Digital Commons Network^™

A Retro-Projected Robotic Head For Social Human-Robot Interaction, Frédéric C. Delaunay

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

As people respond strongly to faces and facial features, both consciously and subconsciously, faces are an essential aspect of social robots. Robotic faces and heads until recently belonged to one of the following categories: virtual, mechatronic or animatronic. As an original contribution to the field of human-robot interaction, I present the R-PAF technology (Retro-Projected Animated Faces): a novel robotic head displaying a real-time, computer-rendered face, retro-projected from within the head volume onto a mask, as well as its driving soft-ware designed with openness and portability to other hybrid robotic platforms in mind.The work constitutes the first implementation of a non-planar …

A Framework To Support Developers In The Integration And Application Of Linked And Open Data, Timm Heuss

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

In the last years, the number of freely available Linked and Open Data datasets has multiplied into tens of thousands. The numbers of applications taking advantage of it, however, have not. Thus, large portions of potentially valuable data remain unexploited and are inaccessible for lay users. Therefore the upfront investment in releasing data in the first place is hard to justify. The lack of applications needs to be addressed in order not to undermine efforts put into Linked and Open Data. In existing research, strong indicators can be found that the dearth of applications is due to a lack of …

Reciprocal Technologies: Enabling The Reciprocal Exchange Of Voice In Small-Scale Farming Communities Through The Transformation Of Information And Communications Technologies, Eugenio Tisselli

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This dissertation claims that the reciprocal exchange of voice—an element for constructing community and strengthening political recognition—may be fostered in small-scale farming communities by (1) the appropriation and transformation of information and communications technologies, (2) artistic intervention, and (3) cross-community research. This study contributes to participatory research methodologies, particularly those that seek to tackle the diverse challenges faced by small-scale farmers from a broad, complex perspective. The main issue identified in this dissertation is as follows: The hegemony of economic behaviors, which stands as a cornerstone of neoliberal capitalism, constitutes the latest stage of a historical process in which the …

Development Of Recognition Memory: Process Dissociation Of Recollection And Familiarity In Children, Laura Koenig

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

There is an extensive debate in the adult literature on whether recognition memory can better be explained by a single- or a dual-process account. Single-process accounts assume that a single memory strength signal underlies recognition. Dual-process accounts propose two independent processes, namely recollection (slow and associated with contextual details) and familiarity (fast and automatic). The aim of this dissertation was to advance this debate using a cognitive developmental approach. By investigating age-related changes of recognition memory across childhood as a function of theoretically motivated experimental manipulations, predictions drawn from single- and dual-process models of recognition memory were tested. We adapted …

Literal And Figurative Meanings Of Spanish Spatial Prepositions In Chinese Students’ Acquisition Of Spanish As A Third Language, Pablo Encinas Arquero

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis investigates the acquisition of the spatial and figurative meanings of five Spanish spatial particles, namely sobre, encima, debajo, bajo and en, by a group of Chinese university students of Spanish as a foreign language at intermediate and upper-intermediate language levels. More specifically, this study aims to answer two questions. The first question considers the order of acquisition of prepositional meanings, that is, whether this is similar to a native language, with literal and more primary meanings acquired first and figurative ones later or, conversely, whether the pattern of acquisition is different to that found in a first language …

That Dark Remembered Day - A Novel, And Critical Self-Reflection On Composition And The Editorial Process, Tom Vowler

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

My aim for That Dark Remembered Day was to create a work of fiction with a strong sense of the literary, one whose themes of violence, landscape and survivor guilt shone a light on the human condition, specifically the effects of post-war trauma on one family. The novel’s structure would be crucial in achieving its emotional heft, as each of the central characters is allocated at least one section, the reader experiencing events from disparate and increasingly illuminating perspectives. Fragmenting the book’s chronology (both throughout, but particularly in Part 3) by employing a technique of temporal blurring, helped to recreate …

Considerations For Effective Requirements Analysis In Offshore Software Development Projects: Lessons From Multi-Method Research, Vanita Yadav, Dhruv Nath, Monica Adya, Varadharajan Sridhar

Management Faculty Research and Publications

Offshore software development using geographically distributed teams is an accepted practice in software development today. However, software development companies have largely only offshored the software development lifecycle’s coding and testing phases. However, lately, offshoring the requirements analysis (RA) phase has become increasingly viable for several reasons including the software industry’s maturation and improved communication technologies. However, successfully evaluating this highly interactive phase between geographically dispersed client and provider teams requires special considerations. In this paper, we present practical insights garnered from conducting experiments and surveys of IS professionals from the Indian software industry and from extensively examining the literature. Our …

On The Medium-Term Simulation Of Sediment Transport And Morphological Evolution In Complex Coastal Areas, Benjamin Graham Williams

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

A program for selecting the optimal wave conditions for morphodynamically accelerated simulations of coastal evolution (‘OPTIWAVE’) has been constructed using a novel Genetic Algorithm approach. The optimization routine iteratively reduces the complexity of an incident wave climate by removing the events that contribute least to a target sediment transport pattern, and then ‘evolving’ a new set of weights for the remaining wave conditions such that the target sediment transport pattern (and magnitude) is optimally maintained. The efficacy of OPTIWAVE to satisfactorily reduce the incident wave climate is tested against three coastal modeling paradigms of increasing complexity: (a) A simple 1-D …

Evaluating Climatic Response To External Radiative Forcing During The Late Miocene To Early Pliocene: New Perspectives From Eastern Equatorial Pacific (Iodp U1338) And North Atlantic (Odp 982) Locations, Anna J. Drury, Cédric M. John, Amelia E. Shevenell

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Orbital‐scale climate variability during the latest Miocene‐early Pliocene is poorly understood due to a lack of high‐resolution records spanning 8.0–3.5 Ma, which resolve all orbital cycles. Assessing this variability improves understanding of how Earth's system sensitivity to insolation evolves and provides insight into the factors driving the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) and the Late Miocene Carbon Isotope Shift (LMCIS). New high‐resolution benthic foraminiferal Cibicidoides mundulus δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C records from equatorial Pacific International Ocean Drilling Program Site U1338 are correlated to North Atlantic Ocean Drilling Program Site 982 to obtain a global perspective. Four long‐term benthic …

Predicting Suitable Habitat Decline Of Midwestern United States Amphibians And Quantifying The Consequence Of Declines Using Pond-Breeding Salamanders, Brock Struecker

Master's Theses

With current declines of vertebrate taxa meeting or exceeding those of historic mass extinction events, there is a growing need to investigate the main drivers of declines. Amphibians are perhaps at greatest risk of global climate change and land-use changes than most other vertebrate classes and also have significant roles in ecosystem processes – combined, this creates a cause for concern. I designed a study that would investigate the effects of current and predicted climate change and land-use changes on amphibians using species distribution models and a field study to identify the potential consequences of amphibian species declines by investigating …

Role Of Pkc Delta In Uv Radiation Dna Damage Repair, Gargi Patil

Master's Theses

DNA damage caused by ultraviolet radiation (UV), such as cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD), is repaired by the nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway. When NER is defective, DNA damage is not repaired, leading to mutations and skin cancer. After DNA damage, the cell cycle is halted at various checkpoints to allow time for repair of the damage and maintain genomic integrity, however little is known about the coordination between NER DNA damage repair and cell cycle halting at checkpoints after DNA damage. Protein kinase C δ (PKCδ) plays major role in apoptosis and maintains the G2/M checkpoint in response to UV …

Lactobacillus Crispatus Produces A Bacteridical Molecule That Kills Uropathogenic E. Coli, Katherine Diebel

Master's Theses

As many as 1 in 2 women will have at least one urinary tract infection (UTI) in their lifetime. UTIs can cause complications in pregnancy and decrease quality of life, and their treatment and prevention are expensive. Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) is the primary cause of UTI. The probiotic and bactericidal capacities of gut and vaginal Lactobacillus isolates have been studied, but the same attention has not been paid to urinary strains. These urinary isolates of L. crispatus appear to have a greater killing capacity against UPEC and this bactericidal activity does not depend on the cells themselves, consistent with …

Common Core For Social Justice?: Arendtian Critical Thinking And The Common Core State Standards, Chandler Bain Meyer

Master's Theses

Through Hannah Arendt’s inspection of Adolf Eichmann, her studies of Kant’s political philosophy, and Life of the Mind she examines what it means to think critically and deconstructs the taken-for-granted action of thought. This paper is premised by the same guiding question as Arendt asks herself: Could thinking be a condition that makes people abstain from committing injustice or be conditioned against it? Arendt, clearly building on Kant, certainly thought it is probable; suggesting that Eichmann was not purely wicked or laced with stupidity, but the “macabre comedy” he landed a starring role in was a result of simple thoughtlessness. …

The Church And The Body, Kristina Russie

Master's Theses

An inquiry into the dominant messages surrounding bodies in mainstream protestant church discourse, "The Church and the Body" discusses where these messages come from, critically evaluates them, and considers alternative theological messages.

Results From The Survey Of Antibiotic Resistance (Soar) 2011-14 In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Ivory Coast, Republic Of Senegal And Kenya, A. Kacou-Ndouba, Gunturu Revathi, P. Mwathi, A. Seck, A. Diop, M. J. Kabedi-Bajani, W. Mwiti, M. J. Anguibi-Pokou, I. Morrissey, D. Torumkuney

Pathology, East Africa

Objectives: To assess antibiotic susceptibility of community-acquired respiratory tract isolates from Ivory Coast, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Senegal in 2011–14.

Methods: Bacterial isolates were collected and MICs determined using Etest^® for all antibiotics except erythromycin, for which testing was by disc diffusion. Susceptibility was assessed using CLSI, EUCAST and pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) breakpoints. For macrolide interpretation, CLSI breakpoints were adjusted for incubation in CO₂.

Results: Susceptibility to penicillin (using CLSI oral or EUCAST breakpoints) was low among isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae from the DRC and Kenya (17.4% and 19%, respectively) but higher among isolates from …

Summertime Sleep And Bmi In Urban Minority Girls: Relations To Physical Activity And Executive Functions, Carolyn Rose Bates

Master's Theses

Urban minority youth, particularly females, are at high risk for increased weight gain during the summertime months, and may also experience insufficient sleep at this time. Few studies have objectively measured summertime sleep in this population or related sleep to weight gain during this season. The current study draws on a sample of 66 urban minority girls aged 10-to-14 who participated in a community-based summer day camp program promoting physical activity (PA). The study objectively characterizes sleep in this sample, both in unstructured and structured contexts. Additionally, the study examines potential pathways underlying summertime relations between sleep and weight, including …

Investigating Effective Factors On Designing Of Educational Spaces With An Approach To Increase Learning Rate And To Improve Creativity Among Children, Leila Shojaei, Majid Shahbazi

Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The environment and space in which we are living affectour spirit and thought. Creativity is a potential ability within thehuman being. This ability is flourished in theproperand cherishing environment. An environment that is able to flourish a child’s potential abilities seems to be necessary, regarding the importance of the childhood ages and learning at that time. At thefirst stage, an environment designed to develop a child’s creativity should be able to fulfill his physical and mental needs. Securing tranquility and safety of children isthe firstrequirement of a proper environment for children. It will prepare the ground for children’s creativity. In …

The Legal Capacity Of Deaf Persons In The Decisions Of The Imperial Court Of Justice Between 1880 And 1900, Raluca Enescu, Anja Werner

SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)

The inclusion of deaf persons in a judicial setting raised questions about their ability to bear witness, be convicted, conclude a marriage, make a will and, of course, about the ability of the court to communicate with them. In their decisions, the judges of the Imperial Court of Justice in Leipzig shed light on their interpretation of the capacity of deaf persons to participate in the legal realm. The motivation of their judgments drew comparisons with different categories of citizens to compensate for incomplete laws. They also took into account developments in the education of deaf persons regarding their communication …

Taking Patents, Gregory Dolin, Irina D. Manta

All Faculty Scholarship

The America Invents Act (AIA) was widely hailed as a remedy to the excessive number of patents that the Patent & Trademark Office issued, and especially ones that would later turn out to be invalid. In its efforts to eradicate “patent trolls” and fend off other ills, however, the AIA introduced serious constitutional problems that this Article brings to the fore. We argue that the AIA’s new “second-look” mechanisms in the form of Inter Partes Review (IPR) and Covered Business Method Review (CBMR) have greatly altered the scope of vested patent rights by modifying the boundaries of existing patents. The …

Case Commentaries

Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law

No abstract provided.

China-Taiwan Relations: The Persistent Deadlock Amid Cycles Of Stability And Change, Jordan E. Shremshock

Senior Independent Study Theses

Why does the deadlock that has defined China-Taiwan relations for 65 years persist despite periods of extreme tension and change? I use the Model of Punctuated Equilibrium from evolutionary biology as a framework to answer this question. The PE Model is comprised of two parts, positive and negative feedback. A positive feedback mechanism, or punctuation, is a self-reinforcing process in which rapid change occurs as a result of attention-shift and mimicking. A negative feedback cycle, or equilibrium, is a self-correcting mechanism, which equalizes any outside force to create a stable output. According to this model, if China and Taiwan increase …

Beyond The Binary, Petr Wiese

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Evolving Standards Of Decency: The Intersection Of Death Penalty Theory And Supreme Court Jurisprudence, Rachel S. Sullivan

Senior Independent Study Theses

The American death penalty must be abolished in order to establish a more just system of punishment. This thesis examines the arguments of eight political theorists and their connections with five essential Supreme Court cases on capital punishment in order to determine the Court's theoretical view of the American death penalty. This theoretical view is that justices who affirm the constitutionality of capital punishment use philosophical theories, while justices who critique capital punishment rely upon context-dependent analyses. If the Court ever rules that capital punishment is unconstitutional in all circumstances, these latter theories will be dispositive.

A Comparative Analysis Of Photon And Electron Wave Functions In Spherically Symmetric Potentials, Michael Bush

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

"Hello My Name Is Inigo Montoya, You Killed My Father, Prepare To Die!" Messaging Effects On Support For Violent Non-State Actors, Alexandra D. Haines

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

When Do Black Lives Matter?: An Experimental Analysis Of White American Support For Black Social Movements, Latrice M. Burks

Senior Independent Study Theses

The BlackLivesMatter Movement has caught the media’s eye as it addresses racism in our criminal justice system. However, there seems to be a racial divide in support for this race-based movement, namely, black Americans tend to be supportive of the cause, and white Americans appear to be less so. Previous literature suggests that an emotional reaction to injustice, specifically moral shock, may trigger cross-racial support for race-based movements. In addition, racial attitudes can also be influential on cross-racial social movement support. This experimental analysis explores under what conditions white Americans will support a black social movement, one that does not …

The Groundwork For Food Criticism: How Normative Aesthetic Judgments Are Possible With Regards To Tastes, Jacob Caldwell

Senior Independent Study Theses

Issues of tastes and smells are often relegated to an ancillary or minor rank of importance in the domain of aesthetics, if recognized at all as legitimate objects of aesthetic inquiry and experience. This essay aims, firstly, to carve out a space of legitimacy for the aesthetics of tastes, and secondly, to clarify what aesthetic inquiry with regards to tastes must look like. In order for the above to be decisively established, the following positions will be argued for: (1) tastes are real, (2) our ordinary or scientific conception of what tastes are, upon which our reasons for doubting the …

Microaggressions, Trigger Warnings, And The Fight To Redefine Free Speech: An Analysis Of The Judiciary's Response To Campus Speech Codes Through Liberal And Communitarian Perspectives, Madeleine G. O'Neill

Senior Independent Study Theses

As campus speech codes enjoy a renaissance surrounding microaggressions and trigger warnings, understanding how and whether such speech codes can stand up to constitutional scrutiny is crucial. This project offers a historical overview of the evolution of free speech in U.S. history, with a particular focus on the jurisprudential history of hate speech and the “first wave” of litigation surrounding campus speech codes in the 1980s and ’90s. I use two theoretical frameworks, liberalism and communitarianism, to analyze the judiciary’s response to speech codes and to understand whether that response aligns with either framework. Lastly, I offer three proposals for …

Thoughts On Poetry, Alexandra B. Gustafson

Senior Independent Study Theses

The subject of this three-part project is poetry. More specifically, the project is a collection of thoughts about poetry, the language of poetry, and poetry-as-philosophy.

In its introductory section can be found a description of two competing accounts of language: referent theory, and meaning-is-use. While the latter seems a more complete picture on the whole, or so I assert, one must wonder: does it account for all the ways we use language? Specifically, can it account for the language of our main subject—poetry?

I assert not. In this vein, the second part of the project attempts to do what …

Factors That Influence Device Selection By Parents Of Pediatric Cochlear Implant Candidates, Zachary W. Moore

Senior Independent Study Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors/variables and the importance of those factors during cochlear implant (CI) device selection by parents of recent pediatric CI recipients in the United States. The researcher created an electronic survey and asked audiologists and hearing-related professionals at various hospitals and CI centers across the United States to distribute the survey link to the parents of any of their pediatric CI patients who received CI surgery within the past two years under the age of five years. The survey included both Likert-type and open-ended questions regarding the importance of various factors/variables to the …