Digital Commons Network^™

The Development Of A Laminated Copolyester Electric Guitar, Addison S. Karnes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an investigation of the fabrication and assembly methodologies employed in the development of a proof-of-principle prototype electric guitar composed of laminated copolyester. The objective of the project was to develop the processes and procedures to create an optimized physical and visual bond between layers to minimize vibratory dissipation, thus maximizing sustain. A high speed CNC router, abrasive waterjet, laser engraver-cutter, as well as various manual fabrication and assembly methods were investigated in the construction of the guitar prototypes. The lamination processes explored include low-temperature, heat-assisted pressure bonding, solvent and chemical welding, and contact adhesives. The project concluded …

Oxidative Damage To Dna 2´-Deoxyribose By Carbonate Radicals: Reaction Mechanisms And Products, Terence J. Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The carbonate radical anion (CO₃^•-, CR) is an important reactive oxygen species produced in vivo by one-electron oxidation of CO₂ or bicarbonate, constituents of the major physiological buffer. It was demonstrated for the first time by using an HPLC-based analysis of low-molecular products of DNA damage that CRs react with DNA 2΄-deoxyribose by the hydrogen abstraction mechanism. CRs exhibit a ~ 800-fold preference for one-electron oxidation of guanine over hydrogen abstraction from DNA sugar, in sharp contrast with •OH. CRs also have, as compared to •OH, an increased preference for the H1΄ abstraction, which is the …

Ranking Methods For Global Optimization Of Molecular Structures, John Norman Mcmeen Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work presents heuristics for searching large sets of molecular structures for low-energy, stable systems. The goal is to find the globally optimal structures in less time or by consuming less computational resources. The strategies intermittently evaluate and rank structures during molecular dynamics optimizations, culling possible weaker solutions from evaluations earlier, leaving better solutions to receive more simulation time. Although some imprecision was introduced from not allowing all structures to fully optimize before ranking, the strategies identify metrics that can be used to make these searches more efficient when computational resources are limited.

Weightlifting, Performing Arts Electives, And Academic Achievement: A Comparison In An East Tennessee High School, Lana Page

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant relationship between the academic achievement as measured by ACT English, math, and composite scores of students who took 6 or more credits of weightlifting, 6 or more credits of performing arts, or no elective focus in an East Tennessee high school serving grades 9-12 from the graduating classes of 2010 through 2014. The independent variables were the elective focus groups students took during high school and race and ethnicity. The dependent variables were ACT English, math, and composite scores. A series of one-way analyses of variances (ANOVAs) …

Kinetic And Kinematic Properties Of D-I Male Sprinters, Zhanxin Sha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to explore and determine kinetic and kinematic variables that related to D-I male sprinters maximal running velocity performance. The current study was separated into 3 individual chapters: 1.) Kinematic analysis magnitude of acceleration for braking and propulsion phases during foot contact phase at maximal speed sprinting; 2.) Using kinetic isometric mid-thigh pull variables to predict D-I male sprinters’ 60m performance; 3.) Relationship of whole and lower body angular momentum cancellation during terminal swing phase to sprint performance.

Methods: for sprint measurement all the athletes were participated 2 trials of 100% effort running through 60 …

Hybrid Meshless Method For Numerical Solution Of Partial Differential Equations, Jeanette Marie Monroe

Dissertations

A meshless method for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) which combines the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) and the method of particular solutions (MPS) is formulated and tested. The hybrid method finds a numerical approximation by solving only one system of equations as opposed to the two-stage method of fundamental solutions and method of particular solutions. This new approach, denoted MFS-MPS, one-stage MFS-MPS, or hybrid method, can be applied to a wide variety of PDEs including PDEs with variable coefficients. The MFS-MPS can simplify Helmholtz-type differential operators to Laplacian-type differential operators providing flexibility and simplification to calculating particular solutions and …

Effective Instructional Strategies Utilized In Successful And High Performing Secondary Schools In The Southern Region Of Mississippi, Jeanifer Lynn Pearson

Dissertations

The schools in the United States have implemented measures intended to close the achievement gap for over fifty years (Solomon, 2009). The mandates handed down by the federal government cannot be altered. Therefore, schools are required to determine specific measures that increase student academic success. Prior research has demonstrated that schools can be successful if effective leadership at the district, school, and classroom level was present (Gregory, 2003; Johnson, Livingston, & Schwartz, 2000). At the classroom level, it was the leadership of the individual teacher to determine the creation of innovative techniques aimed at academic success of all students (Farr …

Utilization Of Aqueous Raft Prepared Copolymers To Improve Anticancer Drug Efficacy, Andrew Christopher Holley

Dissertations

The advent of controlled radical polymerization (CRP) techniques, along with advancements in facile conjugation chemistry, now allow synthetic tailoring of precise, polymeric architectures necessary for drug/gene delivery. Reversible addition- fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and its aqueous counterpart (aRAFT) afford quantitative control over key synthetic parameters including block length, microstructure, and placement of structo-pendent and structo-terminal functionality for conjugation of active agents and targeting moieties. The relevance of water-soluble and amphiphilic (co)polymers synthesized by RAFT for in vitro delivery of therapeutics in biological fluids is an especially attractive feature. In many cases, polymerization, binding, conjugation, …

Online Versus Face-To-Face Biology: A Comparison Of Student Transactional Distance, Approach To Learning, And Knowledge Outcomes, Mary Erin Riggins

Dissertations

Community colleges are among many other institutions increasing course offerings online, but there is still some concern about the quality of online learning. Educator concerns, a lack of empirical evidence on biology courses offered online, and the need for an equal opportunity for education support the need for clarification of the quality of distance education in biology, especially in the community college setting. Student attitudes, approaches to learning, and performance should all be studied in order to formulate a better evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of online courses (Svirko & Mellanby, 2008).

The purpose of this study was to …

On Bias In The Estimation Of Structural Break Points, Liang Jiang, Xiaohu Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Based on the Girsanov theorem, this paper obtains the exact Önite sample distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of structural break points in a continuous time model. The exact Önite sample theory suggests that, in empirically realistic situations, there is a strong Önite sample bias in the estimator of structural break points. This property is shared by least squares estimator of both the absolute structural break point and the fractional structural break point in discrete time models. A simulation-based method based on the indirect estimation approach is proposed to reduce the bias both in continuous time and discrete time models. …

A Comparative Study Of Domestic And Hospital Environmental Microbial Populations In Al-Ain (Uae), Amna Ali Jaffal

Theses

This is the first attempt to estimate biological indoor pollution in the environment of AI-Ain city. The numbers and types of bacteria and fungi in the air and on the surfaces were measured in AI-Ain hospital and three different types of domestic environments.

Five different types of wards at AI-Ain hospital, medical, surgical, pediatrics, operating theater, and intensive care unit were studied. Their estimated indoor bioaerosols were compared to indoor bioaerosols in three types of dwelling houses, very good, average, and poor quality houses in AI-Ain city. A bacteriological mechanical air sampler, MK2 (Casella London) was used in this study. …

The Effect Of Repeated Reading Strategy On Oral Reading Fluency Of A Fourth Grade Student With Reading Difficulties, Fatmeh Mahmud Al Jaffal

Theses

This study aims at examining the effects of repeated reading strategy on the oral reading fluency of a 9-year-old Fourth Grader with reading difficulties in a private school in the United Arab Emirates. The research employed a quantitative means by using a SingleSubject Design. A pre-post-test design was used. The results of this study indicate that repeated reading strategy is found to be overall effective on oral reading speed and oral reading accuracy. This study has some recommendations for teaching instructions and research. For example, teachers can use it as an instructional approach for improving the oral reading 11w1fluency not …

Impact Of Guided Inquiry On Tenth Graders’ Understanding Of Chemical Bonds, Badreya Esmaeil Abdul Raheem Al Zarooni

Theses

Students' understandings of scientific conceptions have been of considerable interest to science education researchers and science teachers in recent years. Accordingly, many scholarly studies have been conducted on the students' understandings and misunderstandings, particularly, those concerned with chemistry. For the present study, the term misconception is used to encompass both alternative responses that arise from formal intervention; such as classroom study, as well as those resulted from the students own interactions with, and observations of their surrounding environment. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the understanding of the Grade-10 students about the concepts and misconception regarding the …

Impact Of Guided Inquiry On Tenth Graders' Understanding Of Chemical Bonds, Badreya Esmaeil Abdul Raheem Al Zarooni

Theses

Students’ understanding of scientific conceptions have been of considerable interest to science education researcher and science teacher in recent years. Accordingly,many scholarly studies have been conducted on the students' understandings and misunderstanding, particularly. Those concerned with chemistry. For the present study, the term misconception is used to encompass both alternative responses that arise from formal intervention: such as classroom study as well as those resulted from the student own interaction with, and observation of their surrounding environment

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the understanding of the Grade- students about the concepts and misconception regarding the chemical …

Anomaly Detection Through Enhanced Sentiment Analysis On Social Media Data, Zhaoxia Wang, Victor Joo, Chuan Tong, Xin Xin, Hoong Chor Chin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Anomaly detection in sentiment analysis refers to detecting abnormal opinions, sentiment patterns or special temporal aspects of such patterns in a collection of data. The anomalies detected may be due to sudden sentiment changes hidden in large amounts of text. If these anomalies are undetected or poorly managed, the consequences may be severe, e.g. A business whose customers reveal negative sentiments and will no longer support the establishment. Social media platforms, such as Twitter, provide a vast source of information, which includes user feedback, opinion and information on most issues. Many organizations also leverage social media platforms to publish information …

Orchestrating Service Innovation Using Design Moves: The Dynamics Of Fit Between Service And Enterprise It Architectures, Narayan Ramasubbu, Charles Jason Woodard, Sunil Mithas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Service science perspectives highlight the central role of information technology (IT) in transforming the design and delivery of services. To discern the mechanisms through which IT impacts service innovation, we explore the dynamics of the relationship between enterprise IT and service architectures, and how these dynamics influence the performance of service innovation projects. We conducted six case studies to investigate how firms orchestrated service innovation, focusing on the design of the service architecture and its relationship to enterprise systems. We synthesize the case findings to develop a set of propositions on the antecedents and consequences of fit (or misfit) between …

A Metrics Suite Of Cloud Computing Adoption Readiness, Robert J. Kauffman, Dan Ma, Martin Yu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent research on cloud computing adoption indicates that there has been a lack of deep understanding of its benefits by managers and organizations. This has been an obstacle for adoption. We report on an initial design for a firm-level cloud computing readiness metrics suite. We propose categories and measures to form a set of metrics to measure adoption readiness and assess the required adjustments in strategy and management, technology and operations, and business policies. We reviewed the relevant interdisciplinary literature and interviewed industry professionals to ground our metrics based on theory and practice knowledge. We identified four relevant categories for …

Probabilistic Latent Document Network Embedding, Tuan M. V. Le, Hady W. Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A document network refers to a data type that can be represented as a graph of vertices, where each vertex is associated with a text document. Examples of such a data type include hyperlinked Web pages, academic publications with citations, and user profiles in social networks. Such data have very high-dimensional representations, in terms of text as well as network connectivity. In this paper, we study the problem of embedding, or finding a low-dimensional representation of a document network that "preserves" the data as much as possible. These embedded representations are useful for various applications driven by dimensionality reduction, such …

Midas: Empowering 802.11ac With Multiple-Input Distributed Antenna Systems, Jie Xiong, Karthikeyan Sundaresan, Kyle Jamieson, Mohammad A. Khojastepour, Sampath Rangarajan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Next generation WLANs (802.11ac) are undergoing a major shift in their communication paradigm with the introduction of multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO), transitioning from single-user to multi-user communications. We argue that the conventional AP deployment model of co-located antennas as well as their PHY and MAC mechanisms are not designed to realize the complete potential of MUMIMO. We propose to leverage distributed antenna systems (DAS) to empower next generation 802.11ac networks. We highlight the multitude of benefits that DAS brings to MU-MIMO and 802.11ac in general. However, several challenges arise in the process of realizing these benefits in practice, where avoiding client …

Unisense: A Unified And Sustainable Sensing And Transport Architecture For Large Scale And Heterogeneous Sensor Networks, Yunye Jin, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we propose UNISENSE, a unified and sustainable sensing and transport architecture for large scale and heterogeneous sensor networks. The proposed architecture incorporates seven principal components, namely, application profiling, node architecture, intelligent network design, network management, deep sensing, generalized participatory sensing, and security. We describe the design and implementation for each component. We also present the deployment and performance of the UNISENSE architecture in four practical applications.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter, December 2014, University Of Northern Iowa. Iowa Waste Reduction Center.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter

Contents:

--- Nickey Receives Award from UNI
--- New Food Waste Reduction Resources
--- Painter Training Customized with VirtualPaint
--- Industry News

A Secure Communication System For Early Childhood Collaboration System, Hao Kang

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Early Childhood collaboration System (ECCS) is a distributed health data system which provides coordinated, de-identified healthcare information to various types of data consumers. To satisfy this requirement, the ECCS needs a matcher that utilizes Personal Identifying Information (PII) to coordinate information from a wide range of data sources. Due to the sensitivity of PII, the ECCS also needs to guarantee that only matcher can access PII. This report describes a reusable subsystem, called Medical Records Secure Messaging (MRSecureMessaging), which utilizes a reliable cryptographic algorithm to encrypt PII and other confidential data so that matcher and data consumers cannot access …

Design And Testing Of A Nanosatellite Simulator Reaction Wheel Attitude Control System, Fredric William Long

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Attitude control of a satellite is required for the pointing of communications antennas and other instruments. For this reason, a control algorithm capable of precision pointing is important. Because the process of sending a satellite into space is time consuming and costly, ground-based methods of testing are paramount. A simulator is a low-cost, groundbased system made to mimic the conditions of a weightless satellite in space. The simulator used in this project controls attitude through applying torque to reaction wheels. The objective of this project is to derive and test a control algorithm for the attitude control of a satellite …

Educational Practices, Funding, And The Implementation Of A Reading First Program, Maria Maricela Rodriguez-Salaiz

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) found that too many children struggle with learning to read. Through a Congressional mandate, the panel identified key skills and methods that were central to reading achievement in the grades kindergarten through third grade. According to the United States Department of Education (USDE) Summary of Discretionary Funds (2008b), over $6 billion were allocated to the schools to implement the research based strategies from 2002 to 2008. States throughout the country showed gains from the states’ first year of implementation to 2008 in grades 1-3 in comprehension assessments. The Reading First: Student Achievement, Teacher Empowerment, …

Detection Of Gravitational Wave Signals From Ns-Ns Inspirals In Presence Of Non-Stationary Noise, Wenhui Wang

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Gravitational Wave (GW) detection is an important and inspiring project. Once detected, it will open a new window to understand the universe. The laser interferometer GW detectors, specially LIGO, is the most sensitive detectors at the moment, which can detect GW signal as weak as 10−21. Chirp signal generated by neutron star binaries is a well modeled waveform. One goal of LIGO is to study chirp signal detection. In this field, matched filtering is a widely used method. But since LIGO noise is non-stationary, which will weaken the efficiency of general matched filtering. In this work, a modified matched filtering …

Study Of Creative Processes That Lead To Successful Visually Narrative Art Products, Denissa U. Kiehl

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The success of an artist’s work depends upon a few key factors. No matter which field of study you pursue as an individual it is important to examine and understand previously collected knowledge and works developed within that field. Once an artist has learned from the successful “Old” methods and examples of artworks he or she may then combine the “Old” with some of his or her “New” methods and ideas. When it comes to visual narrative art there is a large variety of visual art and other creations to learn from. Factors related to decision making will change with …

Low Speed Water Tunnel Testing, John J. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Water tunnels are ideal for studying flow patterns for hydrodynamic effects. The functionality of the University of Texas-Pan American water tunnel was limited by not being able to measure forces and moments corresponding to flow patterns. This report delivers an experimental set-up for calibrating the velocity of the water and development of a load measuring system to relate simultaneous visual investigation. An in-depth parts breakdown of the SST-model pump and the dye injection system for flow visualization will be reviewed. Few balances have been made for water tunnels due to small and difficult to measure flow-induced forces. The motive is …

Gps-Miv: The General Purpose System For Multi-Display Interactive Visualization, Irving A. Gonzalez Garza

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The new age of information has created opportunities for inventions like the internet. These inventions allow us access to tremendous quantities of data. But, with the increase in information there is need to make sense of such vast quantities of information by manipulating that information to reveal hidden patterns to aid in making sense of it. Data visualization systems provide the tools to reveal patterns and filter information, aiding the processes of insight and decision making. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and test a data visualization system, The General Purpose System for Multi-display Interactive Visualization (GPS-MIV). GPS-MIV …

Applications Of Magnetostrictive Materials In The Real-Time Monitoring Of Vehicle Suspension Components, Raul Estrada

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this project is to explore applications of magnetostrictive materials for real-time monitoring of railroad suspension components, in particular bearings. Monitoring of such components typically requires the tracking of temperature vibration and load. In addition, real-time, long-term monitoring can be greatly facilitated through the use of wireless, self-powered sensors. Magnetostrictive materials, such as Terfenol-D, have the potential to address both requirements. Currently, piezoelectrics are used for many load and energy harvesting applications; however, they are fragile and are difficult to use for static load measurements. Magnetostrictive metals are tougher, and their property of variable permeability when stressed can …

Overview Of Inference About Roc Curve In Medical Diagnosis, Jingjing Yin

Biostatistics: Faculty Publications

Medical diagnosis aims to identify diseased individuals through the evaluation of the measurements of some biomarkers by performing a diagnostic test based on some biomarker measurements. Biomarkers are measured on either discrete or continuous scale and continuous biomarkers are utilized more often in medical practice. This article introduces the most popular tool for evaluating continuous biomarkers: the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve.