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Building Communicative Competence: An Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of An Intensive Japanese-Language Program, Yukiko Konishi

Doctoral Dissertations

Even though language-program evaluations provide educators with various types of information on teaching practices and the programs in which they work, insufficient literature discusses issues related to language-program evaluation. This mixed-methods study examined the effectiveness of a Japanese-language program offered at a government-sponsored Institute located in northern California on language-program evaluation and developing communicative competence at postsecondary schools.

Data comprised two sets of surveys, six individual interviews, and one group interview. Survey respondents were 35 former students of the institute and 12 Japanese instructors who are currently teaching Japanese or have taught Japanese at the Institute. Of the 35 students, …

Workplace Violence, Organizational Culture, And Registered Nurses' Incident Reporting Patterns In Acute Hospitals In California, Feodora Jacobsen

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of the reporting patterns of WPV Type II in acute hospital settings. Although some patients are abusive toward nurses, that the abuse is underreported to hospital administrators. Qualitative studies identified common themes for underreporting including fear of being blamed, abuse considered part of the job, and not having sufficient time to fill out a formal report. This study is the first quantitative study to explore the changes in mean scores of organizational-culture factors under two mutually exclusive conditions: registered nurses (RNs) who do not report hospital incidents and RNs who do …

Situational Awareness Enhancement For Connected And Automated Vehicle Systems, Amin Tahmasbi Sarvestani

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Recent developments in the area of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) have boosted the interest in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs). While ITS is intended to resolve and mitigate serious traffic issues such as passenger and pedestrian fatalities, accidents, and traffic congestion; these goals are only achievable by vehicles that are fully aware of their situation and surroundings in real-time. Therefore, connected and automated vehicle systems heavily rely on communication technologies to create a real-time map of their surrounding environment and extend their range of situational awareness. In this dissertation, we propose novel approaches to enhance situational awareness, its applications, and …

Sites Of Education: Race, Memory, And The Conflicting Discourses Of Learning In America, 1827-1914, Douglas Terry

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation is a cultural study that challenges the handling of race in the history of American education by exploring how educational discourse shapes race. It argues that education itself is a manifestation of race, inseparable from the iterative processes of racial formation. While we take it as a prevailing truism that race is learned, this dissertation shows how the educational system itself is central to this learning.;It explores race in the educational landscape in a similar way to how scholars explore tension between history and cultural memory. In this manner, the dissertation focuses on what it terms "sites of …

Brook Trout (Salvelinus Fontinalis) Preference Of Aquatic Versus Terrestrial Prey In Appalachian Headwater Streams, Erin E. Thayer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis aims to investigate the foraging behavior of Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), specially focusing on prey preference. Brook Trout are mainly restricted to head-water streams in Appalachia, which is a portion of their native range. These environments generally have low autochthonous materials. Therefore, resident aquatic organisms rely heavily on terrestrial inputs, i.e. leaf litter and terrestrial invertebrates (TI's), to subsidize individual energy requirements at critical times of the year. There is mixed evidence demonstrating stream dwelling trout show either a feeding preference towards aquatic invertebrates (AI's) or towards TI's. Chapter one is an in depth literature review of headwater …

Using The Instructional Beliefs Model To Examine Instructional Feedback In The Classroom, Melissa F. Tindage

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the role that instructional feedback plays in student engagement using Weber, Martin, and Myers's (2001) Instructional Beliefs Model (IBM). The proposed IBM for this dissertation included first-order constructs (i.e., instructional feedback, course workload, course difficulty, and students' feedback orientation), a second-order construct (i.e., feedback self-efficacy), and a third-order construct (i.e., student engagement). As hypothesized, instructional feedback (i.e., developmental, fairness) is positively associated with feedback self-efficacy, while course workload and course difficulty are negatively associated with feedback self- efficacy. However, only two dimensions of students' feedback orientation (i.e., utility, retention) were positively associated …

Empirical Analysis And Automated Classification Of Security Bug Reports, Jacob P. Tyo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

With the ever expanding amount of sensitive data being placed into computer systems, the need for effective cybersecurity is of utmost importance. However, there is a shortage of detailed empirical studies of security vulnerabilities from which cybersecurity metrics and best practices could be determined. This thesis has two main research goals: (1) to explore the distribution and characteristics of security vulnerabilities based on the information provided in bug tracking systems and (2) to develop data analytics approaches for automatic classification of bug reports as security or non-security related. This work is based on using three NASA datasets as case studies. …

Co-Creaturely Associates Or Peers? The Nature Of Animals As Portrayed In Isaiah, A. Rahel Wells

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Hydrogeochemical Characterization Of Rural Drinking Water In The Gauley River Basin, Monongahela National Forest, Arati A. Umarvadia

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the Appalachian Plateau region, the heterogeneous coal geology and fractured bedrock aquifers has led to complexity in understanding groundwater resources in West Virginia. Groundwater is a major resource in the Monongahela National Forest where private residences, public works, and national forest operations all rely heavily on this resource. In recent years, Marcellus shale gas has been explored in a small region of the Gauley River Basin, within the boundaries of the Monongahela National Forest. Hydrogeochemical evaluation of groundwater was carried out in this region with the objective of establishing a baseline of groundwater chemistry prior to potential Marcellus development. …

Ordinary Sailors: The French Navy, Vichy And The Second World War, Alexander John Upward

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

After the debacle of the Fall of France in 1940, the one organization that managed to maintain its discipline and functionality virtually intact was the French Navy. This is the story of how subsequently that navy was able to exert a disproportionate influence on the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain. Such influence achieved its apogee between February 1941 and April 1942 when the navy's Commander-in-Chief Admiral Darlan served simultaneously in several of the regime's highest offices. During this period France continued to flirt with the possibility of actively engaging Great Britain in war on the side of Nazi Germany. It …

A Feasibility Study For The Automated Monitoring And Control Of Mine Water Discharges, Christopher R. Vass

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The chemical treatment of mine-influenced waters is a longstanding environmental challenge for many coal operators, particularly in Central Appalachia. Mining conditions in this region present several unique obstacles to meeting NPDES effluent limits. Outlets that discharge effluent are often located in remote areas with challenging terrain where conditions do not facilitate the implementation of large-scale commercial treatment systems. Furthermore, maintenance of these systems is often laborious, expensive, and time consuming. Many large mining complexes discharge water from numerous outlets, while using environmental technicians to assess the water quality and treatment process multiple times per day. Unfortunately, this treatment method when …

First Semester Calculus Students' Concept Definitions And Concept Images Of The Tangent Line And How These Relate To Students' Understandings Of The Derivative, Brittany Vincent

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how students define and think about the tangent line in first semester calculus and investigate the influence of these ways of thinking on their understandings of the derivative. Students' conceptions of the tangent line were explored through four primary tasks: defining and constructing tangent lines, sketching the derivative, and graphically interpreting the formal symbolic definition of the derivative. The first two tasks were designed to access students' knowledge of tangent lines, and the second two tasks drew upon their ability to apply this knowledge and connect the tangent line to the derivative. …

Does Enhanced Nitrogen Input Affect The Structure And Composition Of Forest Vegetation? Results From Long-Term Experiments At The Fernow Experimental Forest, Christopher Alan Walter

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The effects of nitrogen (N) deposition have been studied in many ecosystems, and one general pattern of response that has emerged from these studies is a decline in species richness. Globally, anthropogenic deposition of N has more than doubled the ambient input of N in terrestrial ecosystems, and the rate at which humans produce reactive N continues to increase annually. As a result of both the current and projected future rates of N input, N deposition is a threat to biodiversity worldwide and is projected to contribute, along with other global change factors, to species extinction. To prevent the loss …

Investigations Into The Nature Of Magnetism In Transition-Metal-Phthalocyanines, Zhengjun Wang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this dissertation, the nature of magnetism in transition-metal-doped phthalocyanines (TMPc, TM = Co, Ni, Cu, V, and Mn, chemical formula: C 32H16N8TM) is investigated by measuring their magnetization (M) and ac susceptibilities in magnetic fields up to 90 kOe and covering the wide temperature range of 0.5 K to 300 K. These low temperatures and high magnetic field measurements combined with detailed analysis of the data have provided new information about the nature of magnetism of TMPc. The powder samples used here were structurally characterized using x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy.;TMPc are a class of organic semiconductors with …

Eye Tracking To Evaluate Proficiency Of Crime Scene Investigators With Varying Levels Of Expertise: The Ability To Recognize Evidence And Understand Its Significance, Renuka Devi Watalingam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Crime scene analysts are the core of criminal investigations; decisions made at the scene greatly affect the speed of analysis and quality of conclusions that directly impact the successful resolution of a case. If an examiner does not recognize the pertinence of an item on scene, it cannot be used to support his or her theory regarding the crime. Conversely, unselective evidence collection will include irrelevant material, thus increasing a forensic laboratory's backlog and sending the investigation into an unproductive and costly direction. Therefore, it is critical that analysts recognize and properly evaluate forensic evidence that can support or disprove …

Board Out Of Your Mind: Mapping Players' Mental Models Of Game Systems And Potentials For Systems-Thinking Instruction, Joe A. Wasserman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Despite evidence that game-based instruction is effective, and suggestive evidence that they are specifically effective for teaching systems thinking---the ability to think about complex systems---the mechanisms behind this learning are not well understood. One promising perspective on game-based learning is rooted in the development of mental models of game systems. Mental models are cognitive representations of the perceived entities and relationships between entities in a system. This study explores the entities and entity relationships in novice players' mental models of an analog game. Grounded, interpretive analysis of mental models externalized through cognitive mapping identified five categories of entities: formal game …

Utilization Risk Assessment And Thermal Conductivity Testing For The Low Temperature Geothermal Play Fairway Analysis For The Appalachian Basin, Kelydra Welcker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In order to alleviate the large carbon footprint of fossil fuel technology, renewable energy has begun to gain momentum with consumers and industries alike. Geothermal energy has the benefit of providing a reliable energy source with only 5% of the carbon dioxide emissions of fossil fuels, as well as provide a means of carbon sequestration. The application for this energy source is highly dependent on several factors, including reservoir characteristics, temperature, and regional demand. High temperature systems (>150 °C) are best suited for electricity production, while low and medium temperature reservoirs (<90 °C and 90-150 °C, respectively) may be better suited for direct use applications, such as manufacturing purposes or district heating and cooling for commercial and residential areas.;Enhanced, or engineered, geothermal systems (EGS) may provide a means to take advantage of geothermal reservoirs with lower available temperatures. To determine the efficacy of EGS technology in eastern United States, a play fairway analysis was performed on the Appalachian basin. Risk factors examined include thermal resource quality, natural reservoir quality, induced seismicity, and utilization opportunities, which is a focus of this work. Levelized cost of heat, or LCOH, was used to provide a comparison of factors, such as combination of capital costs, operation and maintenance costs, and performance and fuel costs. To determine LCOH, commercial, residential, and infrastructure data were collected from the US Census and fed into GEOPHIRES, a program that uses surface piping, heat exchange equipment (residential and/or commercial), operations, upfront capital cost, and maintenance costs over the lifetime of a 30-year project. The impact of industrial demand on LCOH, such as process heating and cooling and HVAC, for dairy, wood drying, and paper mills were also examined.;Heat flow estimates are equally important in the selection of potential geothermal sites. Estimation of the temperature-at-depth uses heat flow, which is dependent on factors including geothermal gradient and thermal conductivities. Thermal conductivity is a function of depth and position, and for some models is calculated as a weighted average based on thicknesses of lithographic layers. Obtaining actual thermal conductivities can be challenging, and often require the use of databases to predict the geographic variation. For this project, thermal conductivities from Marion County well #244 rock cuttings were found using a portable electronic divided bar (PEDB) system and were compared to COSUNA estimates to assess the current model method.

Nursing Knowledge Of Heart Failure, Beth Ann White

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Heart failure is a constellation of signs and symptoms reflecting a physiologic change in the hearts ability to keep up with demand. Heart failure is considered a global pandemic and is a complex disease that oftentimes is progressive. Heart failure is often associated with underlying coronary atherosclerosis, and its associated risks, including hypertension, diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome and dyslipidemia. To slow the progression and improve quality of life patients should be educated about the disease and in most health care settings nurses provide this education. However, nurses may lack sufficient knowledge of the processes that lead to heart failure. The …

Eye Detection And Face Recognition Across The Electromagnetic Spectrum, Cameron F. Whitelam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Biometrics, or the science of identifying individuals based on their physiological or behavioral traits, has increasingly been used to replace typical identifying markers such as passwords, PIN numbers, passports, etc. Different modalities, such as face, fingerprint, iris, gait, etc. can be used for this purpose. One of the most studied forms of biometrics is face recognition (FR). Due to a number of advantages over typical visible to visible FR, recent trends have been pushing the FR community to perform cross-spectral matching of visible images to face images from higher spectra in the electromagnetic spectrum.;In this work, the SWIR band of …

Biology, Ecology And Efficacy Of Lecanicillium Muscarium As A Potential Fungal Biocontrol Of The Invasive Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges Tsugae) On Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga Canadensis), Kristen L. Wickert

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) is an exotic insect pest of eastern hemlock. The entomopathogen Lecanicillium muscarium, including the commercially available strain MycotalRTM, is a potential candidate for fungal biocontrol. There are many factors to consider when using a fungal biocontrol such as ecology and genetic variation of candidate strains and interactions with other fungi and life stages of the target insect pest. Efforts of this study focused on: 1) sampling for reservoirs for L. muscarium and other Lecanicillium spp., 2) elucidating interactions between Lecanicillium and other fungi present in hemlock tissues and 3) characterizing genetic diversity of Lecanicillium and subsequent …

Multidimensional Coherent Spectroscopy Of Gaas Excitons And Quantum Microcavity Polaritons, Brian L. Wilmer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Light-matter interactions associated with excitons and exciton related complexes are explored in bulk GaAs and semiconductor microcavities using multidimensional coherent spectroscopy (MDCS). This approach provides rich spectra determining quantum excitation pathways, structural influences on the excitons, and coherence times.;Polarization, excitation density, and temperature-dependent MDCS is performed on excitons in strained bulk GaAs layers, probing the coherent response for differing amounts of strain. Biaxial tensile strain lifts the degeneracy of heavy-hole and light-hole valence states, leading to an observed splitting of the associated excitons at low temperature. Increasing the strain increases the magnitude of the heavy-/light- hole exciton peak splitting, induces …

On Designing Tattoo Registration And Matching Approaches In The Visible And Swir Bands, Xuan Xu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Face, iris and fingerprint based biometric systems are well explored areas of research. However, there are law enforcement and military applications where neither of the aforementioned modalities may be available to be exploited for human identification. In such applications, soft biometrics may be the only clue available that can be used for identification or verification purposes. Tattoo is an example of such a soft biometric trait. Unlike face-based biometric systems that used in both same-spectral and cross-spectral matching scenarios, tattoo-based human identification is still a not fully explored area of research. At this point in time there are no pre-processing, …

Study Of The Inorganic Substitution In A Functionalized Uio-66 Metal-Organic Framework, Alhassan Salman Yasin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have received considerable attention and fast development in the past few years. These materials have demonstrated a wide range of applications due to their porosity, tailorability of optical properties, and chemical selectivity.;This report catalogs common MOF designs based on application and diversity in various fields, as well as conduct an in-depth study of inorganic substitution in a functionalized MOF. This study investigates the band gap modulation in response to inorganic ion substitution within a thermally stable UiO-66 Metal-Organic Framework (MOF). A combination of density functional theory (DFT) predictions in conjunction with experimental predictions were used to map …

Using A Duration-Based Schedule Performance Index To Monitor The Performance Of Projects Including Estimating The Final Cost, Nooshin Yousefi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

One of the main concerns of project managers is monitoring the schedule performance of construction projects. A project manager needs tools to not only understand the status of project schedule performance, but also to find the causes of delays and the corresponding corrective actions. Hence, discovering time deviations from the project plan provides more reliable project schedule control. Applying statistical quality control charts on the project schedule performance index is suggested in this study. The use of quality control charts in this research monitors the process plan and provides first alarms for applying changes by detecting the time deviations over …

Effects Of Rumen-Protected Methionine, Choline And Betaine On Dairy Cattle Health And Performance, Yu Zang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Dairy cows experience extensive lipid mobilization in adipose tissue during the transition from gestation to lactation. A high amount of circulating non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) results in fatty liver that is associated with reduced milk production (Duffield et al., 2009), metabolic diseases (Hammon et al., 2006), and decreased reproductive performance (Walsh et al., 2007). The function of VLDL is to export TAG from liver. Previous work suggested that micronutrients supplemented may elevated VLDL export. Choline has been shown to increase milk production and milk fat yield (Erdman et al., 1991) and decrease triacylglycerol (TAG) in the liver (Pomfret et al., …

An Integrated Lateral Flow Device For Flow Control And Blood Separation, Veronica Betancur Calle

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Lateral flow devices (LFD) have been used and are promising in many applications, including point-of-care diagnosis in medical, clinical, food and environmental control and monitoring. In particular, disposable paper-based lateral flow strips utilize low-cost materials and do not require expensive fabrication instruments. Many examples of diagnostic tests have been developed using microfluidics paper analytical devices (muPADs), including tests for the detection of total glucose and protein in urine (colorimetric), detection of beta-galactosidase (fluorescence), and liver enzyme tests for monitoring the health of patients been treated with multiple medications for HIV and/or tuberculosis that can cause hepatotoxicity. However, there are constraints …

Dominant Controls On Organic-Rich Shale Deposition: Geochemical Evidences From The Marcellus Shale In The Appalachian Basin, Ruiqian Chen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation presents new results of the linkages between primary productivity, bottom water redox conditions and clastic input associated with the Acadian orogeny of the Marcellus Shale.;Chapter 1 compares the isotopic and geochemical characteristics of sediments of a liquids-prone well (WV-7) in Wetzel County with a gas-prone well (WV-6) in Monongalia County, northern West Virginia. The difference in organic carbon isotopes indicates that the dominant organic matter preserved in each core is different: delta13Corg values are lighter on average in WV-6 compared with WV-7. A possible explanation is that a larger fraction of terrestrial organic matter was preserved in the …

Designing A Valid And Reliable Instrument To Measure Teachers' Use And Perceptions Of Initiatives That Address The Low Socioeconomic Achievement Gap In West Virginia Title I Schools, Rosemary Beatrice Coyle Anderson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Initiatives that research tells us should be increasing achievement for poor children have not succeeded in reducing the achievement gap for the low socioeconomic subset in the United States and in West Virginia schools (Reardon, 2011; WVDE, 2009). This study developed a valid and reliable instrument to examine teachers' perceptions of the use of 16 research based initiatives that have been directed to improving the achievement gap of poor children. The research question was: What are the psychometric properties of a survey instrument that is designed to assess teachers' perceptions of the uses and effectiveness of reform initiatives that have …

Investigation Of Relationships Among Consumer Perceptions And Brand Preference In Photoshopped And Non-Photoshopped Fashion Advertisements, Kristina A. Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The use of digital alteration software on fashion models in advertising photographs has been used to promote an ideal standard of beauty for women. In an attempt to differentiate the thin ideal, fashion brand Aerie has vowed to not use digital alteration software to alter the physical characteristics of the models in their advertisements, while other companies such as Victoria's Secret continues to utilize digital alteration techniques on their advertisements. This research examined consumer brand preference using Photoshopped Victoria's Secret and non-Photoshopped Aerie fashion advertisements found from an online source. The purpose of this study was to examine college aged …

Effects Of Executive Functioning On False Memory In Children, Pamela Swift Tessier

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Misremembering is a common phenomenon in normal human development that has great potential to become problematic, especially in legal situations. The Deese/Roediger--McDermott (DRM; Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) model has been commonly used in the literature to uncover mechanisms for why these false memories may occur. Children have only recently begun to be investigated using this paradigm. Some related mechanisms in children for false recollection that have yet to be investigated are child executive functioning and socioeconomic status. In the current study, executive functioning was investigated as a potential mechanism for false recollections using a DRM paradigm. Children completed …