Digital Commons Network^™

Easterner, Vol. 67, No. 9, November 20, 2015, Associated Students Of Eastern Washington University

Student Newspapers

This issue of the Easterner contains articles about dissatisfaction amongst faculty about proposed laboratory classrooms, Spokane County elections, a student production of Pocatello, National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, writing professor Rachel Toor, Thanksgiving plans for international students, cross-country team Sarah Reiter, the men's and women's basketball seasons, and the football season.

Is Stem For All? Perspectives Of Black And Latino Students On Stem Motivation, Adrienne Coleman

Publications & Research

This presentation takes an intricate look at the factors that motivate gifted and talented Black and Latino students to engage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics(STEM). According to the literature, the U.S. workforce could employ as many as 140,000 additional Black and Latino college graduates in STEM fields annually if the gap in college completion by Blacks and Latinos closed to roughly match that of the White and Asian student graduation rates. Thus, the goal of this presentation is to inform administrators, educators, and programs of a 5-step motivation-based program that encourages Black and Latino students to engage in STEM.

A Comparison Of Macroinfaunal Community Structure Between Artificial Concrete Boulder Reefs And Adjacent Natural Reefs In Broward County, Florida, Amber C. Metallo

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Relatively little is known about either the biological (i.e., predation) or physical (i.e., current, sedimentation) effects that artificial reefs may have on surrounding benthic infaunal communities. Following deployment of artificial reefs (concrete boulders) between the first and second reefs off Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on 30 October 2009, sediment cores were taken at 4 distances along three replicate 10-m transects on 13 and 26 September 2013, and 24 and 25 May 2014 at each of four artificial reef sites and four of their adjacent natural reef sites using SCUBA. Infauna (>0.5mm) were extracted from the sediment and identified to the …

Volatile Condensible Material Deposition In Leo Simulated Environment, Jinya Pu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Room Temperature Vulcanized (RTV) silicone and compounds are widely used in outer-space for bonding or potting spacecraft components. In geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO), the silicone may outgas species which can condense on optically sensitive surfaces and degrade their performance, therefore shortening the lifetime of spacecraft. In low-earth-orbit (LEO), the silicone rubber is subject to an energetic and corrosive environment. Atomic oxygen (AO) and ultraviolet radiation can cause abrasion and degradation of the silicone rubber, cause changes in existing condensed VCM films and affect the properties of VCM films condensing in this atmosphere. Experiments were performed to simulate GEO conditions. In …

Florida's Bright Futures Scholarship Program: The Effects Of Losing Merit-Based Financial Aid On Persistence, Robert Laws Liddell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

College completion agendas necessarily presume year-to-year student persistence. Institutional efforts to retain admitted students has emerged for a variety of reasons, some intrinsic and others extrinsic. Some of these reasons include (1) financial exigency as institutions strive to retain tuition-paying students or meet prescribed enrollment and retention criteria currently used in performance funding strategies; (2) reputation enhancement as institutions attempt to ascend annual publications such as the U.S. News & World Report which rely on retention rates as one of several indicators used to measure institutional quality; (3) gaining a perceived advantage in admissions, marketing, and fundraising as persistence rates …

Experiments With Pam And Lisa—A Blogging Exploration Of Mind, Body, And Soul, Lisa Marie Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to explore expressivist theory of writing. In the 21st century, rhetoricians and writers have taken different stances on the writing process and the pros and cons of free writing, journal writing, and blogging. With these looming theory wars, the author of this thesis wanted to show that there is a benefit to expressivist theory as part of the writing process. This thesis first examines where the author began a personal transformation and over the course of 8 months, she uses the internet to blog about spirituality, gratitude, and enlightenment. The benefit of the World …

Dogcat -- An Educational Word Game Via Computer, Muneam Jabbar Hamzah

Theses and Dissertations

DOGCAT is an educational game related to an Artificial Intelligence problem, the goal of implementing it is to help kids and young people to improve their abilities in vocabulary learning in an amusing way. In the version of DOGCAT I am proposing, several enhancements to the basic game are introduced. First, the user can choose whether he/she wants to play with three or four-letter words. (The four letter version is genuinely difficult to play, and so a computerized version would be of interest to adults as well as youngsters.) Also, the user has a choice to change the cost between …

Maximum Priority Matchings, Jonathan Turner

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Let G=(V,E) be an undirected graph with n vertices and m edges, in which each vertex u is assigned an integer priority in [1,n], with 1 being the ``highest'' priority. Let M be a matching of G. We define the priority score of M to be an n-ary integer in which the i-th most-significant digit is the number of vertices with priority i that are incident to an edge in M. We describe a variation of the augmenting path method (Edmonds' algorithm) that finds a matching with maximum priority score in O(mn) time.

North Korea: Gis Study Of The Slowed Migration Of North Korean Refugees, Brandi Hunnicutt

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Since 2009, human rights organizations have noted an almost fifty-percent decrease of North Korean refugees reaching freedom in South Korea, when for so many years there was a steady increase. This capstone paper evaluated the decline by taking two perspectives of research, one perspective being physical terrain changes or modifications prohibiting the flow of refugees and a second approach of examining the lifestyle demographics of the refugees who have successfully crossed the North Korean border. Geographic Information System (GIS) tools were utilized to determine that in both research approaches there is data indicating purposes for the decrease -- proving that …

Curriculum Minutes 11/20/2015, Curriculum Committee

Curriculum Committee Minutes

In these minutes: Approval of Courses; and EDP Review Committee Recommendation

Fort Hays State University Tiger Weekly, November 20, 2015, University Relations

Tiger Weekly Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Risk Of West Nile Virus On The Age 65 And Older Population Segments In Fort Collins, Colorado, Richard Cornell

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

West Nile virus (WNV) is an arbovirus whose more severe, neurologic symptoms may include seizures, paralysis, or coma. Despite a variety of possible symptoms, most people do not realize they are infected with the virus with a majority of those infected not developing any symptoms. Members of the population aged 65 and older naturally experience reduced immunity to viruses as they get older. Exposure to West Nile virus can occur around one’s home, in a park, natural area, alongside a source of water, or even walking along a trail. Areas exist around town that present risks of being infected or …

Using Gis To Assess Species Distributions In The Pacific Northwest, Leslie Perry

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

A species distribution application was developed using ArcGIS (Model Builder) and Python to support management decisions and species reviews for the BLM and Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest. The application integrates observation data for flora and fauna species from agency geodatabases and available data on various environmental factors, such as ownership, land uses, and forest types. Results of the application include species-specific geodatabases containing observation data and combined observation-environmental data with tables presenting distribution information based on the environmental factors. These results are intended to provide baseline information about species distribution patterns and can be used for a variety …

Semi-Supervised Pattern Recognition And Machine Learning For Eye-Tracking, Thomas B. Kinsman

Theses

The first step in monitoring an observer’s eye gaze is identifying and locating the image of their pupils in video recordings of their eyes. Current systems work under a range of conditions, but fail in bright sunlight and rapidly varying illumination. A computer vision system was developed to assist with the recognition of the pupil in every frame of a video, in spite of the presence of strong first-surface reflections off of the cornea. A modified Hough Circle detector was developed that incorporates knowledge that the pupil is darker than the surrounding iris of the eye, and is able to …

The Morozov Discrepancy Principle For The Elliptic Inverse Problem, Peter Caya

Theses

Inverse problems of parameter identification and source identification in partial differential equations are highly ill-posed problems and for their satisfactory theoretical and numerical treatment some sort of regularization is necessary. In this thesis, we pose this inverse problem as an optimization problem and perform the regularization in Tikhonov sense. The most crucial aspect of the study of the regularized optimization problem is a proper selection of the regularization parameter. Although the theory for one of the most efficient methods for choosing an optimal regularization parameter, the so-called Morozov discrepancy principle, is well-developed for linear inverse problems, its use for nonlinear …

Mechanical, Environmental And Economic Feasibility Analysis Of Sodium Carbonate Activated Blast Furnace Slag, Kathleen Ellis

Theses

Due to the large amount of cement that is used globally, the production of cement has a large impact on the environment. The area of Alkali Activated Materials (AAMs) has become a promising research avenue in the search for a low-carbon emission alternative to Portland cement based concrete. There has been a lot of research into using sodium hydroxide, sodium silicate and potassium hydroxide activation of industrial by-products like blast furnace slag and fly ash. However, environmental impact research in AAMs has shown large impacts from the activators used. This study examines initial setting time, compressive strength, environmental impact, and …

Ammonium Removal From High Strength Wastewater Using A Hybrid Ion Exchange Biological Process, Veronica Ester Aponte-Morales

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been shown to be an effective technique for energy recovery and stabilization of livestock wastes, municipal sludges and industrial wastewaters. However, further treatment is required to remove nitrogen from AD effluents to avoid detriments to surface and ground waters. The high free ammonia (FA) concentrations present in AD effluents can inhibit nitrification processes in conventional biological nitrogen removal (BNR) systems. The overall goal of this research was to develop a process for removal of nitrogen from AD swine waste (ADSW) effluent. The proposed solution was to incorporate particulate chabazite, which has a high cation exchange capacity, …

Multiple Scales Of Beach Morphodynamic Processes: Measurements And Modelling, Jun Cheng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multiple scales of beach morphodynamic processes ranging from those of wave-breaking induced turbulence, individual wave, storm, seasonal, to inter-annual are examined in this dissertation based on both laboratory and field data. These processes were simulated using process-based numerical models and data-driven models.

At a microscale, separating turbulence from orbital motion under breaking waves in the surf zone is essential to understanding wave-energy dissipation. Velocity data under monochromatic and random waves in the large-scale sediment transport facility (LSTF) were analyzed. Moving averaging provides a simple method for extracting turbulence from velocity measurements under random breaking waves collected at a reasonably high …

Risk And Resiliency Factors At School Entry: Relations To Academic And Behavioral Outcomes In Early Adolescence, Krystle Kuzia Preece

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how early academic and behavioral variables in kindergarten (i.e., academic performance, first time kindergarten status, early school-related emotional adaptation, prosocial behavior, externalizing behaviors, and internalizing behaviors) were related to academic and behavioral outcomes in eighth grade (i.e., academic performance, retention, suspension, externalizing behaviors, internalizing behaviors, and having an educational/mental health diagnosis). Archival data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) database that included approximately 5,700 participants from across the U.S., were examined to answer three research questions: (1) How are early academic and behavioral variables related to each other among youth …

Motionauth: Motion-Based Authentication For Wrist Worn Smart Devices, Junshuang Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Wrist worn smart devices are increasingly popular. As those devices collect sensitive personal information and often work as a companion component of smart phones, thus being treated trustworthy, appropriate user authentication mechanisms are necessary to prevent illegitimate access to those devices. However, the small form and function-based usage of wearable devices also pose a big challenge to authentication, which should be user friendly and unobtrusive. We propose MotionAuth, a behavioral biometric based authentication method, which collects user’s behavioral biometrics through a wrist worn smart device for building a user’s profile, and applies the profile in user validation. We implement MotionAuth …

Multidimensional Waveform Shaping In Multicarrier Systems, Ertugrul Guvenkaya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Constantly increasing demand for wireless communications in various applications has always led to new ways of modulating the radio frequency (RF) carrier signal by advancing waveform structure throughout generations. Although communication data rates are limited by the theoretical capacity, specific signaling designs for the signal that experiences natural and artificial effects in the transmission medium such as multipath fading channel, hardware impairments and multiuser environment promised better solutions in providing improved wireless access to various type of users and networks. Besides communication capacity, broadcasting nature of radio signals poses the information security as another main concern in wireless communications. In …

Developing Differentiated Reading Instruction Online For Gifted Third Graders: A Design Experiment, Beth E. Jordan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The high stakes on standardized testing in the United States of America’s education system pressures teachers to ensure every child meets minimum standards. Teachers report this pressure motivates them to focus the majority of their time on struggling students. Combined with lack of training and resources, intellectually gifted students may remain under-challenged in a regular elementary classroom. To address the problem, the researcher continued the development of an online instructional environment, which teachers may use to extend and enrich the regular language arts curriculum for intellectually gifted students. The researcher conducted a formative design experiment “to create a viable theory-driven …

Neurophysiological Activity Related To Speech Production: An Erp Investigation, Adithya Chandregowda

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The event related potential (ERP) technique is enjoying widespread application in neurophysiological research due to its fine temporal resolution. Of relevance to this study are ERPs related to voluntary movements. The precision with which movement related processes could be recorded using the ERP technique was demonstrated by Gilden, Vaughan and Costa (1966) and Kutas and Donchin (1974, 1977, and 1980) who found that the readiness potential (RP) immediately preceding hand movement was larger over the hemisphere contralateral to the responding hand. Given that left hemisphere controls right hand movements and vice versa, their findings confirmed that the lateralized readiness potential …

The Relationship Of Childhood Stress To Adult Health And Mortality Among Individuals From Two U.S. Documented Skeletal Collections, Late 19Th To Early 20Th Centuries, Rhonda Coolidge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although the association between social inequality and poor adult health is well established, the mechanisms by which inequality is translated into poor adult health are less clear. Increasingly, evidence suggests that many adult health problems and health disparities have their origins in early life; the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) hypothesis provides an explanatory mechanism linking adverse early life conditions with permanent structural or functional changes that increase the risk for disease. This hypothesis is consistent with bioarchaeological research noting reduced lifespan among individuals exhibiting signs of childhood stress.

The principal aim of this dissertation is to contribute …

Strategic Generation Bidding Using A Learning Algorithm Through Updates Of Supply Offer Selection Propensities, Sriram Raghavan, Jhi Young Joo

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper discusses a novel bidding strategy of a generation company (genco) in an hourly day-Ahead market. In the proposed method, a genco learns the returns of supply offers and adapts its strategy, accordingly, based on the Variant Roth-Erev (VRE) reinforcement learning algorithm. Every supply offer submitted to the market receives a profit at the end of each day and is strategically updated for the next day based on this profit. The novelty of our proposed method is that every supply offer has a propensity (an inclination or a tendency) to be selected associated with it. The propensity is updated …

Chimes: November 20, 2015, Calvin College

Chimes

Students react to Paris attacks by Marisa Heule

"Macabre" impresses with haunting displays of art by Anna Delph

Calvin tied with Hope in flu vaccine challenge by Amelia Sterenberg

Symposium hosts Calvin professor by Alicia De Jong

Financial seminar trains students by Juliana Ludema

Student bands draw crowd by Deanna Geelhood

3D printing produces Disney-inspired prosthetics by Kelsey Powers

Women's basketball opens season with pair of wins by Anna Gernant

How To Sustain Excellence: Reigniting Your Mojo, Dr. Laurel Kinard, Jaime Espinosa, Kelly Mcnabb

Georgia Association for Positive Behavior Support Conference

Sustainability is a widely recognized and researched component for continued positive outcomes of a school or district’s implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Many schools and districts find that around two years after initial implementation, sometimes even with past positive outcomes, implementation efforts can lose effectiveness and teams lose momentum. Data may show that schools are implementing with poor fidelity or focusing on only limited elements of the PBIS framework. Drawing on the body of published research, knowledge and tools, two large school districts in the metropolitan Atlanta area collaborated in their efforts to reignite the commitment and …

The Firece Green Fire: Vol. 6 Issue 11, Wofford College Environmental Studies Program

The Fierce Green Fire

No abstract provided.

College Senate Minutes November 19, 2015, Bronx Community College Senate

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the College Senate on November 19, 2015.

Punitive Compensation, Cortney E. Lollar

Tulsa Law Review

No abstract provided.