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2016

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Missed Opportunities And Connections In Teacher Learning, Deborah Melchers Ferris Jan 2016

Missed Opportunities And Connections In Teacher Learning, Deborah Melchers Ferris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The current qualitative study focused on understanding the process of learning to teach. Using interviews of teacher educators, the study explored the importance of a set of teaching activities developed as part of the Teacher Self Efficacy Survey (Tschannen- Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) as well as the inclusion of instructional and assessment strategies for the teaching activities and the quality of beginning teacher performance of the activities. Data were collected from interviews of 15 teacher educators. A process of open, axial, and substantive coding was applied to the data to inductively identify and categorize data relevant to the purpose …

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Mozart’S Die Zauberflöte: A Kingdom Of Notes And Numbers, Daemon Garafallo Jan 2016

Mozart’S Die Zauberflöte: A Kingdom Of Notes And Numbers, Daemon Garafallo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed Die Zauberflöte in the last year of his life. It was intended in part to glorify Freemasonry as a new Emperor, more hostile to the Masons, took his office. After a brief survey of his life and works, this paper shows how Mozart used number symbolism in the opera, and will equip the reader with an understanding of this as practiced by the Freemasons. Further, it will show how Mozart associated the characters of the opera with specific musical tones. It will expose a deeper understanding of the question of meaning in word and text in …

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Music Publicity: Independent Public Relations In The Digital Age, Stephanie A. Maksimow Jan 2016

Music Publicity: Independent Public Relations In The Digital Age, Stephanie A. Maksimow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The music industry has undoubtedly seen accelerated change over the past decade. Standard practices in the industry have been turned upside down, leaving record label executives, managers, and other personnel behind the scenes working to develop new and innovative ways to cope with this change. Music publicists are not immune to these changes and have seen a tremendous shift in their roles and responsibilities. With the advent of the digital age, the role of music publicity is getting stronger and is arguably one of the most vital components of a successful music career. The demand and necessity for a well-executed …

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Multiple Measures As A Placement Instrument In Mathematics At Florida State Colleges, Martínez Iii Miguel A Montañez Jan 2016

Multiple Measures As A Placement Instrument In Mathematics At Florida State Colleges, Martínez Iii Miguel A Montañez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Every year, thousands of Florida public high school graduates seek to enter Florida state colleges based on a single standardized placement test. This quantitative study sought to identify an actuarial model, based on multiple measures, as an alternative to standardized placement tests. The study, grounded on degree completion theories, examined high school students from the Miami-Dade metropolitan area and their performance in one first-year mathematics course in Miami Dade College during the Fall 2014 academic term. The study, using a sample size of 10,186 subjects, examined multiple predictor variables and one outcome variable to measure predictability of success in Intermediate …

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Professional Public Administration: A Synthesis Of An Inchoate Concept, Joseph Christian Heilman Jan 2016

Professional Public Administration: A Synthesis Of An Inchoate Concept, Joseph Christian Heilman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The term profession is found throughout the scholarly literature; despite frequent use of the term, there exists little or no means of providing a common conception of the term. Consequently, calls for increasing professionalization of public administration appear to be premature. Therefore, this dissertation utilizes inductive research to generate theory, which synthesizes the inchoate concept of the professional public administrator. The motivation to pursue this line of inquiry stems from a personal need to weigh in on the perennial debate about what skills, knowledge, and information should be communicated to future generations of public administration thinkers and practitioners. To that …

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Quantum Circuits For Cryptanalysis, Brittanney Jaclyn Amento Jan 2016

Quantum Circuits For Cryptanalysis, Brittanney Jaclyn Amento

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Finite elds of the form F2m play an important role in coding theory and cryptography. We show that the choice of how to represent the elements of these elds can have a signi cant impact on the resource requirements for quantum arithmetic. In particular, we show how the Gaussian normal basis representations and \ghost-bit basis" representations can be used to implement inverters with a quantum circuit of depth O(mlog(m)). To the best of our knowledge, this is the rst construction with subquadratic depth reported in the literature. Our quantum circuit for the computation of multiplicative inverses is based on the …

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Reliable Vehicle-To-Vehicle Weighted Localization In Vehicular Networks, Lina Altoaimy Jan 2016

Reliable Vehicle-To-Vehicle Weighted Localization In Vehicular Networks, Lina Altoaimy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) supports wireless communication among vehicles using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and between vehicles and infrastructure using vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. This communication can be utilized to allow the distribution of safety and non-safety messages in the network. VANET supports a wide range of applications which rely on the messages exchanged within the network. Such applications will enhance the drivers' consciousness and improve their driving experience. However, the efficiency of these applications depends on the availability of vehicles real-time location information. A number of methods have been proposed to fulfill this requirement. However, designing a V2V-based localization method …

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Sparse Coding And Compressed Sensing: Locally Competitive Algorithms And Random Projections, William E. Hahn Jan 2016

Sparse Coding And Compressed Sensing: Locally Competitive Algorithms And Random Projections, William E. Hahn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

For an 8-bit grayscale image patch of size n x n, the number of distinguishable signals is 256(n2). Natural images (e.g.,photographs of a natural scene) comprise a very small subset of these possible signals. Traditional image and video processing relies on band-limited or low-pass signal models. In contrast, we will explore the observation that most signals of interest are sparse, i.e. in a particular basis most of the expansion coefficients will be zero. Recent developments in sparse modeling and L1 optimization have allowed for extraordinary applications such as the single pixel camera, as well as computer vision systems that can …

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Sparse Modeling Applied To Patient Identification For Safety In Medical Physics Applications, Stephanie Lewkowitz Jan 2016

Sparse Modeling Applied To Patient Identification For Safety In Medical Physics Applications, Stephanie Lewkowitz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Every scheduled treatment at a radiation therapy clinic involves a series of safety protocol to ensure the utmost patient care. Despite safety protocol, on a rare occasion an entirely preventable medical event, an accident, may occur. Delivering a treatment plan to the wrong patient is preventable, yet still is a clinically documented error. This research describes a computational method to identify patients with a novel machine learning technique to combat misadministration.The patient identification program stores face and fingerprint data for each patient. New, unlabeled data from those patients are categorized according to the library. The categorization of data by this …

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Teacher Education Students At Miami Dade College: Perceptions Of High Impact Practices, Joaquín G. Martínez Jan 2016

Teacher Education Students At Miami Dade College: Perceptions Of High Impact Practices, Joaquín G. Martínez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Miami Dade College (MDC) is predominantly an associate degree granting institution also authorized to confer baccalaureates. As “democracy’s college”, MDC is the nation’s largest, most diverse community college. In 2011, a comprehensive redesign effort was launched to increase degree completion. This sequential mixed model design study queried teacher education student voices to explore their perceived impact of three high-impact practices (i.e., mandatory orientations, assigned advisors, and Individualized Educational Plans). A survey (n=218) was administered during an initial quantitative phase, confirming that a) students perceived the interventions as the institution intended and b) ethnicity influenced perception. Focus groups (n=27) were conducted …

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Study Of Cell Penetrating Peptide Uptake And Cancer Cell Discrimination With Raman Spectroscopy And Microscopy, Patrick Jason Cosme Jan 2016

Study Of Cell Penetrating Peptide Uptake And Cancer Cell Discrimination With Raman Spectroscopy And Microscopy, Patrick Jason Cosme

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) are short sequences of amino acids that excel in crossing the cellular membrane without inducing cytotoxicity Interest in these peptides stem from their ability to be attached, and grant their penetrating properties to, a variety of cargo In this work we have combined the application of Confocal Raman Microscopy (CRM) and Atomic Force Microscopy for the first time to examine the interactions of unlabeled Transportan (TP), one of the most well studied CPPs, with mammalian cells CRM’s capability to discriminate control and treated cell groups was verified by principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis …

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Stability Analysis Of Geosynthetic Reinforced Msw Landfill Slopes Considering Effects Of Biodegradation And Extreme Wind Loading, Sharmila Pant Jan 2016

Stability Analysis Of Geosynthetic Reinforced Msw Landfill Slopes Considering Effects Of Biodegradation And Extreme Wind Loading, Sharmila Pant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

A numerical investigation was conducted to evaluate the geotechnical safety and slope stability of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) landfills, considering the effects of geosynthetic reinforcements, biodegradation of the waste, and associated changes in material properties, and extreme wind force simulating hurricane conditions. Three different landfill slopes, 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3 having the height of 122m and width of 2134m, were analyzed using Limit Equilibrium Method (SLOPE/W) and Finite Element Modeling (ANSYS). Techniques developed in this study were used to analyze a case history involving a geogrid reinforced mixed landfill expansion located in Austria. It was found that few years after …

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Techniques In Lattice Basis Reduction, Bal K. Khadka Jan 2016

Techniques In Lattice Basis Reduction, Bal K. Khadka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The mathematical theory of nding a basis of shortest possible vectors in a given lattice L is known as reduction theory and goes back to the work of Lagrange, Gauss, Hermite, Korkin, Zolotarev, and Minkowski. Modern reduction theory is voluminous and includes the work of A. Lenstra, H. Lenstra and L. Lovasz who created the well known LLL algorithm, and many other researchers such as L. Babai and C. P. Schnorr who created signi cant new variants of basis reduction algorithms. The shortest vector (SVP) and closest vector (CVP) problems, presently considered intractable, are algorithmic tasks that lie at the …

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Synaptic Rearrangements And The Role Of Netrin-Frazzled Signaling In Shaping The Drosophila Giant Fiber Circuit, Brandon N. Lloyd Jan 2016

Synaptic Rearrangements And The Role Of Netrin-Frazzled Signaling In Shaping The Drosophila Giant Fiber Circuit, Brandon N. Lloyd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

In the developing CNS, presynaptic neurons often have exuberant overgrowth and form excess (and overlapping) postsynaptic connections. Importantly, these excess connections are refined during circuit maturation so that only the appropriate connections remain. This synaptic rearrangement phenomenon has been studied extensively in vertebrates but many of those models involve complex neuronal circuits with multiple presynaptic inputs and postsynaptic outputs. Using a simple escape circuit in Drosophila melanogaster (the giant fiber circuit), we developed tools that enabled us to study the molecular development of this circuit; which consists of a bilaterally symmetrical pair of presynaptic interneurons and postsynaptic motorneurons. In the …

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Text Mining And Topic Modeling For Social And Medical Decision Support, Jose Luis Hurtado Jan 2016

Text Mining And Topic Modeling For Social And Medical Decision Support, Jose Luis Hurtado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Effective decision support plays vital roles in people's daily life, as well as for professional practitioners such as health care providers. Without correct information and timely derived knowledge, a decision is often suboptimal and may result in signi cant nancial loss or compromises of the performance. In this dissertation, we study text mining and topic modeling and propose to use text mining methods, in combination with topic models, to discover knowledge from texts popularly available from a wide variety of sources, such as research publications, news, medical diagnose notes, and further employ discovered knowledge to assist social and medical decision …

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The Impact Of Shifting Funding Levels On The Institutional Effectiveness Of Historically Black Colleges And Universities, Anelle Shanna Jayd Alfred Jan 2016

The Impact Of Shifting Funding Levels On The Institutional Effectiveness Of Historically Black Colleges And Universities, Anelle Shanna Jayd Alfred

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

While there exists extensive research on the historical development of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States, there is limited research focused on the current development of HBCUs in terms of institutional effectiveness and strategic planning. This gap in the research is particularly relevant in the midst of shifts in state funding that have occurred over the past decade. This research study is designed to move further towards filling this research gap by determinations through the examination of: (1) the interplay of fiscal issues and institutional effectiveness in relation to the historic mission, strategic efforts, and state …

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The Impact Of “Real World” Experiences Through Academic Service Learning On Students’ Success Rate, Attitudes, And Motivation In Intermediate Algebra At A Public University, Mario J. Toussaint Jan 2016

The Impact Of “Real World” Experiences Through Academic Service Learning On Students’ Success Rate, Attitudes, And Motivation In Intermediate Algebra At A Public University, Mario J. Toussaint

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

A report issued in 2012 by the United States Government Accountability Office (US Government Accountability Office, 2012) concluded that the United States is not producing enough graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to meet the demands of its economy. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (2001), fewer than fifty percent of students nationally possess a solid command of mathematical content. This study tested whether the insertion of Academic Service Learning (ASL) into intermediate algebra courses improved students’ performance, their motivation to learn the subject, and attitudes towards mathematics learning. ASL is an educational strategy that integrates …

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The Impact Of Ready To Learn, A School Counselor-Led Intervention On Pro-Social Skills And Reading Skills Of First Grade Students, Laura J. Cohen Jan 2016

The Impact Of Ready To Learn, A School Counselor-Led Intervention On Pro-Social Skills And Reading Skills Of First Grade Students, Laura J. Cohen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in pro-social behaviors and reading skills between a treatment group of first grade students who received the Ready to Learn (Brigman, Lane, & Lane, 2008) intervention, delivered by a certified professional school counselor, and a comparison group of first grade students who did not receive this intervention. Counselors in the treatment group were trained in the proper implementation of the manualized Ready to Learn program during a professional development session. They were also trained in other study-related procedures, such as the online check-in tool and the regular site visits by the …

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The Relationship Between The Self-Efficacy Of Monolingual And Bilingual Undergraduate College Students And Their Academic Achievement In Science And Math., Rina Pomerantz Jan 2016

The Relationship Between The Self-Efficacy Of Monolingual And Bilingual Undergraduate College Students And Their Academic Achievement In Science And Math., Rina Pomerantz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Almost twenty-one percent of the United States population spoke a language other than English in 2011. Furthermore, there has been a dramatic increase in the enrollment of students of Hispanic and other ethnic backgrounds in U.S. post-secondary institutions between 1976 and 2013 (from 4% to 16%) (National Center for Education Statistics NCES, 2016). Until now, no systematic research has focused on the differential effects of selfefficacy on academic achievement in monolingual and bilingual undergraduate college students. The present study aimed to investigate this relationship, as well as contribute additional insight on whether the academic self-efficacy of monolingual and bilingual undergraduate …

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Wind Feedforward Control Of A Usv, Huajin Qu Jan 2016

Wind Feedforward Control Of A Usv, Huajin Qu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

In this research, a wind feedforward (FF) controller has been developed to augment closed loop feedback controllers for the position and heading station keeping control of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs). The performance of the controllers was experimentally tested using a 16 foot USV in an outdoor marine environment. The FF controller was combined with three nonlinear feedback controllers, a Proportional–Derivative (PD) controller, a Backstepping (BS) controller, and a Sliding mode (SM) controller, to improve the station-keeping performance of the USV. To address the problem of wind model uncertainties, adaptive wind feedforward (AFF) control schemes are also applied to the FF …

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Data Fusion Of Lidar And Aerial Imagery To Map The Campus Of Florida Atlantic University, Nicole Gamboa Jan 2016

Data Fusion Of Lidar And Aerial Imagery To Map The Campus Of Florida Atlantic University, Nicole Gamboa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Reliable geographic intelligence is essential for urban areas; land-cover classification creates the data for urban spatial decision making. This research tested a methodology to create a land-cover map for the main campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. The accuracy of nine separate land-cover classification results were tested; the one with the highest accuracy was chosen for the final map. Object-based image segmentation was applied to fused and LiDAR point cloud (elevation and intensity) data and aerial imagery. These were classified by Random Forest, k-Nearest Neighbor and Support Vector Machines classifiers. Shadow features were reclassified hierarchically in order …

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Context-Based Image Concept Detection And Annotation, Esfandiar Zolghadr Jan 2016

Context-Based Image Concept Detection And Annotation, Esfandiar Zolghadr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Scene understanding attempts to produce a textual description of visible and latent concepts in an image to describe the real meaning of the scene. Concepts are either objects, events or relations depicted in an image. To recognize concepts, the decision of object detection algorithm must be further enhanced from visual similarity to semantical compatibility. Semantically relevant concepts convey the most consistent meaning of the scene. Object detectors analyze visual properties (e.g., pixel intensities, texture, color gradient) of sub-regions of an image to identify objects. The initially assigned objects names must be further examined to ensure they are compatible with each …

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Design Of An Aquatic Quadcopter With Optical Wireless Communications, Patterson Haller Jan 2016

Design Of An Aquatic Quadcopter With Optical Wireless Communications, Patterson Haller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

With a focus on dynamics and control, an aquatic quadcopter with optical wireless communications is modeled, designed, constructed, and tested. Optical transmitter and receiver circuitry is designed and discussed. By utilization of the small angle assumption, the nonlinear dynamics of quadcopter movement are linearized around an equilibrium state of zero motion. The set of equations are then tentatively employed beyond limit of the small angle assumption, as this work represents an initial explorative study. Specific constraints are enforced on the thrust output of all four rotors to reduce the multiple-input multiple-output quadcopter dynamics to a set of single-input single-output systems. …

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Development Of A Flapping Actuator Based On Oscillating Electromagnetic Fields, Donald Oakley Spragg Jan 2016

Development Of A Flapping Actuator Based On Oscillating Electromagnetic Fields, Donald Oakley Spragg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

In this work a bio-inspired flapping actuator based on varied magnetic fields is developed, controlled and characterized. The actuator is sought to contribute to the toolbox of options for bio-mimetics research. The design is that of a neodymium bar magnet on one end of an armature which is moved by two air core electromagnetic coils in the same manner as agonist and antagonist muscle pairs function in biological systems. The other end of the armature is fitted to a rigid fin extending beyond the streamline enclosure body to produce propulsion. A series of tests in still water were performed to …

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Design And Deployment Analysis Of Morphing Ocean Structure, Yanjun Li Jan 2016

Design And Deployment Analysis Of Morphing Ocean Structure, Yanjun Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

As humans explore greater depths of Earth’s oceans, there is a growing need for the installation of subsea structures. 71% of the earth’s surface is ocean but there are limitations inherent in current detection instruments for marine applications leading to the need for the development of underwater platforms that allow research of deeper subsea areas. Several underwater platforms including Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs), and wave gliders enable more efficient deployment of marine structures. Deployable structures are able to be compacted and transported via AUV to their destination then morph into their final form upon arrival. They …

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Determining The Effectiveness Of Human Interaction In Human-In-The-Loop Systems By Using Mental States, Eric Lloyd Jan 2016

Determining The Effectiveness Of Human Interaction In Human-In-The-Loop Systems By Using Mental States, Eric Lloyd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

A self-adaptive software is developed to predict the stock market. It’s Stock Prediction Engine functions autonomously when its skill-set suffices to achieve its goal, and it includes human-in-the-loop when it recognizes conditions benefiting from more complex, expert human intervention. Key to the system is a module that decides of human participation. It works by monitoring three mental states unobtrusively and in real time with Electroencephalography (EEG). The mental states are drawn from the Opportunity-Willingness-Capability (OWC) model. This research demonstrates that the three mental states are predictive of whether the Human Computer Interaction System functions better autonomously (human with low scores …

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Effects Of Granulometric Parameters And Mix Proportions On The Shear Strength Of Binary Granular Mixtures., Moya Daniel E Gonzalez Jan 2016

Effects Of Granulometric Parameters And Mix Proportions On The Shear Strength Of Binary Granular Mixtures., Moya Daniel E Gonzalez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Geotechnical engineers are commonly faced with the need to perform ground improvement techniques to achieve the necessary bearing capacity for a project. Some of the most common techniques involve the excavation and replenishment of problematic geomaterial with one of better quality. Common projects, such as road embankments and retaining walls, also require the selection of backfill material. The guidelines for selecting backfill material are typically limited to complying with certain gradation bands, relative densities and allowable fines content. Round-grained silica sand, and beach sand from Boca Raton, FL, were used to generate a total of 16 binary granular mixtures containing …

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Effects Of Adaptive Antenna Array Beamforming And Power Management With Antenna Element Selection, Aghdam Sajjad Abazari Jan 2016

Effects Of Adaptive Antenna Array Beamforming And Power Management With Antenna Element Selection, Aghdam Sajjad Abazari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This research is the array processing help wireless communication techniques to increase the signal accuracy. This technique has an important part of prevalent applications. The wireless communication system, radar, and sonar. Beamforming is one of methods in array processing that filters signals based on their capture time at each element in an array of antennas spatially. Numerous studies in adaptive array processing have been proposed in the last several decades, which are divided in two parts. The first one related to non-adaptive beamforming techniques and the next one related to digitally adaptive Beamforming methods. The trade-off between computational complexity and …

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Dynamics And Control Of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles With Internal Actuators, Bo Li Jan 2016

Dynamics And Control Of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles With Internal Actuators, Bo Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This dissertation concerns the dynamics and control of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) which uses internal actuators to stabilize its horizontalplane motion. The demand for high-performance AUVs are growing in the field of ocean engineering due to increasing activities in ocean exploration and research. New generations of AUVs are expected to operate in harsh and complex ocean environments. We propose a hybrid design of an underwater vehicle which uses internal actuators instead of control surfaces to steer. When operating at low speeds or in relatively strong ocean currents, the performances of control surfaces will degrade. Internal actuators work independent of …

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Early Childhood Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge Of Children’Scognitive Development And Developmentally Appropriatepedagogical Practices: Understanding The Role Of Clinicalexperiences, Courtney Beers Jan 2016

Early Childhood Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge Of Children’Scognitive Development And Developmentally Appropriatepedagogical Practices: Understanding The Role Of Clinicalexperiences, Courtney Beers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The quality of early caregiving and educational environments has a significant effect on children’s later cognitive outcomes. Early childhood teachers are an important determining factor in the quality of these environments. Due to inconsistencies in practice across the early childhood field, there is a call for better prepared teachers. Teacher preparation itself is criticized for its lack of innovative and effective practices. While research finds that more effective teacher preparation programs are those that are steeped in clinical practice, these types of experiences are inconsistent and fragmented in the early childhood field. Part of the issue is the lack of …

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