Digital Commons Network^™

Characterization Of Electrodeposited Copper Foil Surface Roughness For Accurate Conductor Power Loss Modeling, Michael B. Griesi

Theses and Dissertations

As computer data rates have increased, designers observed that the standard models for estimating the impact of copper foil surface roughness on conductor loss are limited to a few GHz. The more recent snowball model (a “snowball” estimation of the Huray Model) has demonstrated improved conductor loss predictions up to 50 GHz by estimating the necessary parameters using reasonable assumptions about the geometric surface features of electrodeposited copper foil. Since then, the Huray Model has been incorporated into commercial electromagnetic field simulators. However, a standard method of characterizing the electrodeposited copper foil used in high-speed circuits to directly implement the …

Analysis Of Hurricane Preparedness Levels And Evacuation Intent For South Carolina Coastal Residents, Wesley Chad Seigler

Theses and Dissertations

Many communities across the nation, especially those in coastal areas, are experiencing extensive growth and expansion. This growth and the associated need for additional infrastructure, goods and services, and basic human needs often place people and the things they value in harm’s way due to the threat of a natural disaster. In order to properly prepare and mitigate disaster impacts, individuals and communities must view disasters as events that will likely occur at least once during their lifetime rather than simply outside possibilities. Residents of coastal communities must prepare for potential impacts from hurricanes and resulting storm surges and must …

A Soul Composed Of Harmonies: George Herbert's Life, Writings, And Choral Settings Of His English Poetry, Benjamin Todd Ebner

Theses and Dissertations

George Herbert’s poetry is among the greatest religious poetry written in the English language. His introspective and nuanced understanding of the human soul and his beautiful style of writing have earned him his place among the great poets. His catalogue is filled with poems ready to be set to music, and dozens of them have been. However, there is no document that seeks to gather an annotated list of these compositions in one place. Further, while a few of these compositions are performed often, there are dozens of other worthy compositions that should be heard on a more wide and …

A Phenomenological Study Of Student Engagement In United States History Classrooms, Emily Louvette Manigault

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the relationship between student engagement and the perception of academic achievement (learning) by teachers and students in an urban high school social studies course. Over the past several years, educational leaders and researchers have tried to find a cause for a number of issues in public education, including low academic achievement, increasing student drop-out rates and the decline of positive perceptions of schools in general. As a result, there has been increasing research done on the level of engagement that students experience during their schooling. Much of the research has focused …

Measurement Of Polarization Observables PZ, PSZ, And PCZ In Double-Pion Photoproduction Off The Proton, Yuqing Mao

Theses and Dissertations

Meson production from excited nucleons is important in the study of baryon resonances and pion photoproduction is attracting much attention. To date a rather large amount of unpolarized cross-section measurements have been reported for both single- and double-pion photoproduction. However, polarization observables provide complementary information as they probe different combinations of transition amplitudes. The database for polarization observables remains quite sparse. Double-pion photoproduction have been studied in Hall B at Jefferson Lab with linearly polarized tagged photon beams incident on longitudinally polarized protons. The experiment covered center-of-mass energies between 1.4 GeV and 2.3 GeV. The target was a FROzen Spin …

Essays On Battle Clusters In Internal Armed Conflicts And Insurgencies: Concept, Causes And Consequences, Chifeng Liu

Theses and Dissertations

With the purpose to re-conceptualize the intensity of internal armed conflicts, I argue that the characteristics such as location, scale and duration of “major battlefields,” i.e. the spatio-temporal clusters of combat events are important in the evaluation of impact of modern civil wars and insurgencies. I start with elaborating and constructing a new concept of conflict magnitude with battle clusters using up-to-date geo-referenced data and spatial statistic methods. In the second article, I first explain the location and duration of major battlefields. The findings indicate that an area with multiple non-state armed groups (NSAGs) is more likely to become main …

Task-Specific Human Capital Accumulation And Wage Outcomes Among Young Men: An Empirical Analysis, Morgan Holland

Theses and Dissertations

Existing literature suggests that investment in different kinds of task-specific human capital may have significant effects on wage outcomes and overall economic wellbeing of individuals. To examine this claim, the accumulation of task-specific human capital in young male workers with no college education and its effects on wages is measured. Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth panel data merged with six task-specific human capital measures derived from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles task contents data, fixed effects regression was utilized to measure how workers’ taskspecific human capital develops over time. This process shows that among the task measures used, accumulation …

Piezotransistive Iii-V Nitride Microcantilever Based Mems/Nems Sensor For Photoacoustic Spectroscopy Of Chemicals, Abdul Hafiz Ibne Talukdar

Theses and Dissertations

Microcantilevers are highly attractive as transducers for detecting chemicals, explosives, and biological molecules due to their high sensitivity, micro-scale dimensions, and low power consumption. Though optical transduction of the mechanical movement of the microcantilevers into an electrical signal is widely practiced, there is a continuous thrust to develop alternative transduction methods that are more conducive to the development of compact miniaturized sensors. Piezoelectric and piezoresistive transduction methods are two of the most popular ones that have been utilized to develop miniaturized sensor systems. Piezoelectric cantilevers, which are commonly made of PZT film, have demonstrated very high sensitivity; however, they suffer …

The Influence Of Parent Portal Access On Student Efficacy And Parental Involvement, Shannon D. Dries

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This study examined the influence of Parent Portal access on student achievement and parental involvement defined as home-to-school communication. The population was students in sixth grade in a suburban district in New Jersey. Academic achievement was defined through GPA at the end of sixth grade and performance on the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) in both Math and Language Arts Literacy in Grade 6. Attendance was measured using attendance rates. Parental involvement was measured by the number of parent logins to Parent Portal. Multiple regression analyses, backward entry method, were used to determine the influence of …

Aerosol Techniques For Deposition And Characterization Of Biological And Biomimetic Sensitizers For Solar Devices, Vivek B. Shah

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Nano-structured columnar films synthesized by the aerosol chemical vapor deposition (ACVD) system are unique, and have proved to be useful for fabricating solar cells and in other applications. The film formation by ACVD process involves three main phenomenon - aerosol formation and growth, deposition, and restructuring. In this work, thin film formation by the ACVD process is simulated by combining three models - (A) particle formation in gas phase by atrimodal model, (B) particle deposition onto heated substrate by a Brownian dynamics model and (C) sintering on the heated substrate by a multi-particle geometric sintering model (MPGSM). Modelling and simulation …

Polyol Synthesis Of Silver Nanowires By Heterogeneous Nucleation And Mechanistic Aspects Influencing Its Length And Diameter, Waynie M. Schuette

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Various additives are employed in the polyol synthesis of silver nanowires (Ag NWs), which are typically halide salts such as NaCl. A variety of mechanistic roles have been suggested for these additives. My research showed that the early addition of NaCl in the polyol synthesis of Ag NWs from AgNO3 in ethylene glycol results in the rapid formation of AgCl nanocubes, which induce the heterogeneous nucleation of metallic Ag upon their surfaces. Ag NWs subsequently grow from these nucleation sites. The conclusions are supported by studies using ex-situ generated AgCl nanocubes.Additionally, the final mean silver nanowire diameter is found to …

The Late Ordovician Biogeochemical Carbon Cycle, John Garrecht Metzger

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The isotopic composition of the carbonate carbon (δ13Ccarb) is one of the best tools for understanding the biogeochemical carbon cycle through Earth history. δ13Ccarb is also used to chemostratigraphically correlate coeval strata. This dissertation has three main foci that all utilize δ13Ccarb as the common data type. The geologic interval investigated was the Late Ordovician (458-444 Ma) with emphasis on the Guttenberg δ13C excursion, a globally correlated, positive ~3 / event that is ~400 kyr in duration. In the first topic we evaluate post-depositional alteration (i.e., diagenesis) of δ13Ccarb signals. In the second topic, we make reconstructions of sea level …

A Reinforcement-Learning Framework For Interpreting Trial-By-Trial Motor Adaptation To Novel Haptic Environments, Ranjan Patrick Khan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Motor adaptation is often considered to occur under the influence of sensory signals, which is usually readily available for humans performing most motor tasks. However, humans can also use reward or other qualitative feedback to reinforce previous actions and perform adaptation. In these experiments, we introduce reward feedback to a traditional motor adaptation experiment: reach adaptation to a velocity-dependent force field. Drawing from the literature of computer science and machine learning, we use a reinforcement-learning framework to interpret the pattern of force generation and reward-prediction errors and observe the effects of concurrent and isolated reward and sensory feedback.

It is …

Contextualized Robot Navigation, David Vincent Lu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

In order to improve the interaction between humans and robots, robots need to be able to move about in a way that is appropriate to the complex environments around them. One way to investigate how the robots should move is through the lens of theatre, which provides us with ways to analyze the robot's movements and the motivations for moving in particular ways. In particular, this has proven useful for improving robot navigation. By altering the costmaps used for path planning, robots can navigate around their environment in ways that incorporate additional contexts. Experimental results with user studies have shown …

Approximation And Relaxation Approaches For Parallel And Distributed Machine Learning, Stephen Tyree

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Large scale machine learning requires tradeoffs. Commonly this tradeoff has led practitioners to choose simpler, less powerful models, e.g. linear models, in order to process more training examples in a limited time. In this work, we introduce parallelism to the training of non-linear models by leveraging a different tradeoff--approximation. We demonstrate various techniques by which non-linear models can be made amenable to larger data sets and significantly more training parallelism by strategically introducing approximation in certain optimization steps.

For gradient boosted regression tree ensembles, we replace precise selection of tree splits with a coarse-grained, approximate split selection, yielding both faster …

Toward Improved Computational Tools For Electronic Transport Analysis And Their Use In The Development Of Materials For Energy Applications, Maria Stoica

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

With the rapid rise in computational speed and capacity of massively parallel computing clusters in recent years, theoretical screening of large, previously unexplored sets of complex compounds to find materials with a given set of desired properties is quickly becoming a reality. In order to maximize the predictive ability of these large-scale computations, it is desirable to develop accurate post-processing algorithms that can efficiently manipulate electronic structure data to produce theoretical predictions of experimentally observable quantities. To address this need, the work of this dissertation has been to expand existing \textit{ab initio} methods for determining electronic properties of bulk complex …

Language Skill Development In Japanese Kokugo Education: Analysis Of The Television Program Wakaru Kokugo Yomikaki No Tsubo, Ruri Yoshii

Dissertations and Theses

Any type of education implemented by a modern nation-state is, at least in part, a tool for socializing its people. In this regard, Japanese language and literature education, kokugo, has played an important role in Japan by emphasizing nationalism and the integrity of a Japanese identity. According to Ishihara (2007) and Lee (1996 [English translation 2010]), kokugo, since its inception in 1900, has promoted moral awareness and assimilation of Japanese ideals across the country. However, responding to unsatisfactory test results in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2003 and 2006, Japan's Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science and …

Pyramid Schemes, Leland Cheuk

Valparaiso Fiction Review

No abstract provided.

Continued Disparities In School Facilities: Analyzing Brown V. Board Of Education’S Singular Approach To Quality Education, Corsica D. Smith

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Commencement Convocation Program, Sarasota - Manatee Campus, December 14, 2014, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

Golden Bull Service & Outstanding Leadership Award - Mariana Barboza; Outstanding Graduate Award - Stephanie Boynton; Outstanding Professor - Fawn T. Ngo

Spectral Evolution Of Energetic Neutral Atom Emissions At The Heliospheric Poles As Measured By Ibex During Its First Three Yeras, M. Dayeh, F. Allegrini, R. Demajistre, M. I. Desai, R. W. Ebert, S. A. Fuselier, Paul H. Janzen, G. Livadiotis, D. J. Mccomas, Daniel B. Reisenfeld, N. A. Schwadron, M. Siewert

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission continues to measure energetic neutral atom (ENA) emissions produced by charge exchange between solar wind (SW) protons and interstellar neutrals at the edge of our heliosphere. Using the first 3 yr of IBEX-Hi ENA measurements (2009-2011), we examined the spectral evolution of ~0.5-6 keV ENAs at the polar regions (above 60°). We found the following: (1) pixels with a characteristic "ankle" spectra (lower spectral index at higher energies) increase by ~5% in 2010 and ~10% in 2011 compared to 2009. (2) The averaged spectral index in 2011 is smaller than that of 2009. (3) …

Coordinated Control And Estimation Of Multiagent Systems With Engineering Applications, Housheng Su, Michael Z.Q. Chen, Qing Hui, Wei Zhang, Fanglai Zhu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Recently, coordinated control and estimation problems have attracted a great deal of attention in different fields especially in biology, physics, computer science, and control engineering. Coordinated control and estimation problems have prominent characteristics of distributed control, local interaction, and self-organization. Research on multiagent coordinated control and estimation problems not only helps better understand the mechanisms of natural collective phenomena but also benefits the applications of cyberphysical systems.

This special issue focuses on theoretical and technological achievements in cooperative multiagent Systems. It contains twenty-six papers, the contents of which are summarized below.

Comparative Population Genetics And Evolutionary History Of Two Commonly Misidentified Billfishes Of Management And Conservation Concern, Andrea M. Bernard, Mahmood S. Shivji, Eric Prince, Fabio H.V. Hazin, Freddy Arocha, Andres Domingo, Kevin A. Feldheim

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Background:  Misidentifications between exploited species may lead to inaccuracies in population assessments, with potentially irreversible conservation ramifications if overexploitation of either species is occurring. A notable showcase is provided by the realization that the roundscale spearfish (Tetrapturus georgii), a recently validated species, has been historically misidentified as the morphologically very similar and severely overfished white marlin (Kajikia albida) (IUCN listing: Vulnerable). In effect, no information exists on the population status and evolutionary history of the enigmatic roundscale spearfish, a large, highly vagile and broadly distributed pelagic species. We provide the first population genetic evaluation of the …

Privacy-Preserving And Outsourced Multi-User K-Means Clustering, Bharath Samanthula, Fang-Yu Rao, Elisa Bertino, Xun Yi, Dangxi Liu

Cyber Center Publications

Many techniques for privacy-preserving data mining (PPDM) have been investigated over the past decade. Often, the entities involved in the data mining process are end-users or organizations with limited computing and storage resources. As a result, such entities may want to refrain from participating in the PPDM process. To overcome this issue and to take many other benefits of cloud computing, outsourcing PPDM tasks to the cloud environment has recently gained special attention. We consider the scenario where n entities outsource their databases (in encrypted format) to the cloud and ask the cloud to perform the clustering task on their …

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, December 14, 2014, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

Regional Chancellor's Award for Civic Leadership - Mary Anne Reilly; Outstanding Graduate - Angela Wilson; King O'Neal Scholar Award - Jesse Stuart Daw and Heather Lee

Structural Studies And Reactions Of Rhenium And Rhenium-Gold Metal Carbonyl Complexes, Yuen Onn Wong

Theses and Dissertations

The six-membered heavy atom heterocycles [Re2(CO)8(μ-H)(μ-SbPh2)]2, 2.1 and Pd[Re2(CO)8(μ-H)(μ-SbPh2)]2, 2.3, have been prepared by the palladium-catalyzed ring-opening cyclo-dimerization of the three-membered heterocycle Re2(CO)8(μ-H)(μ-SbPh2). The palladium atom that lies in the center of the heterocycle 2.3 was removed to yield 2.1. The palladium removal was found to be partially reversible leading to an unusual example of host-guest behavior. A related dipalladium complex Pd2Re4(μ-Ph)(CO)16(μ4-SbPh)(μ3-SbPh2)(μ-H)2, 2.2, was also formed in these reactions of palladium with Re2(CO)8(μ-H)(μ-SbPh2). Thermolysis of 2.1 at 85 °C yielded Re3(CO)12(μ-SbPh2)(μ-H)2, 2.4 (2.9% yield), Re3(CO)12(μ-SbPh2)2(μ-H), 2.5 (25.1% yield), and Re3(CO)13(μ-SbPh)(μ-H), 2.6 (14.6% yield). The electronic structure of 2.1 and 2.3 …

Impact Of Role Model Gender And Communality On College Women’S Math Performance And Interest In Stem, Elizabeth K. Lawner

Master's Theses

The current project examined the effect of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) role model gender and communality and communal goal endorsement on college women’s math performance and their interest in, perceived belonging in, and perceived communal goal affordance of STEM. The first study was conducted online and did not include math performance, while the second study was conducted in the laboratory and added a math assessment. It was hypothesized that exposure to a female role model would result in greater math performance and interest and perceiving belonging in STEM, exposure to a communal role model would result in increased …

Fall 2014 Commencement - The University Of Texas Of The Permian Basin, The University Of Texas Permian Basin

UTPB Commencement Programs

Fall 2014 Commencement - December 13, 2014

Commencement Program 2014 December, Gcsu Special Collections

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Synthesis And Characterization Of Polymer (Sulfonated Poly-Ether-Ether-Ketone) Based Nanocomposite (H-Boron Nitride) Membrane For Hydrogen Storage, Naresh Muthu, S. Rajashabala, R. Kannan

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The development of light weight and compact hydrogen storage materials is still prerequisite to fuel-cell technology to be fully competitive. The present experimental study reports the hydrogen storage capability of sulfonated poly-ether-ether-ketone (SPEEK)-hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) (SPEEK-h-BN) nanocomposite membranes. The nanocomposite membranes are prepared by considering various amount of h-BN (0, 1, 3 and 5 wt. %) by phase inversion technique. The degree of sulfonation of the PEEK (SPEEK) is found to be 65% by Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (¹H NMR) spectroscopy. Hydrogen adsorption studies have been carried out using a Seiverts-like hydrogenation setup. The membranes are characterized …