Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding Somali Women Refugee Students' Lives And Program Decisions At Two-Year Colleges: A Narrative Approach, Mary Fontes

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to explore Somali women refugee students' lives and to identify what factors influenced their program decisions at two-year colleges in the Midwest. Refugees have been admitted to the United States (U. S.) as early as 1948 under the Displaced Persons Act. Some states have experienced a greater influx of refugees than others. Employment and economic self-sufficiency are emphasized as quickly as possible after arrival in the United States. Some foreign-born individuals, who aren't prepared for employment, pursue education. Somali women refugees who pursue education may be doing so unprepared or counter to cultural norms …

The Effect Of Self-Explanation And Strategy Training On L2 Reading Comprehension Using An Intelligent Tutoring System, Hongxia Fu

Theses and Dissertations

While research suggests that secondary language (L2) learners at postsecondary institutions face academic reading challenges, and that reading strategy training can improve primary language (L1) learners' reading comprehension, it remains a challenge to find scalable ways to deliver such training to L2 learners. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) have been shown to be nearly as effective as human tutors while reaching potentially unlimited numbers of learners in a variety of subjects, including reading comprehension. However, few studies have explored the effectiveness of such systems for improving L2 learners' reading comprehension. Self-Explanation Reading Training (SERT) is an instructional model that combines self-explanation …

Satellite Derived Volumetric Soil Moisture In A Hec-Hms Model, Damon Grabow

Theses and Dissertations

This research is intended to enhance recent hydrologic research that focused on a rainfall-runoff model of the Devils Lake basin in central North Dakota. This research employs the spatial volumetric soil moisture data collected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) instrument. The AMSR-E data, collected from 2002-2011 from the NASA EOS Aqua satellite, was used in the Land Parameter Retrieval Model (LPRM) to estimate the surface soil moisture at a scale of 25-km. AMSR-E data is used in collaboration with the current rainfall-runoff model to better understand the influences …

Therapeutic Igy: Safe, Diverse, And Effective For Use Against Viral Targets, Nicole Noel Haese

Theses and Dissertations

Passive antibody treatments are used to target infectious disease, toxins, venoms, and cancer antigens. Recently, there has been an increased interest in the use of avian-derived antibody treatments such as IgY. IgY is the primary serum antibody isotype present in the avian system, and IgY treatments have already been demonstrated to be effective against a variety of bacterial and viral infectious agents. There are two forms of IgY expressed in anseriformes birds, a full length IgY that is functionally similar to mammalian IgG, and an alternatively spliced IgY, IgY(ÄFc), that is comparable to the mammalian F(ab')2 fragment. The difference in …

Multiple Baseline Study Of The Effects Of Left Visual Field Stimulation During Emotion Recognition Training Among Four Male Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Rachelle Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterized by social deficits in emotional comprehension. Research has demonstrated that for the neurotypical population, recognizing, and reacting to facial emotions improve when using the left visual field by employing the right brain hemisphere's configural processes. Behavioral, physiological, and neuroimaging findings suggest an opposite pattern within the autistic population - left hemisphere activation contributing to a right visual field preference for analyzing and assessing facial affect. The present study attempted to activate and strengthen the right hemispheric neural pathway responsible for emotion recognition using modified eyewear to contrive left visual field stimulation during an empirically …

Development Of A Prototype Movement Assistance System For Extravehicular Activity Gloves, Tyler Hill

Theses and Dissertations

Spacesuits utilized a rubberized layer of material to contain a pressurized atmosphere to facilitate respiration and maintain the physiologic functions of the astronaut residing within. However, the elasticity of the material makes it resistant to deformation increasing the amount of work required during movement. This becomes particularly fatiguing for the muscle groups controlling the motion of the hands and fingers. To mitigate this a robotic system was proposed and developed. The system built upon previous concepts and prototypes discovered through research efforts. It utilized electric motors to pull the index, ring, and middle fingers of the right hand closed, ideally …

Differentiated Instruction For Responsive Teaching In Elementary Education Student Teachers' Classrooms, Laurie Dillon Guy

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore what differentiated instruction looked like in three student teachers' classrooms. I sought to understand the challenges and successes these student teachers experienced with differentiation, the conditions they were able to control or not control, and how the relationship with the cooperating teacher impacted their capacities to practice differentiation as a method for responsive teaching. Methods included observation, interviews, and collecting student teaching artifacts. Data analyses were completed through Atlas ti, a computer program that supports qualitative research synthesis.

The theoretical framework underpinning this study was Tharp and Gallimore's neo-Vygotskian learning …

Accounting Internship, Christopher M. Fairchild

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Spacecraft Control During Close-Proximity Near-Earth Object Operations, Joshua Thomas Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

A control scheme is proposed for a satellite orbit controller around a small, irregularly shaped near-Earth object (NEO) combining classical control theory and orbital mechanics into a continuous hybrid control system that achieves and maintains a circular orbit in a perturbed environment. NEOs are asteroids and comets that approach Earth's orbit around the Sun. They are currently being studied for resource allocation and threat mitigation, while providing unique opportunities for control systems. The NEO environment consists of a weak and complex gravity field, as well as other perturbations such as solar radiation pressure (SRP) and third-body gravitational disturbances. This project …

Impact Of Cultural Identity On Mmpi-2 Profiles In Northern Plains American Indians, Colleen Kagan

Theses and Dissertations

American Indian populations experience high rates of psychological distress with 44.5% percent of Northern Plains American Indians reporting experiencing some depressive, anxiety, or substance use disorder over their lifetime. The MMPI-2 is a commonly used psychodiagnostic tool that has become widely used in the mental health treatment of different racial and ethnic groups. Research on the MMPI-2 with minority populations, and American Indian populations in particular, fails to account for the impact of level of acculturation. This study examined the impact of cultural identity on MMPI-2 profiles in Northern Plains American Indians and comparison Caucasian samples. Participants were administered a …

Tribology Of Novel Multifunctional Max Phase Composites, Ryan Roy Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The Mn+1AXn (MAX) phases (over 60+ phases) are thermodynamically stable nanolaminates displaying unusual, and sometimes unique, properties. MAX phases are also highly damage tolerant, thermal shock resistant, creep resistant, lubricious, readily machinable, may possess Vickers hardness values of 2-8 GPa, and are anomalously soft for transition metal carbides and nitrides. Because of these properties, there is a huge potential for MAX phase's to improve tribological properties when used in composites. Here for the first time Al, Sn, and Epoxy MAX phase composites will be explored to gain a better understanding of the tribological properties of the various composites.

A Remote Sensing Analysis Of The Effects Of Watershed Disturbance And Riparian Integrity On Stream Fish Communities In The Red River Of The North Basin, Nicholas Kludt

Theses and Dissertations

The relationships between fish species guilds, riparian cover, and vegetation disturbances in the surrounding landscape were examined across the 11 western tributaries of the Red River of the North. Archival stream sampling data, collected from 1993-2011 by North Dakota state agencies, were analyzed relative to temporally-appropriate land-cover predictors generated from National Land Cover Database and National Agricultural Imagery Program products.

The 0-30 m riparian cover width was the most influential landscape predictor influencing fish structure. The 0-30 m riparian cover displayed interactive effects with 30-50 m riparian cover width and watershed land-cover disturbance. These riparian scales were identified by a …

Automated Usability Testing Of Websites Using Link Structure, Christoffer Odegaard Korvald

Theses and Dissertations

Websites keeps getting more important in business and other aspects of society. Making the websites as usable as possible is crucial as difficult to use systems tend to frustrate users, which might lead to users leaving or lost revenue for a business. Usability testing is needed to identify and fix those issues. Manual tests in usability labs can be very time consuming and costly. An automated system could reduce time and cost of testing, but are often too focused on one aspect to give a clear view of what needs to be fixed. A system to improve this is needed. …

Depression, Negative Self-Disclosure, And The Response Of Others On Facebook, Daniel Barrett Landauer

Theses and Dissertations

Depression has a number of deleterious effects on the interpersonal functioning of adolescents and emerging adults. The interpersonal theory of depression posits that depression is developed and maintained by both the behaviors of the individual and the responses of others to the individual. Adolescents and emerging adults are spending a significant amount of time interacting on social networking sites, such as Facebook, yet few studies have looked at the interpersonal behavior of depressed youth in the context of the interpersonal theory of depression. This study examined the interpersonal behavior of 328 emerging adult college students on Facebook using questionnaires related …

Part I: An Approach To The Synthesis Of Plakortethers A-E Part Ii: Rhodium-Catalyzed Intramolecular C-H Insertion On Diazosulfonates And Its Synthetic Applications, Duminda Shiromalee Liyanage

Theses and Dissertations

This research work consists of two independent studies. The first study is the development of a synthetic route to plakortethers A-E along with possible derivatives. The second study focuses on the synthetic applications of rhodium-catalyzed intramolecular C-H insertion on diazosulfonates.

Plakortethers (A-G) represent a set of marine natural products, which contain of a characteristic tetrasubstituted tetrahydrofuran fragment. This group of compounds was isolated from the Caribbean sponge Plakortis simplex. Their selective cytotoxic activity against the RAW 264-7 cell lines (murine macrophage) makes them promising candidates for biological studies and, along with their unusual structure, warrants the synthesis of these natural …

An Experimental Investigation Of The Aerodynamic Losses For An Incident Tolerant Low Pressure Turbine Blade Over Moderate To Low Reynolds Numbers At Engine Representative Mach Numbers, Jonathan Long

Theses and Dissertations

In the interest of reducing airport congestion in the near future, researchers at NASA Glenn Research Facility have envisioned a new civilian transport aircraft which takes off vertically and cruises horizontally at Mach 0.5 using tilt-rotor technology. The engine under development consists of a four stage low pressure (LP) turbine. Many challenges are presented as the engine transitions from 100% shaft speed at takeoff to 54% shaft speed at cruise. The blading in this engine must be designed to optimize fuel efficiency, especially at cruise. The flow conditions in the LP turbine will change significantly from a Reynolds number of …

Dreaming Of Masculinity: The Middle English "Pearl" And The Masculine Space Of New Jerusalem, Kirby Lund

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the gendering of spaces, particularly the city of New Jerusalem in the fourteenth-century Middle English dream vision Pearl. Earlier scholars have gendered this space as feminine based on the appearance of the city landscape. Instead, I examine the city in terms of both form and function to argue that New Jerusalem is a masculine space. In doing so, I hope to recognize the patriarchal control in the poem to demonstrate the masculine construction of the space, not to reinscribe patriarchy as a construct. This analysis combines the spatial theories of Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey with performative …

Advanced Reactors And Novel Reactions For The Conversion Of Triglyceride Based Oils Into High Quality Renewable Transportation Fuels, Michael James Linnen

Theses and Dissertations

Sustainable energy continues to grow more important to all societies, leading to the research and development of a variety of alternative and renewable energy technologies. Of these, renewable liquid transportation fuels may be the most visible to consumers, and this visibility is further magnified by the long-term trend of increasingly expensive petroleum fuels that the public consumes. While first-generation biofuels such as biodiesel and fuel ethanol have been integrated into the existing fuel infrastructures of several countries, the chemical differences between them and their petroleum counterparts reduce their effectiveness. This gives rise to the development and commercialization of second generation …

An Investigation On Relationship Between Epistemological Beliefs And Instructional Practice Of Preservice And Inservice Teachers, Jacob Manu

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative research sought to investigate the relationship between epistemological beliefs and instructional practice of preservice and inservice teachers. Despite the vigorous emphasis and investment on the need for teachers to adopt teaching and learning practices that are more authentic, learner-centered, project-based, meaningful, and context-based, there is a growing trend where inservice teachers are trained in constructivist learning environment but end up adopting traditional learning pedagogies. Thus, teachers are constantly struggling to incorporate the tenets of constructivism into the teaching and learning process. With the use of the discipline-focused epistemological beliefs questionnaire and instructional practice scale, preservice and inservice teachers …

Preparing Administrators For Leadership In The Rural Context, Michael David Mcneff

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify advantages and disadvantages, such as scarcity of resources, of the rural principalship in North Dakota. The study and review of literature explored availability and lack of resources that impact North Dakota rural principals' leadership. The unique challenges of a rural principalship had an impact and influenced instructional leadership of rural principals. An era of accountability has forced a shift in the principal's role, duties, and expectations (Rice, 2010). This shift has been difficult on both rural and urban principals. This study included a sampling of six rural principals in North Dakota. The …

A "Keeping Place For Souls": Photo, Body, And Narrative Impulse In Cormac Mccarthy's Suttree, Melissa Anne Mondry

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines how the treatment of photographs in Cormac McCarthy's novel Suttree sheds light on its main character's narrative project, his motivation for writing and his approach to his subjects. It extends the work of critics who have identified the character of Suttree as a burgeoning writer in order to examine what this narrative subplot might indicate about the purpose of narrative in McCarthy's world. It also responds to previous readings of the novel's photo album scene, which have focused on photographs as reminders of death. I argue that Suttree's adverse reaction to photographs is more complicated than fear …

Potential Juror Credibility Evaluations Of Gay And Lesbian Witnesses, Lisa Mae Olson

Theses and Dissertations

This study looked at whether the sexual orientation of a witness has an effect on a potential juror's determination of the witness's credibility, and examined traits such as respondent gender and college major, that may predict high levels of sexual prejudice. The sample consisted of 379 undergraduate students at a medium sized, upper Midwestern university. Results did not reveal an overall link between witness credibility ratings and sexual orientation, with the gay male witness receiving the highest credibility rankings followed by the heterosexual male witness, heterosexual female witness, and lastly, the lesbian female witness. It does not appear that the …

Relational Aggression Among Caucasian And Northern Plains American Indian School Children, Stephanie Parisien

Theses and Dissertations

Relational aggression is a form of aggression that has received increasing attention within the psychological literature. Among the American Indian population, however, research on relational aggression is currently non-existent. To date, research is continuing to grow with regard to the base rates of relational aggression. The current study has examined both peer-nominated and self-report relational aggression among Caucasian and Northern Plains American Indian school children in order to explore cultural, gender, grade level, and age differences. Other forms of aggression and social status were also explored in order to understand how these constructs may play a role in peer relations. …

Biblical Hermeneutics, Kenneth J. Archer Dr.

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

Numerical Simulation Of “An American Haboob”, A. Vukovic, M. Vujadinovic, G. Pejanovic, J. Andric, M. J. Kumjian, V. Djurdjevic, M. Dacic, Anup K. Prasad, Hesham El-Askary, B. C. Paris, S. Petkovic, W. Sprigg, S. Nickovic

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

A dust storm of fearful proportions hit Phoenix in the early evening hours of 5 July 2011. This storm, an American haboob, was predicted hours in advance because numerical, land–atmosphere modeling, computing power and remote sensing of dust events have improved greatly over the past decade. High-resolution numerical models are required for accurate simulation of the small scales of the haboob process, with high velocity surface winds produced by strong convection and severe downbursts. Dust productive areas in this region consist mainly of agricultural fields, with soil surfaces disturbed by plowing and tracks of land in the high Sonoran Desert …

Is Big Data Enough? A Reflection On The Changing Role Of Mathematics In Applications, Domenico Napoletani, Marco Panza, Daniele C. Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The advent of computers, and especially high-performance computers, has had a dramatic impact on the way in which mathematics is done and even more on how mathematics is applied, as demonstrated by the growth of computational mathematics as well as what goes under the name of “experimental mathematics”, to which a journal is now devoted. More importantly, computers are now used to perform highly complex computations in order to apply mathematical models to a variety of empirical problems that could never be attacked otherwise.

On Clifford Analysis For Holomorphic Mappings, M. E. Luna-Elizarrarás, M. Shapiro, Daniele C. Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In the classical theory of several complex variables, holomorphic mappings are just n-tuples of holomorphic functions in m variables, with arbitrary n and m, and no relations between these functions are assumed. Some 30 years ago John Ryan introduced complex, or complexified, Clifford analysis which is, in a sense, the study of certain classes of holomorphic mappings where the components are not independent, and instead obey the relations generated by the Cauchy– Riemann and Dirac-type operators. In this paper, we take a closer look at this theory emphasizing some additional properties that holomorphic mappings satisfy in this context. Our attention …

Horizontal Divergence Of Typhoon-Generated Gravity Waves In The Upper Troposphere And Lower Stratosphere (Utls) And Its Influence On Typhoon Evolution, Seung Hee Kim, H.-Y. Chun, W. Jang

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The characteristics of horizontal divergence induced by typhoon-generated gravity waves (HDTGWs) and the influence of HDTGW on typhoon evolution are investigated based on the simulation results of Typhoon Saomai (2006) using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The power spectral density of HDTGW shows dominant powers at horizontal wavelengths of 20-30 km and at periods of less than 1 h. This is associated with gravity waves generated by vigorous convective clouds in an inner core region of the typhoon. However, the domain-averaged HDTGW in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere had a spectral peak at 24 h, which is …

Elvis: Exploring The Local Volume In Simulations, Shea Garrison-Kimmel, Michael Boylan-Kolchin, James S. Bullock, Kyle Lee

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We introduce a set of high-resolution dissipationless simulations that model the Local Group (LG) in a cosmological context: Exploring the Local Volume in Simulations (ELVIS). The suite contains 48 Galaxy-size haloes, each within high-resolution volumes that span 2-5 Mpc in size, and each resolving thousands of systems with masses below the atomic cooling limit. Half of the ELVIS galaxy haloes are in paired configurations similar to the Milky Way (MW) and M31; the other half are isolated, mass-matched analogues. We find no difference in the abundance or kinematics of substructure within the virial radii of isolated versus paired hosts. On …

Allosteric Regulation Of The Hsp90 Dynamics And Stability By Client Recruiter Cochaperones: Protein Structure Network Modeling, Kristin Blacklock, Gennady M. Verkhivker

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The fundamental role of the Hsp90 chaperone in supporting functional activity of diverse protein clients is anchored by specific cochaperones. A family of immune sensing client proteins is delivered to the Hsp90 system with the aid of cochaperones Sgt1 and Rar1 that act cooperatively with Hsp90 to form allosterically regulated dynamic complexes. In this work, functional dynamics and protein structure network modeling are combined to dissect molecular mechanisms of Hsp90 regulation by the client recruiter cochaperones. Dynamic signatures of the Hsp90-cochaperone complexes are manifested in differential modulation of the conformational mobility in the Hsp90 lid motif. Consistent with the experiments, …