Digital Commons Network^™

A Comprehensive Literature Review Of Secondary Complications Of Spinal Cord Injury, Noel A. Ysasi, Shelby Kerwin, Irmo Marini, Bradley Mcdaniels, Danielle Leigh Antol

School of Rehabilitation Services & Counseling Faculty Publications

Spinal cord injury (SCI) and secondary complications (SCs) that occur as a direct result of the injury can be a contributing factor for increased hospitalization and need for specialized healthcare. For instance, level of injury, time since injury, gender, age, and personal health care have shown to increase and/or decrease the incidence rate of specific SCs. The authors conducted a comprehensive literature review for 12 SCs to examine the relative prevalence of each for people with SCI. The data utilized was to determine the probability (>50%) versus the possibility (

Opportunities And Risks In Online Gaming Environments, Benjamin George Sanders

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have evolved from traditional video games in that they embrace both the technology of the Internet and video games. The massive “exodus” from the physical offline world to online gaming communities brings with it not only a number of unique and exciting opportunities, but also a number of emerging and serious risks. This research set out to examine the unique opportunities and risks to vulnerable individuals, namely, young adults, teenagers and young children; all of whom are considered by many to be priority groups in the protection from harm. The purpose was to …

Improving Our Understanding Of Evolutionary Persistence In An Increasingly High Co2 World: Insight From Marine Polychaetes At A Low Ph Vent System, Noelle Marie Lucey

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

The main aim of this thesis was to determine how marine metazoans might persist as ocean acidification (OA) conditions intensify. This was done using a combination of field surveys, field transplants and laboratory experiments with polychaetes from a site where volcanically-derived CO2 gas bubbles through the seafloor and drives the seawater pH down, resulting in a marine ecosystem representative of global OA projections for, or before, the year 2100. My first objective was to identify phenotypes, or traits, associated with OA tolerance (Chapter 2 and 5). To do this, I characterized the distribution of dominant calcifying polychaetes along natural pH …

Investigation Into Design And Optimisation Of Solar Adsorption Cooling/Air Conditioning Under The Iraq Climate, Zaynab Ismail Abdullah

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Solar adsorption cooling system can be defined as a system produces a cooling effect by using Sun’s thermal energy. In present study, a solar adsorption cooling system was modelled and simulated using TRNSYS and MATLAB programmes. Parametric investigations have been done on the system by varying several of the crucial design parameters, and their effects on the performance of the system were introduced. The system was analysed on the energy, exergy and economy basis, and it was further optimised by employing a multi-objective genetic algorithm technique with two objective functions. The first objective was maximising the exergy efficiency, and the …

Impact Behaviour Of Reinforced Concrete Beams Strengthened Or Repaired With Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (Cfrp), Mahdi Al-Farttoosi

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

War, terrorist attacks, explosions, progressive collapse and other unforeseen circumstances have damaged many structures, including buildings and bridges in war- torn countries such as Iraq. Most of the damaged structural members, for example, beams, columns and slabs, have not totally collapsed and can be repaired. Nowadays, carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) is widely used in strengthening and retrofitting structural members. CFRP can restore the load- carrying capacity of damaged structural members to make them serviceable. The effect of using CFRP to repair the damaged beams has not been not properly addressed in the literature. This research has the aim of …

Exploring Supply Chain Relationships And Information Exchange In Uk Grocery Supply Chains: Some Preliminary Findings, Mark Barratt

Management Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

How Do We Communicate Who We Are? Examining How Organizational Identity Is Conveyed To Members, Beth S. Schinoff, Kristie M. Rogers, Kevin G. Corley

Management Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Perceived Impacts Of Woman-To-Woman Rape And Sexual Assault, And The Subsequent Experience Of Disclosure, Reaction, And Support On Victim/Survivors’ Subjective Experience Of Occupation, Rebecca Twinley

School of Health Professions Theses

The traditional and universal assumption that rape and sexual assault are gendered in nature - perpetrated by men upon women in order to control, oppress, or subordinate them - has implications for victim/survivors of every other form of unwanted sexual contact and non-contact. The historical focus upon male-to-female rape has overlooked the fact that – regardless of gender – children and adults are sexually victimised by people of all ages and genders. In my thesis, I explore the experiences of a group of victim/survivors who national and international research, and anti-sexual-victimisation efforts, have essentially ignored: women who have been sexually …

The Role Of Sustainability In Enhancing Place Performance Through An Identity-Based Approach To Place Branding, Hanne Knight

Plymouth Business School Theses

Preventing the environmental impacts of economic growth is an important goal in today’s marketplace. This concern for a sustainable future incentivises marketing based around sustainability. The food and beverage industry had its fair share of criticism as its production uses more natural resources than most industries. One industry that has been ahead of other food processors in adopting environmental practices is the wine industry. The close relationship between wine and places is undisputable and so strong that people frequently visit places of wine production in the form of wine tourism contributing significantly to regional economies. For wine to be associated …

An Analysis Of Policy Making For Dry Port Location And Capacity: A Case Study On Alexandria, Aya Mostafa Elgarhy

Plymouth Business School Theses

Container terminal capacity is a crucial issue for port and terminal operators nowadays as it is one of the key points for their success and increasing their competitive market position in the maritime industry. Therefore, researchers have tried to find solutions for the over capacity problem that faces many terminal operators. This research suggests dry ports as one of the most suitable solution for this problem through proposing a structured framework to adopt the right policy decisions for Dry Port location and capacity. To achieve the presented framework some areas were addressed in detail to have the full picture clear. …

Understand The Environmental Fate, Behaviour, Effects And Risks Associated With Contaminants Of Emerging Concern (Cecs) With The Goal Of Protecting Environmental And Human Health, Kevin Victor Thomas

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Each and every one of us is exposed to chemicals on a daily basis and contributes to the global issue of chemical pollution. Humankind has become heavily dependent on the use of man-made chemicals in order to sustain the increased quality of life that is generally seen globally. There is however a price to pay in that we generally live in a world that is polluted by anthropogenic chemicals. From the water we drink to the food we eat there will be some trace of chemical residues; you just need to look closely enough and/or know what you’re looking for. …

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 …

Processing-Performance Relationships For Fibre-Reinforced Composites, Amjed Saleh Mahmood

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

The present study considers the dependence of mechanical properties in composite laminates on the fibre architecture. The objective is to characterise the mechanical properties of composite plates while varying the fibre distribution but keeping the constituent materials unchanged. Image analysis and fractal dimension have been used to quantify fibre distribution and resin-rich volumes (RRV) and to correlate these with the mechanical properties of the fibre-reinforced composites. The formation, shape and size of RRV in composites with different fabric architectures is discussed. The majority of studies in literatures show a negative effect of the RRV on the mechanical behaviour of composite …

Female Virtue In Gothic Literature 1780-1810, Philippa Catnach

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

My thesis analyses presentations of the concept of female virtue in Gothic literature between 1780 and 1810 particularly by drawing on literary texts supplemented by contemporary non-literary sources in order to set out the background and definitions of my work. The word ‘virtue’ has come to mean ‘goodness’ or ‘morality’ but looking at eighteenth-century usage it has often been gendered female and nearly always had a sexual quality: female morality was irrevocably intertwined with a sexual code of conduct. Daughters (perhaps most famously in the mid eighteenth-century Pamela in Richardson’s popular 1740 novel of the same name) were reminded that …

Poems To The Sea And Painterly Poetics: Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Cole Swensen, Peter Gillies

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Poems to the Sea: Rather than narrating or describing a work of visual art, the poems that form this collection show an accumulation, juxtaposition and realignment of material ranging from art historical detail and critique to a more personal, location specific response to works viewed in galleries and museums. Many of the poems engage with non-representational artworks and question how best to reflect, translate or expand upon their transformative effects. The first section, ‘Museum Notes’, explores Charles Olson’s open field poetics by giving artists and writers a conversational voice. ‘Sound Fields’, the second section, responds to individual works of art …

Multiple Stakeholder Perspectives Of Complex Online Services: An E-Government Case Study, Janet Denise Kneller

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Much academic research has studied the factors that increase adoption of online government services. However, the study areas have generally been relatively simple transactional environments focussed on specific consumer roles, and where "the computer can decide". However, this is not representative of all government services: many off-line services involve multiple government organisations or departments. Some services are used by a large range of different stakeholders who have different expectations and experiences of the administrative process concerned. Some require non-numeric elements to process the transaction. Some even involve humans to make a decision. All of these factors increase the complexity of …

Defining New Knowledge Produced By Collaborative Art-Science Research, Juanita Schlaepfer-Miller

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis takes a theoretical framework constructed for transdisciplinary research within different natural science disciplines and investigates what kind of new knowledge is produced when this framework is applied to projects at the interface of art and natural science. The main case study is “Sauti ya Wakulima – The Voice of the Farmers”, which involves collaboration with another intervention artist, and with natural scientists and farmers. This is a collaborative knowledge project with small-scale urban as well as rural farmers in Tanzania who have created an online community archive of their farming practices by using mobile phones to upload images …

A Grounded Theory Of International Postgraduate Students In A British University: Making The Grade, Patrick Mcmahon

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

The aim of this study was to produce a grounded theory to describe the experiences of international students living in the UK and studying in a British university, and to understand and explain their behavioural responses to those experiences. Eighteen postgraduate international students were interviewed at a university in the south-west of England and the data was analysed using classic grounded theory methodology. The theory proposes that international students’ two biggest concerns are in regard to their English language skills and their detachment from home students. Students felt that their language skills were inadequate and they perceived themselves to be …

Community Planning, Community Safety And Policing: A Local Case Study Of Governance Through Partnership, Gareth Addidle

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

The Local Government in Scotland Act (2003) introduced Community Planning as a statutory responsibility in Scotland. The main aims of community planning are described as “making sure people and communities are genuinely engaged in the decisions made on public services which affect them; allied to a commitment from organisations to work together, not apart, in providing better public services” (Scottish Executive, 2003a). For the police, this implied the need to create ‘local solutions to locally identified concerns’ (Strathclyde Police, 2004, p2) and to adopt a holistic approach to community safety which is problem oriented rather than organisation led (Crawford, 1998, …

Embodying Topeng: Gender, Training And Intercultural Encounters, Tiffany Strawson

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This research centres on the Balinese performance tradition known as topeng which translates as Balinese masked dance-drama. In Bali this genre is performed traditionally in spaces reserved for religious ceremonies. The research questions the extent to which, and how, it may be possible for a non-Balinese person to embody a culturally coded, sacred object (the mask) and how a woman is able to make meaning and express herself within a genre which is traditionally the preserve of men. The research has therefore sought to develop an individual and intercultural approach to both the design of new masks and their performance. …

Brain-Computer Music Interfacing: Designing Practical Systems For Creative Applications, Joel Eaton

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Brain-computer music interfacing (BCMI) presents a novel approach to music making, as it requires only the brainwaves of a user to control musical parameters. This presents immediate benefits for users with motor disabilities that may otherwise prevent them from engaging in traditional musical activities such as composition, performance or collaboration with other musicians. BCMI systems with active control, where a user can make cognitive choices that are detected within brain signals, provide a platform for developing new approaches towards accomplishing these activities. BCMI systems that use passive control present an interesting alternate to active control, where control over music is …

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 …

“Nobody's Ever Asked Me What It's Like”: The Role Of Family Networks In The Transitions Of Injured Soldiers Engaging With Higher Education., Wendy Lambert-Heggs

Plymouth Institute of Education Theses

An increasing number of injured service personnel returning from active combat duty will not be redeployed and many of them face discharge from military service. A number of these men and women have sustained life-threatening injuries which may, if the individual survives, result in reduced physical and mental health functioning. This research is focused on the transitions and processes that injured personnel go through when contemplating a new career through engagement with a higher education programme of study. An in-depth qualitative case study of networks of intimacy was used, an approach developed by Heath and Fuller (2007) to explore how, …

Positive Psychology And Hope As Means To Recovery From Mental Illness, Jinhee Park, Roy K. Chen

School of Rehabilitation Services & Counseling Faculty Publications

The field of psychiatric rehabilitation has seen a paradigm shift in its perceptions of symptom reduction, recovery, and restoration of personal-growth and -development. Recovery is subjective in nature, as no two individuals achieve identical rehabilitation outcomes; the process is dynamic and influenced by an array of personal and environmental factors, all of which can facilitate a deeply personal, unique progression that changes one's attitudes, values, feelings, goals, skills, and roles. The concept of positive psychology is relevant to the perception from mental illness. Positive psychology seeks to understand what makes life worth living and encourages the use of mental strengths …

Development Of Protein-Polymer Core-Shell Nanoparticles (Ppcs-Nps) As Efficient Vehicles To Deliver Therapeutic Agents Across Blood Brain Barrier (Bbb), Napat Tandikul

Theses and Dissertations

Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) plays a main role as selective barrier which controls and limits access of chemicals, molecules and therapeutic agents from blood to brain. The BBB endothelial cells are connected by Tight Junctions (TJs) which close intracellular spaces between the endothelial cells and block the free diffusion of substances, therefore many potential drugs for treating human brain diseases cannot reach the brain in sufficient concentration. Recently, many studies have thrown an interest in development of nanoparticles for delivering drugs and imaging agents across BBB. Our research group has developed protein-polymer core-shell nanoparticles (PPCS-NPs) which demonstrate great potential for …

Some Extremal And Structural Problems In Graph Theory, Taylor Mitchell Short

Theses and Dissertations

This work considers three main topics. In Chapter 2, we deal with König-Egerváry graphs. We will give two new characterizations of König-Egerváry graphs as well as prove a related lower bound for the independence number of a graph. In Chapter 3, we study joint degree vectors (JDV). A problem arising from statistics is to determine the maximum number of non-zero elements of a JDV. We provide reasonable lower and upper bounds for this maximum number. Lastly, in Chapter 4 we study a problem in chemical graph theory. In particular, we characterize extremal cases for the number of maximal matchings in …

Modeling Of Structural Relaxation By A Variable-Order Fractional Differential Equation, Su Yang

Theses and Dissertations

In physical point of view, relaxation usually describes the return from a perturbed system into equilibrium and each process has its own characteristic relaxation time. In 1946, Tool first formulated the notion of fictive temperature to characterize the structure of a glass-forming melt. Since then, people used to simulate structural relaxation by first order model. Since fractional-based models have not widely applied in modeling the fictive temperature, I want to explore the the possibility of modeling structural relaxation by fractional differential equation.

In this thesis, I will first introduce the definitions of two different kinds of fractional derivatives: Riemann-Liouville fractional …

How Technology Supported Teacher Behaviors Impact Student Outcomes: Results From A 1:1 Computing Initiative, James Siddall

Theses and Dissertations

As computing technology has advanced over the last several decades, many schools and school districts have embraced the use of this technology in education. One way in which schools and school districts have adopted computing technology is through adopting 1:1 computer initiatives where each student is provided with a computing device. However, despite the widespread and continuously expanding use of 1:1 computer initiatives within the educational setting, surprisingly little is known about the classroom-level factors that may impact student educational outcomes. Only one study to date (Shapley et al., 2010) has attempted to investigate specific classroom-level factors that may impact …

Deformation Induced Martensitic Transformation In 304 Stainless Steels, Junliang Liu

Theses and Dissertations

304 stainless steel is an austenitic steel widely used for various applications due to a good combination of strength and ductility and relative low cost. It is known to be metastable as the austenite phase can transform into martensite under stress. In this work, a new method (in-situ tensile TEM) and the traditional method (ex-situ tensile tests and TEM, XRD characterization) were used to investigate the mechanisms of deformation-induced martensitic transformation in 304SS samples at different temperatures.

The ex-situ tensile tests were conducted under a strain rate of 10-3 s-1 until rupture. After the tensile tests, the fractured area was …