has only been linked with social anxiety. This paper reviews the literature on fear of negative and positive evaluation in relation to each of the social evaluative situations and then presents the findings of a study that will attempt to differentiate the three types of social evaluative situations. Fear of negative evaluation was correlated with each of the three social evaluative situations; whereas …

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Idiomatic Horn Writing: The Formal And Historical Contexts Of Four Horn Pieces, Elizabeth A. Danner Jan 2014

Idiomatic Horn Writing: The Formal And Historical Contexts Of Four Horn Pieces, Elizabeth A. Danner

Masters Theses

As performers on the modern horn, we are presented with literature that was written for an instrument that differs from the one we use today. The fact that much of our solo literature was written for the natural horn does not invalidate our performances of it on the modern double horn. However, in order to present the music correctly, we must be aware of the development of the horn and historical context. In this document, I explore four pieces from different points in horn history. I assert the reasons each composer wrote the way he did by considering the physical …

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Foreign Direct Investment Led Growth And Its Determinants In Sub-Saharan African Countries, Tewodros Zerihun Demelew Jan 2014

Foreign Direct Investment Led Growth And Its Determinants In Sub-Saharan African Countries, Tewodros Zerihun Demelew

Masters Theses

Despite FDI's growth in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, the evidence from earlier studies on FDI led economic growth and key determinants of FDI in SSA countries have been inconclusive. This paper provides up-to-date evidence on the question: does FDI lead to economic growth? And if so, what are the key determinants of FDI growth in SSA countries? In this study we use three estimation approaches, OLS with robust standard errors (robust regression), multi-level random-effects regression, and fixed-effects regression. The multi-level and fixed-effects regression are aimed to help us control for within-country and between-country effects. Based on a panel dataset for …

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The Effects Of Existential Salience On State Anxiety, Joseph Morger Jan 2014

The Effects Of Existential Salience On State Anxiety, Joseph Morger

Masters Theses

Existential anxiety is theorized to result from one's knowledge of human existence. Four givens of life have been identified that result in existential anxiety: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness (Yalom, 1980). Terror management theory purposes the knowledge of one's own death to be a great source of distress. The theory posits that to cope with these distressing thoughts, one is motivated to adhere to a cultural worldview. Adhering to a cultural worldview allows one to view the world as a structured place, in addition to raising one's self-esteem. Terror management research has shown that making mortality salient results in harsher …

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Incremental Validity Of The Learning Behavior Scale In Special Education Evaluation, Margaret Lakebrink Jan 2014

Incremental Validity Of The Learning Behavior Scale In Special Education Evaluation, Margaret Lakebrink

Masters Theses

The Learning Behavior Scale (LBS) was developed as a teacher rating scale to assess students' learning behaviors hypothesized to affect academic achievement. Research utilizing the LBS has primarily stemmed from the standardization sample. The present study attempted to examine the incremental validity of adding the LBS to standardized intelligence test scores in order to predict standardized academic achievement in students participating in initial evaluations for determining disability and eligibility for special education services. Due to difficulty obtaining a sufficient sample, reevaluation cases were also obtained in the sample of first to eighth grade students (N=40) in the study. Results provided …

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Parent Knowledge Of Child's Level Of Play: Implications For Early Childhood And Preschool Assessment, Jessie Shuemaker Jan 2014

Parent Knowledge Of Child's Level Of Play: Implications For Early Childhood And Preschool Assessment, Jessie Shuemaker

Masters Theses

The purpose of the study was to examine how accurately parents were able to report on their own child's play skills. Additionally, the study sought to examine if the addition of a parent interview used in conjunction with an observational play-based assessment would warrant a more comprehensive and accurate picture of a child's skills. A Spearman Rank Order Correlation was conducted to examine the relationship between a parent interview developed specifically for this study and an observational play-based assessment. Kappa Coefficients were also conducted to determine the level of agreement between the interviews and observations. Results suggested a weak positive …

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A Straw Tube Tracking Detector For The New Muon G-2 E989 Experiment, Mary Elizabeth Shenk Jan 2014

A Straw Tube Tracking Detector For The New Muon G-2 E989 Experiment, Mary Elizabeth Shenk

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The New Muon g-2 E989 Collaboration at Fermilab will measure the muon anomalous magnetic moment a&mgr; to a precision of 140 ppb, which represents a four-fold improvement in the experimental precision of the current value. Central to the E989 experiment is the muon storage ring magnet previously used by the E821 Collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The storage ring produces a highly precise magnet field. Muons will circulate the storage ring within a vacuum, and as the spin angular momentum of each muon precesses about the axis of the applied magnetic field, the muons will decay into positrons emitted preferentially …

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Assessing Social Problem Solving And Frustration Tolerance In Early Elementary Students, Catherine G. Wang Jan 2014

Assessing Social Problem Solving And Frustration Tolerance In Early Elementary Students, Catherine G. Wang

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Due to the current national discourse on the social and emotional well-being of our youth, the examination of student progress and development in the area of social and emotional skills is a critical area of study. To date, limited research on social and emotional skill development in schools has been conducted. In addition, there is little documented research on the direct assessment of student skills in the specific social and emotional learning competencies. With the emergence of a new assessment tool from Rush NeuroBehavioral Center (RNBC), schools are now able to gather performance based student assessment data in key areas …

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Assessing Social And Emotional Skill Development In Early Elementary Students, David K. Rongey Jan 2014

Assessing Social And Emotional Skill Development In Early Elementary Students, David K. Rongey

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Due to the current national discourse on the social and emotional well-being of our students, the examination of student progress and development in the area of social and emotional skills is a critical area of study. To date, limited research has been conducted in this area. For example, there is little documented research on the direct assessment of student skills in the specific social and emotional learning competencies. With the emergence of a new assessment tool from Rush NeuroBehavioral Center (RNBC), schools are now able to gather performance based student assessment data in key areas of social emotional skill development. …

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"Unseen And Unheard" : Representations Of Mental Illness In Contemporary American Immigrant Literature, Ellen D. Stuart Jan 2014

"Unseen And Unheard" : Representations Of Mental Illness In Contemporary American Immigrant Literature, Ellen D. Stuart

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Focusing on two novels, Wendy Law-Yone's The Coffin Tree and Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, this analysis employs a framework drawn from research on mental health, which recognizes the cumulative impact of the immigrant's experiences through the process of migration on his/her development of mental illness by dividing migration into three stages: pre-migration, peri-migration, and post-migration. Because each stage carries its own set of factors potentially increasing the immigrant's vulnerability to mental illness, the experiences of the individual characters during the stages of migration are examined, as are their experiences of specific mental illnesses. Reading immigrant …

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A (Re)Conception Of The City : Commercialization, Domestication, And Resistance In New York City From Melville To Mckay, James Baltrum Jan 2014

A (Re)Conception Of The City : Commercialization, Domestication, And Resistance In New York City From Melville To Mckay, James Baltrum

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation characterizes the historical changes that shaped nineteenth and twentieth century New York City by examining how Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, John Dos Passos, and Claude McKay expressed these changes in their literary works. I employ the ideological principles of scholars such as Henri Lefebvre, who viewed physical spaces including the modern city as socially constructed products, and the methodology of writers such as Michel Foucault, whose genealogical approach prompts an open-ended and multi-faceted analysis. Consequently, my argument shows how various economic, social, cultural, political, and technological developments worked with and against each other to shape (and …

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A Comparative Analysis Of Primate First Metatarsals : Implications For Ardipithecus Ramidus, Kristine Mitchell Jan 2014

A Comparative Analysis Of Primate First Metatarsals : Implications For Ardipithecus Ramidus, Kristine Mitchell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Ardipithecus ramidus is a controversial fossil in terms of its phyletic position relative to the hominid lineage. Lovejoy and White argue that Ar. ramidus is a stem hominid while others, like Wood, Harrison and Sarmiento do not agree and propose alternative interpretations. These later authors argue that the proposed "human-like" characteristics used by Lovejoy and White to support their stem hominid hypothesis can also be attributed to other lineages, like fossil apes, and they further believe that Ar. ramidus might not even be a hominid at all. Given these alternative interpretations concerning Ardipithecus, the first metatarsal of Ar. ramidus was …

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Altering Shyness Mindset : Enhancing Treatment For Social Performance Anxiety, Michael J. Gillen Jan 2014

Altering Shyness Mindset : Enhancing Treatment For Social Performance Anxiety, Michael J. Gillen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The current study looked to extend previous research on the meta-cognitive variable of shyness mindset. The objectives were to demonstrate the ability to promote an incremental view of shyness in a clinical population, provide evidence for this change's ability to enhance the reduction of social performance anxiety symptoms via exposure therapy, and elucidate the possible mechanisms involved. Participants were recruited from an intensive outpatient program for the treatment of anxiety disorders, and assigned to either receive an intervention designed to alter shyness mindset, or treatment as usual. Results indicated that shyness mindset was malleable in a clinical population. The effect …

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Exploring The Link Between Attribution Biases And Aggressive Behavior Among Adolescents : Are Parents' Attributions And Management Of Peers Contributing Factors?, Haeli Gerardy Jan 2014

Exploring The Link Between Attribution Biases And Aggressive Behavior Among Adolescents : Are Parents' Attributions And Management Of Peers Contributing Factors?, Haeli Gerardy

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The current thesis project investigated two parental influences on adolescents' hostile intent attributions and aggression - mothers' hostile intent attributions regarding adolescents' peers and management of peer relationships. Consistent with the small literature on parent-child concordance of hostile attributions, mothers' instrumental hostile intent attributions (IHIAs) were related in a positive fashion to adolescents' hostile attributions about peers in the same scenarios. Findings were the first among a sample of mothers and adolescents older than fifth grade. There was some evidence for an interactive effect of mothers' instrumental hostile attributions on higher levels of boys', but not girls', overt aggression. Mothers' …

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Exponential Random Graph Models For Multilevel Networks, Daniel Tattersall Jan 2014

Exponential Random Graph Models For Multilevel Networks, Daniel Tattersall

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This master's thesis investigates the use of exponential random graph models for multilevel networks. It begins by describing some basic ideas in network analysis and then moves into the use of models to describe observed networks. After establishing modeling concepts for single-level networks, the discussion expands to modeling multilevel networks, which is a less common practice, and provides a brief multilevel modeling application. Focus is given to ERGM theory basics and highlights potential problems that researchers may encounter when employing these methods. Ultimately, the reader leaves with a sense of how and why network complexity can be modeled and some …

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Extending Self-Discrepancy Theory To The Social Role Of Mother, Nicole J. Holmberg Jan 2014

Extending Self-Discrepancy Theory To The Social Role Of Mother, Nicole J. Holmberg

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Three studies were conducted in order to extend self-discrepancy theory to an online sample of mothers, both in terms of global self-discrepancies (i.e., self-as-person) and as they relate to the specific social role context of mother (i.e., self-as-mother). Study 1 yielded minimal support for the application of self-discrepancy theory to a sample of mothers. Study 2 yielded partial support for the specificity of the relationships between self-discrepancies from the social role perspective of mother and negative emotions, with ideal discrepancies predicting dejection. Results indicated that self-discrepancy accessibility did not moderate the relationship between self-discrepancies and negative emotion. Study 3 replicated …

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Integrating Spirituality And Religion With Counselors-In-Training In Practicum : A Look At Competence And Comfort Level, Nikki Renee Ruffin Jan 2014

Integrating Spirituality And Religion With Counselors-In-Training In Practicum : A Look At Competence And Comfort Level, Nikki Renee Ruffin

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In the past 20 years, the counseling profession has increased the amount of research and focus on integrating spirituality and religion into applied practice, curriculum, and supervision. In the last few years, some have argued that spirituality is the fifth force in the counseling field. The purpose of this study was to (a) explore counseling students' exposure to religious and spiritual issues in counseling (SRIC) practica and their comfort with addressing SRIC with clients, (b) explore counseling students' exposure to an intervention of SRIC practica and their perceived competence with addressing SRIC with clients, and (c) assess the impact of …

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Examining Teacher Self-Efficacy About Best Practices In Science During A Professional Development Series, Jessica L. Menez Jan 2014

Examining Teacher Self-Efficacy About Best Practices In Science During A Professional Development Series, Jessica L. Menez

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Using extant data that were collected as part of a larger project, the current study examined teacher self-efficacy and the teachers' intentions to implement workshop content throughout the course of a six-week professional development workshop focused on enhancing science motivation for students through the adoption of specific instructional strategies. There were a total of 20 middle and high school teacher participants. Results indicated teacher self-efficacy changed significantly from pre to post. Teachers showed higher teacher self-efficacy after the professional development, in particular for influencing student engagement. In addition, we found a moderate correlation between the level of confidence after the …

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Using Sample Validation In Auditing, A. Ochigbo Jan 2014

Using Sample Validation In Auditing, A. Ochigbo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A state government agency wants to determine if a sample verification procedure, used in auditing accounts to detect fraudulent charges, reduces the error of estimating the unknown mean amount of fraud per transaction. The procedure consists of checking whether the covariates of an audit variable, whose mean is known, is within a 100(1-alpha) % confidence interval computed on the observed sample. In this study we use computer based simulations to explore the effect that the procedure has on the error in estimating the mean. We concentrate on the bivariate normal distribution and on a normal bivariate normal mixture. Numerical results …

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The Implementation Of A Hybrid Learning Environment At A Community College In The Mechanical Trades, Christopher Carlson Jan 2014

The Implementation Of A Hybrid Learning Environment At A Community College In The Mechanical Trades, Christopher Carlson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The study was a case-based exploratory study providing data for the implementation of hybrid learning in the trade classes at a community college. The research focused on understanding the ability of students to perform in a hybrid environment, specifically measuring the students' abilities to monitor, predict and reflect on their own learning self-regulated learning behaviors. The study utilized a mixed methods approach to determine if the students in the newly implemented hybrid environment were academically capable of performing and if they would be receptive to the change which is required for success. The quantitative research provided results that indicated students …

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The Power Of Words : A Study Of The Intentional Use Of Language To Frame Interactions In The Elementary Classroom, Julia Cloat Jan 2014

The Power Of Words : A Study Of The Intentional Use Of Language To Frame Interactions In The Elementary Classroom, Julia Cloat

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study explored how the epistemologies of elementary teachers guided their intentional use of language during literacy instruction. Using a qualitative approach, data were gathered through a survey, teacher interviews, observational data, and stimulated recall. The four primary participants were chosen due to their alignment with the stance that students are either constructors of knowledge or receivers of knowledge. Sociocultural discourse analysis provided a way to examine how instructional language is used to frame interactions in the classroom and how the language that is used related to the teacher's epistemology.||The findings show that the distinctions among the epistemological stances of …

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Magmatic Water Content Of Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala, Determined From A Thermodynamic Model For The Plagioclase-Liquid Hygrometer, Christine A. Knudson Jan 2014

Magmatic Water Content Of Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala, Determined From A Thermodynamic Model For The Plagioclase-Liquid Hygrometer, Christine A. Knudson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Pacaya Volcano is an active composite volcano located in southern Guatemala, about 30 km from the nation's capital, Guatemala City. This volcano has variable eruptive styles ranging from non-explosive to moderately explosive. Volcanic rocks from Pacaya are mostly basaltic to basaltic andesite and tend to be porphyritic, containing approximately 25-35% crystals, dominantly plagioclase. Previous data from olivine-hosted melt inclusions in Pacaya's tephras suggest relatively low magmatic water contents for a subduction zone volcano, particularly compared to neighboring composite volcanoes along the Central American Volcanic Arc.||The goal of this research was to use plagioclase phenocrysts in basaltic andesite lavas from Pacaya …

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Measuring Efficiencies In U.S. Hospital Mergers, Sandhya Radhakrishnan Jan 2014

Measuring Efficiencies In U.S. Hospital Mergers, Sandhya Radhakrishnan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Using non-parametric approaches, this study investigates the technical efficiencies of U.S. hospitals that have undergone horizontal mergers. Past studies have shown that hospital prices, hospital costs, quality of care provided, and consumer welfare are affected by these mergers. Theoretical studies on mergers propose potential gains from mergers. The results from these studies provide conflicting reports on the efficiencies of the merged hospitals. Hospitals merge in the anticipation of increasing market power by reducing operational expenses and expansion of services. However, many of these merged hospitals have filed for bankruptcy and have shut down in the years following the merger. This …

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The Differences Between Iron And Iron-Substituted Manganese Superoxide Dismutase With Respect To Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment, Jianing Wang Jan 2014

The Differences Between Iron And Iron-Substituted Manganese Superoxide Dismutase With Respect To Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment, Jianing Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Iron-substituted manganese superoxide dismutase (Fe(Mn)SOD) was produced using an in vivo preparation method. It’s an inactive enzyme in catalyzing superoxide radical dismutation owing to the mis-incorporation of Fe in the active site evolved to use Mn. To investigate the possible toxicity of human Fe(Mn)SOD proposed by Yamakura, we studied the properties of Fe(Mn)SOD upon H2O2 treatment and compared to that of FeSOD. It’s found that the responses to H2O2 treatment were different, including the changes of optical spectra, variations of active site coordination and secondary structures. Fe3+ reduction was not observed in Fe(Mn)SOD …

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Outside University Walls : Alexandra David-Neel's Influence In Developing The Field Of Buddhist Studies, Mary Michele Jan 2014

Outside University Walls : Alexandra David-Neel's Influence In Developing The Field Of Buddhist Studies, Mary Michele

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969) was a Frenchwoman who is known primarily as an adventurer, explorer, and travel writer because she walked across the Himalayan Mountains into the city of Lhasa in 1924 when foreigners were prohibited from entering Tibet. She returned to Europe to write about her experiences in two famous books: My Journey to Lhasa (1993) and Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1971).||David-Neel wrote twenty more books about mystical, philosophical, sociological, political, and historical themes (published on five continents) that reflect discourses that changed over time within different cultures. The discourses about Orientalism and colonialism along with feminist and gender …

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Peak To Average Power Ratio Reduction In Stbc Mimo-Ofdm, Kishor Gannamaneni Jan 2014

Peak To Average Power Ratio Reduction In Stbc Mimo-Ofdm, Kishor Gannamaneni

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is an advanced 3G/4G scheme which achieves high data rate and combats multipath fading. However, OFDM systems suffer from nonlinear peak to average power ratio (PAPR) and carrier frequency offsets (CFO). These two factors lead to degraded performance and thereby reducing the system efficiency. OFDM with multiple antennas both at transmitter and receiver and space-time block coding is used to increase the channel capacity and receiver diversity. Space-time block coding is used to increase data rate and for reliable communications. With space-time block coding we can take advantage of both space and time. It is …

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