Digital Commons Network^™

The Almost-Invariant Halfspace Problem, Ben Wallis

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Let X be a complex, infinite-dimensional Banach space and T : X → X a continuous linear operator. A closed subspace Y of X such that Y and X/Y both have infinite dimension is called a halfspace. We say that Y is almost-invariant under T if there is a finite-rank linear operator F : X → X such that (T + F)Y ⊆ Y; in this case, the minimum possible rank of F is called the defect. If (T +K)Y ⊆ Y for some compact linear operator K : X → X then we say that Y is essentially-invariant under …

The Associations Among Relational Victimization, Social Support, Depression, And Academic Achievement In Early Adolescence, Sonia Nowakowska Cooper

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The current study examined the associations among peer victimization, psychological distress, social support, and academic achievement outcomes in a middle school sample. Specifically, the current study investigated how social support and depression influence the association between relational aggression and academic achievement. These findings aimed to address a significant gap in our understanding of how peer victimization interferes with students' academic achievement. Analyses were conducted utilizing a total sample of 471 middle school students that were part of an all-school evaluation that occurred in May, 2014. Results indicated that depression and social support mediated the association between relational victimization and academic …

Simulation Analysis Model For Magnetic Drug Delivery To The Targeted Tumor Using External Magnetic Field, Vishnu Priyanka Kadiriboina

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The difference between success and failure of chemotherapy depends on not only on the drug itself but also how it is delivered to its target. In current research Magnetic Drug Targeting (MDT) plays an important role in effective drug delivery. Super para-magnetic Nano-particles filled with drug are used as a delivery system for anti-cancer agents in loco regional tumor therapy called magnetic drug targeting. The cancer loco regional tumors are identified and super paramagnetic particles are applied intra arterially close to the tumor region and focused to the tumor by a strong external magnetic field. With the injection of the …

Teacher Perceptions Of Performance Evaluation And Teacher Self Efficacy In Illinois Public Elementary And Middle Schools, Amy Marks

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This quantitative dissertation explored the association between teacher self-efficacy and teacher perceptions of the Illinois teacher performance evaluation process. It also examined how the teacher evaluation system's procedures, the evaluative feedback received by the teacher, and the context of the evaluation process related to teacher self-efficacy in the areas of student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management. Teachers from two different Illinois suburban public elementary school districts were surveyed. One school district employed the Charlotte Danielson Model and the other a more traditional evaluation model. The study results showed teachers who reported using a high quality teacher evaluation process also …

Teacher Perceptions Of Usefulness Of Mobile Learning Devices In Rural Secondary Science Classrooms, Lisa Tighe

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The internet and easy accessibility to a wide range of digital content has created the necessity for teachers to embrace and integrate digitial media in their curriculums. Although there is a call for digital media integration in curriculum by current learning standards, rural schools continue to have access to fewer resources due to limited budgets, potentially preventing teachers from having access to the most current technology and science instructional materials. This dissertation identifies the perceptions rural secondary science teachers have on the usefulness of mobile learning devices in the science classroom. The successes and challenges in using mobile learning devices …

Examining K-8 Teachers' Perceptions Of Mandated Curriculum Change, Sarah Marie Cacciatore

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-method study was to examine elementary teacher perceptions of mandated curriculum change. In the spring and fall of 2015, Illinois elementary school teachers in a north suburban school district participated in a focus group, an online survey, and follow-up interviews to gather data about teachers' perceptions of the mandated curriculum change process in implementing the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics. The study also sought to find any differences between the perceptions of teachers in kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms and those who taught in sixth- through eighth-grade classrooms. This study was …

Examining The Effect Of Inquiry-Based Learning Vs. Traditional Lecture-Based Learning On Critical Thinking Skills And Students' Achievement In College Algebra, Elaina M. Khasawneh

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The main aim of this study is to examine the effect of teaching based on inquiry- based learning (IBL) versus traditional learning (TL) on critical thinking skills and math achievement score of undergraduate students enrolled in a college algebra class in a university classified as a Predominantly Black Institution (PBI). The study was a quasi experiment with pre-test and post-test. The sample was 41 students were chosen by a convenience sample. Quantitative analyses were used to determine the effect of the instructional pedagogy on overall critical thinking skills scores, the five critical thinking sub-scales (analysis, inference, evaluation, inductive and deductive …

Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Residential Flood Exposure In The Atlanta, Georgia Metropolitan Area, 1990-2010, Alex Page Ferguson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Financial losses due to flooding have increased substantially over the past several decades. Previous research implies that flood losses are rising due to changes in precipitation and increases in exposure. While prior research has explored changes in floodplain exposure at the county level, few efforts have examined patterns across an entire metropolitan area. This thesis examines changes in residential built-environment flood exposure within the current boundaries of the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan statistical area by estimating the number of housing units that are located within the floodplains of the region. Housing unit data at the block level from the 1990-2010 decennial …

Understanding Directed Self-Placement As It Relates To Student Persistence And Success, Tonya M. Troka

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Increasing college completion rates is important not only for institutions of higher learning, but also for the nation. Success in the first year and persistence to second year are vital to increasing these completion rates. One aspect of the first-year experience is placement into math, reading and writing courses. A majority of college freshman are placed using standardized placement exams that determine if they take pre-college or college-level courses. Directed self-placement (DSP) is an alternative placement method that is being utilized in lieu of standardized placement exams at a small selection of institutions within the U.S. A secondary analysis was …

Using Approximate Models In Robot Learning, Ali Lenjani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Trajectory following is one of the complicated control problems because its dynamics are nonlinear, stochastic and includes large number of parameters. The problem has major difficulties including large number of trials required for data collection, and huge volume of computations required to find a closed-loop controller for high dimensional and stochastic domains. For solving this type of problems, if we have an appropriate reward function and dynamics model, finding an optimal control policy is possible by using model-based reinforcement learning and optimal control algorithms. As defining an accurate dynamics is not possible for complicated problems, Pieter Abbeel and & Andrew …

Generating Linear Models For The Mos Transistors And Implementing Them In Obtaining Bode Surface Plots, Mounika Vanga

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The CMOS transistors which have dimensions in Nano scale are modelled such that in a circuit like an amplifier, the original MOSFET can be replaced with the modelled circuit which gives access to the internal nodes of the MOSFET. For generating the equivalent circuit, the model components are generated from the model parameters. The models generated are tested by comparing their response to that of the original MOSFET. These modelled devices are used in generating the 3D Bode surface plots. A new method is developed which generates the 3D Bode plot. This results in including the sigma axis, along with …

Grid-Connected Wind And Photovoltaic System, Sindhuja Devabakthuni

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to design a grid connected wind and photovoltaic system. A new model of converter control was designed which maintains the voltage of the bus to grid as constant when combined system of solar and wind is connected to AC bus. The model is designed to track maximum power at each point irrespective of changes in irradiance, temperature and wind speed which affects the power supplied to grid. Solar power from the sun is not constant as it is affected by changes in irradiances and temperature. Even the wind power is affected by wind speed. …

I'M Licensed. What Do I Do Now? : A Qualitative Study Of The Learning Journeys Of Newly Licensed Real Estate Agents, Kristine A. Brown

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative study explored the learning journeys of eight newly licensed real estate agents in Illinois. It examined how these agents viewed the real estate industry, how they learned the business, and how they developed their professional identities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted monthly with each participant for a six-month period during their first year in the business.

Kinematics And Dynamics Of A Robotic Manipulator In Maple, Rafi Syed

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Kinematics and dynamics of a manipulator are two important problems in modeling and automation. Kinematic modeling of a manipulator is defined as the transformation from a joint coordinate system to a Cartesian coordinate system (forward kinematics) and vice versa (inverse kinematics) independent of any force causing the motion, and dynamic modeling of a manipulator defines the relation between the force and motion. To be able to control a robotic arm as required by its operation, it is important to consider the kinematic and dynamic modeling in the design of the control algorithm and the simulation of the motion. There are …

Minimizing Total Number Of Tardy Jobs On A Single Batch Processing Machine By Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure With Path Relinking, Panteha Alipour

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Batch processing machines are commonly used in metal working, chemical processing, and electronics manufacturing -- to name a few. Scheduling these machines optimally is a hard task; the number of decision variables used in the mathematical formulations grow exponentially. Consequently, commercial solvers used to solve the formulations require prohibitively long run times. Schedulers struggle to make good decisions due to the complexity of the problem. This research considers the problem of scheduling a single batch-processing machine such that the total number of tardy jobs is minimized. The machine can simultaneously process several jobs as a batch as long as the …

Moving Beyond Personal Responsibility : A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Digital Citizenship Curricula, Kristen Mattison

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes how the concept of "digital citizenship" is conceptualized and furthered through three freely available curricula intended for use with high school students: NetSmartz, Digital Citizenship in Schools, and Common Sense Media. By employing a critical discourse analysis and examining the influence of sentence structure, collocational patterns, connotation, structural opposition, images and other tools used to craft and forward messages, I determined that the discoursed concept of "digital citizenship" aligns with traditional frameworks of citizenship education in schools, namely that of the personally responsible citizen. Much of the curricular documents are designed through a deficit perspective, making assumptions …

Assembly And Degradation Of A Trimeric Membrane Protein Acrb, Qian Chai

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Multidrug efflux pumps are membrane proteins that actively transport foreign objects out of cells. The active efflux of these pumps is a critical self-defense mechanism that enables the survival of bacteria under hostile environments. Efflux pump AcrB is a member of the Resistance-Nodulation-Division (RND) super family. In E. coli, it associates with periplasmic protein AcrA and outer membrane channel TolC to extrude a variety of noxious compounds out of cell from both the cytoplasm and the periplasm. My dissertation research focused on two aspects of this multidrug efflux pump: the oligomerization process during the biogenesis of AcrB and its …

Persisters And Completers In A Community College Academic Program, Mary Blumenberg Reaves

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the completion, persistence, and academic performance of a cohort of developmental education students at a local community college as defined by specific outcomes, demonstrated by existing student data, over a period of ten years. The study targeted first-time, full-time entering students identified with academic skill deficiencies in reading, writing, and mathematics as evidenced by the student's individual scores on placement tests. This longitudinal ex post facto study focused on first-time, full-time entering freshmen extraordinarily academically underprepared. The study measured and compared the students' completion of a degree or certificate, persistence, and academic …

Phenomenological Studies Of Minimal Extensions Of Standard Model, Nilanjana Kumar

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the Standard Model, making this era a great time to look for beyond Standard Model physics, which can explain the deficiencies in the Standard Model. The research described here is highly motivated by supersymmetry, which appears as an extension of the Standard Model. The phenomenological consequences of that are of great importance and have been reflected in this research. In the first project, the prospects for LHC discovery of a narrow resonance that decays to two …

Wiener Algebra For The Quaternions, Daniel Alpay, Fabrizio Colombo, David P. Kimsey, Irene Sabadini

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We define and study the counterpart of the Wiener algebra in the quaternionic setting, both for the discrete and continuous case. We prove a Wiener-Lévy type theorem and a factorization theorem. We give applications to Toeplitz and Wiener-Hopf operators.

The Spectral Theorem For Unitary Operators Based On The S-Spectrum, Daniel Alpay, Fabrizio Colombo, David P. Kimsey, Irene Sabadini

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The quaternionic spectral theorem has already been considered in the literature, see e.g. [22], [31], [32], however, except for the finite dimensional case in which the notion of spectrum is associated to an eigenvalue problem, see [21], it is not specified which notion of spectrum underlies the theorem.

In this paper we prove the quaternionic spectral theorem for unitary operators using the S-spectrum. In the case of quaternionic matrices, the S-spectrum coincides with the right-spectrum and so our result recovers the well known theorem for matrices. The notion of S-spectrum is relatively new, see [17], and has been used for …

No Return To Classical Reality, David Jennings, Matthew S. Leifer

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

At a fundamental level, the classical picture of the world is dead, and has been dead now for almost a century. Pinning down exactly which quantum phenomena are responsible for this has proved to be a tricky and controversial question, but a lot of progress has been made in the past few decades. We now have a range of precise statements showing that whatever the ultimate laws of Nature are, they cannot be classical. In this article, we review results on the fundamental phenomena of quantum theory that cannot be understood in classical terms. We proceed by rst granting quite …

Csce 411h: Data Modeling For Systems Development—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Hongfeng Yu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A new course CSCE411H has been developed in 2015-2016. The course tackles the learning of traditional and emerging data modeling techniques in big data related areas from the system and application perspectives. The students have mixed background in Business, Engineering, and Art and Science with different levels. These have introduced a unique set of challenges in the development of this new course. In this inquiry portfolio, I investigated if the adjustment of assignments can benefit the team work of the students with a variety of background. Through the data collection and analysis, the investigation showed that the new assignment design …

Math 433: Nonlinear Optimization—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Adam Larios

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My intention in this portfolio is to highlight various approaches to teaching higher-level mathematics with a programming component that I tried in a course on nonlinear optimization. There is a particular focus on students with little or no previous programming experience. Several case studies are done using "pre- and post-course" surveys which examined items such as student confidence in programming, and particular programming skills. Sample examples and sample homeworks are presented and discussed. Also presented are several materials I designed to lead students into programming and shed light on certain problems. These Materials assume some basic mathematical reasoning and knowledge, …

Edps 870: Introduction To Educational And Psychological Measurement—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Anthony D. Albano

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio was compiled at the completion of the Peer Review of Teaching Project, professional development available to faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The purpose of the project is to support faculty in evaluating and documenting the effectiveness of their teaching. The main objective of this portfolio is to summarize the results of my participation in the project during the 2015/2016 academic year. The portfolio summarizes key features of the course and my teaching methods, along with examples of student work.

On Birkhoff’S Quasigroup Axioms, J.D. Phillips

Journal Articles

Birkhoff defined a quasigroup as an algebra (Q, ·, \, /) that satisfies the following six identities: x ·(x\y) = y, (y/x)· x = y, x\(x · y) = y, (y · x)/x = y, x/(y\x) = y, and (x/y)\x = y . We investigate triples and tetrads of identities composed of these six, emphasizing those that axiomatize the variety of quasigroups. Key words: (left) quasigroup, (equational) quasigroup, division groupoid, cancellation groupoid 2000 MSC: 20N05

Triality And Universal Multiplication Groups Of Moufang Loops, J.D. Phillips

Journal Articles

We investigate the triality status of combinatorial and universal multiplication groups of various classes of Moufang loops. We also investigate whether some of these are, qua Doro, the largest and smallest groups with triality associated with a given Moufang loop.

The Structure Of Automorphic Loops, J.D. Phillips

Journal Articles

Automorphic loops are loops in which all inner mappings are automorphisms. This variety of loops includes, for instance, groups and commutative Moufang loops. We study uniquely 2-divisible automorphic loops, particularly automorphic loops of odd order, from the point of view of the associated Bruck loops (motivated by Glauberman’s work on uniquely 2-divisible Moufang loops) and the associated Lie rings (motivated by a construction of Wright). We prove that every automorphic loop Q of odd order is solvable, contains an element of order p for every prime p dividing |Q|, and |S| divides |Q| for every subloop S of Q. There …

A Global Reference For Caesarean Section Rates (C‐Model): A Multicountry Cross‐Sectional Study, J. P. Souza, A. P. Betran, A. Dumont, B De Mucio, Marleen Temmerman

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East Africa

Objective: To generate a global reference for caesarean section (CS) rates at health facilities. Design Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Health facilities from 43 countries. Population/Sample Thirty eight thousand three hundred and twenty-four women giving birth from 22 countries for model building and 10 045 875 women giving birth from 43 countries for model testing.

Methods: We hypothesised that mathematical models could determine the relationship between clinical-obstetric characteristics and CS. These models generated probabilities of CS that could be compared with the observed CS rates. We devised a three-step approach to generate the global benchmark of CS rates at health facilities: …

Assessing Women's Satisfaction With Family Planning Services In Mozambique, Leonardo Chavane, Martinho Dgedge, Patricia Bailey, Osvaldo Loquiha, Marc Aerts, Marleen Temmerman

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East Africa

Background: The contraceptive prevalence rate in Mozambique was estimated as 11.3% in the last Demographic and Health Survey. The impact of family planning (FP) on women’s health and on the reduction of maternal mortality is well known.

Methods: Acknowledging the importance of user satisfaction in the utilisation of health services, exit interviews were used to assess women’s satisfaction with FP services in Mozambique. The survey, conducted in 174 health facilities, was representative at the national level, covered all provinces, and both urban and rural areas.

Results: Overall, 86% of respondents were satisfied with FP services, but issues such as insufficient …