Digital Commons Network^™

Single Tower Crane Allocation Models Using Ant Colony Optimization, Carlos Abelardo Treviño

Theses and Dissertations

The construction industry greatly benefits from the utilization of heavy machines and equipment to accomplish successful projects. Tower cranes, in specific, have a crucial role in the transportation of material loads across the site. Because these machines are fixed to the ground, it is essential for planners and managers to position them in a location that provides the most efficient transfer of materials possible. This is commonly known as the tower crane allocation problem, and many researchers have attempted to optimize the tower crane location using mathematical, artificial intelligence, and simulation approaches. However, many works from the literature contain critical …

Principles Of Accounting I, Acc 1101, Course Outline, Rachel Raskin

Open Educational Resources

Principles of Accounting I will introduce the fundamental concepts underlying financial accounting. It will explore the accounting cycle and demonstrate how the financial reporting process is impacted by accounting standards. You will learn to read and understand the financial statements and how proper internal controls are vital for the preparation of accurate and reliable financial information.

An Evaluation Of One District's Think Through Math Program And Curriculum Implementation, Dywayne Hinds

Dissertations

Think Through Math is a research based math program. One school district implemented the program to improve student performance on the state standardized assessment. After two years of implementation, 44% of middle school students in the district did not make adequate progress in math as measured by the state assessment. The purpose of my study was to determine the effectiveness of the Think Through Math program used within middle school Intensive Math classes throughout the district. Guided by research on the critical aspects of implementation, my study examined teachers’ perceptions of (a) resources used within the program, (b) the impact …

Touro Torah Volume 3 Issue 4, Lander College For Women

Yearbooks and Newsletters

Teves issue (December 2017 - January 2018) of Divrei Torah Newsletter.

Parlance, Carolyn Mcintyre Norton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The richly-colored screenprints displayed in Parlance are explorations into sound-inspired imagery created through the blending of two divergent approaches: 1) drawing made by meditative inspiration and 2) printing driven by the execution of a predetermined plan.

Considered representationally, each print is a chorus of layered interpretive drawings of natural sound. My intent is to bring into view ethereal concepts through responsive mark making.

Considered technically, the printing process employs a predetermined set of formulas that produce a mathematically-finite set of prints. This systemized method causes common visual elements to disperse among the prints, resulting in a set of uniquely layered …

A Study Of The Factors Influencing Last Mile Residential Fixed Broadband Pricing In Kentucky, Michael Ramage

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the first telegraph, a technology management challenge has existed to expand the availability of communication services farther into rural and unserved areas, while maintaining the affordability of those services to residential users. Over the years, that challenge has transformed from telegraph to broadband communications or high-speed Internet access. The challenge of affordable expansion of broadband services is seen all across the United States including the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This study examined the extent to which community and provider-related supply and demand factors among last mile residential fixed broadband service areas impact the non-promotional advertised price of last mile …

Incorporating Lean Non-Value Added Variants Into A Method Of Determining Stakeholder Salience For First-Line Manager Decision Making, Bruce H. Bader

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research brings together two streams of thought for first-line manager decision-making. The first is the quality system model, in particular, Lean operations. The second is Stakeholder Theory. Both streams have been identified as ways to improve value of the organization. Previous studies disagree regarding whether Lean and Stakeholder theory can work together. The potential problem of having a poor balance of Stakeholders and Lean waste is that exclusive focus on one may result in less awareness of the other, in which case value can be lost by the organization. This research investigates if both Lean waste and Stakeholder salience …

Vicarious Liability, Non-Delegable Duty And The Ng Huat Seng Decision, Kee Yang Low

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In recent times, courts in Singapore and elsewhere have been grappling with the issue of delegability of duty of care. In the process, they have vigorously defended the conventional position that a duty of care is, in general, delegable. Accordingly, attempts at broadening the ambit of vicarious liability and non-delegable duty, respectively, have been carefully scrutinized. The recent Singapore Court of Appeal decision of Ng Huat Seng v Munib Mohammad Madni adds to the judicial thinking on this complicated and controversial subject.

Geophysical Delineation Of Megaporosity And Fluid Migration Pathways For Geohazard Characterization Within The Delaware Basin, Culberson County, Texas, Jonathan David Woodard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Differential dissolution of gypsum karst within the Delaware Basin poses a significant threat to infrastructure that society depends on. The study area is located in Culberson County, Texas and traverses a distance of approximately 54 kilometers along RM 652 within the Gypsum Plain which is situated on the northern margin of the Chihuahua Desert and includes outcrops of Castile and Rustler strata that host karst geohazards. Regions of karst geohazard potential have been physically surveyed proximal to the study area in evaporites throughout the Castile Formation outcrop; minimal hazards, in comparison to the Castile Formation, have been documented in …

Plekhg5-Regulated Autophagy Of Synaptic Vesicles Reveals A Pathogenic Mechanism In Motoneuron Disease., Patrick Lüningschrör, Beyenech Binotti, Benjamin Dombert, Peter Heimann, Angel Perez-Lara, Carsten Slotta, Nadine Thau-Habermann, Cora R. Von Collenberg, Franziska Karl, Markus Damme, Arie Horowitz, Isabelle Maystadt, Annette Füchtbauer, Ernst-Martin Füchtbauer, Sibylle Jablonka, Robert Blum, Nurcan Üçeyler, Susanne Petri, Barbara Kaltschmidt, Reinhard Jahn, Christian Kaltschmidt, Michael Sendtner

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Autophagy-mediated degradation of synaptic components maintains synaptic homeostasis but also constitutes a mechanism of neurodegeneration. It is unclear how autophagy of synaptic vesicles and components of presynaptic active zones is regulated. Here, we show that Pleckstrin homology containing family member 5 (Plekhg5) modulates autophagy of synaptic vesicles in axon terminals of motoneurons via its function as a guanine exchange factor for Rab26, a small GTPase that specifically directs synaptic vesicles to preautophagosomal structures. Plekhg5 gene inactivation in mice results in a late-onset motoneuron disease, characterized by degeneration of axon terminals. Plekhg5-depleted cultured motoneurons show defective axon growth and impaired autophagy …

“I Use To Pray And Ask God To Give Me Another Chance”: A Phenomenological Analysis Of Black Males’ Journey Attending An Alternative School, Jimmy R. Caldwell Jr

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research suggests that there still exists a disproportionate number of Black males who have contact with juvenile justice systems across this nation (Nance, 2016). The disproportionate placement of students of color, specifically, Black American males in alternative schools, serves as the gateway to the school-to-prison-pipeline (Pelzer, 2012). This study examined the lived educational experiences of two Black American juvenile males, who enrolled in an alternative school in the Southeast. This study incorporated phenomenological and narrative methods and provides rich, descriptive analyses of the participants’ experiences while attending an alternative school. Findings from this study revealed instability among the participants’ home …

Knowledge Flows And Influence In Online Social Networks: Proposing A Research Agenda, Charles M. Weber, Nitin V. Mayande

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Online social networks, which have been defined as aggregated organizations that emerge from the Internet when people carry on public discussions, are increasingly becoming the vehicle of influence in social, political and economic discourse. Yet, despite its increasing importance, the nature of influence in online social networks is not really understood. Practitioners openly admit that they lack the experience to make sense of the phenomenon, and extant theory of influence in networks, which extrapolates from observations of the real world, is demonstrably inadequate when it comes to explaining influence online. The paper introduces a novel approach to analyzing influence online, …

Improving The Effectiveness Of Fuzzy Front End Management: Expanding Stage-Gate Methodologies Through Agile, Aruna Bhatia, Juchun Cheng, Sadaf Salek, Vidhi Chokshi, Antonie J. Jetter

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

More now than ever before, product development has become more challenging and complex with all the globalization around business today. Understanding the requirements of unfamiliar markets can be very challenging for organizations trying to speed-up their innovations. Also with the advent of globalization there is pressure on everyone to perform better and roll out new products in the market. The fuzzy front end process is very dynamic and unstructured process. By taking advantage of the key characteristics of Agile and Stage-Gate model, an Integrated Agile- Stage- Gate Hybrid model was developed which could help in improving the effectiveness of the …

Moment Tensor Catalog Results For Nuclear Explosions, Volcanic Events, And Earthquakes, Celso Alvizuri

Faculty

Using seismic waveform data, we determine seismic moment tensor solutions for 12 earthquakes and 17 nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site, 3 cavity collapse events, 63 events at Uturuncu volcano (Bolivia), and 21 earthquakes in Alaska. We convey uncertainties in the solutions by displaying a probability density function for source type and by calculating a confidence parameter.

The Potential Of Raman Spectroscopy In The Diagnosis Of Premalignant Oral Lesions, Ola Ibrahim

Doctoral

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Technological University Dublin, School of Physics December 2017.

State V. O'Neal Appellant's Brief Dckt. 45172

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

Pubwc Bathroom Review App, Clay Jacobs

Computer Science and Software Engineering

For my senior project, I developed an iOS application to allow users to find, rate, and review nearby public restrooms. The app takes advantage of crowdsourced data to collect bathroom and review information. I also created a REST API to interface with the backend database that could be used to port the application to other platforms.

The Implied Warranty Of Merchantability And The Remote Manufacturer, Ralph C. Anzivino

Marquette Law Review

None

Development Of An Insulated Solar Electric Cooker (Isec) With Thermal Storage For Use In Developing World Countries, Amanda Gyokery, Spencer W. Davis, Kyle Henry Smit

Mechanical Engineering

According to the World Health Organization, about half of the world’s population uses biomass stoves to cook their meals. However, biomass fires can be dangerous. Unattended biomass fires and indoor air pollution are responsible for an estimated 600,000 deaths annually and the creation of approximately 4 million instances of chronic disease. They also release CO2 and other pollutants into the air, and require the families to gather enough material to keep it burning (WHO 2017). Although cleaner cooking technology seems like a clear solution, often families are either unwilling to change how they cook food or are unable to afford …

Working With Creative Leaders: Exploring The Relationship Between Supervisors' And Subordinates' Creativity, Gamze Koseoglu, Yi Liu, Christina E. Shalley

School of Business Faculty Research

We propose that supervisors' own level of creativity is a core component of effective leadership that can be associated with subordinates' self-concept and creativity. Specifically, drawing on the identity theory framework, and role identity theory in particular, we argue that subordinates' creative role identity is an important underlying mechanism in the relationship between supervisors' level of creativity and their subordinates' creativity. Using a sample of 443 employees working with 44 supervisors in an IT firm, we hypothesized and found support for a moderated mediation model. There was a positive indirect relationship between supervisors' creativity and their subordinates' creativity via the …

A Consumer Protection Rationale For Regulation Of Tax Return Preparers, Pippa Browde

Marquette Law Review

Of the 150 million tax returns filed each year, approximately fifty-six percent are prepared with the help of a paid preparer. Although state-licensed lawyers and certified public accountants may prepare tax returns for clients, the vast majority of paid tax return preparers are completely unregulated. For low-income taxpayers who are eligible for refundable tax credits, these unregulated tax return preparers do more than just fill out tax returns. Return preparers who serve low-income taxpayers often also market consumer credit products, such as refund anticipation loans or checks.

Government agencies and consumer advocates have documented widespread problems with the tax return …

Regulating Rumination By Anger: Evidence For The Mutual Promotion And Counteraction (Mpmc) Theory Of Emotionality, Jun Zhan, Fan Tang, Mei He, Jin Fan, Jing Xiao, Chang Liu, Jing Luo

Publications and Research

Unlike the strategy of cognitive regulation that relies heavily on the top-down control function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which was recently found may be critically impaired in stressful situations, traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine views different types of emotionality as having mutual promotion and counteraction (MPMC) relationships, implying a novel approach that requires less cognition to emotional regulation. Actually, our previous studies have indicated that anger responses could be successfully regulated via the induction of sadness, and this efficiency could not be influenced by stress, thus providing evidences for the hypothesis of “sadness counteracts anger” (SCA) proposed by the …

A Comparative Literature Review Of Intelligent Tutoring Systems From 1990-2015, Brice Robert Colby

Theses and Dissertations

This paper sought to accomplish three goals. First, it provided a systematic, comparative review of several intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). Second, it summarized problems and solutions presented and solved by developers of ITS by consolidating the knowledge of the field into a single review. Third, it provided a unified language from which ITS can be reviewed and understood in the same context. The findings of this review centered on the 5-Component Framework. The first component, the domain model, showed that most ITS are focused on science, technology, and mathematics. Within these fields, ITS generally have mastery learning as the desired …

Design And Development Of An Electronic Granular Urea Applicator As An Attachment With Rice Transplanter, Md Towfiqur Rahman

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In rice production system, transplanting and fertilizer application are tedious, time consuming and laborious task, and mostly done manually in Bangladesh. Mechanical planting of rice and granular urea placement have distinctive advantages over manual operation. Mechanical planting of rice becoming popular in the country in recent years and few machines have been developed for guti-urea deep placement, however having some limitations. Considering precise guti-urea placement along with rice transplanting, an attempt was under taken to design and fabricate an electronic control guti-urea applicator to be attach with a 4-row walk behind type rice transplanter. Fabrication of the electronic guti-urea applicator …

Performance Assessment Of Electromagnetic Soil Water Sensors In Different Soil Textural, Temperature, And Salinity Conditions, Jasreman Singh

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Determination of accurate and continuous measurements of volumetric water content (θ_v) is extremely valuable for irrigation management and other agronomic decisions. Lately, electromagnetic (EM) sensors are being widely used to monitor θ_v continuously which also offer the benefits of ease of installation, fewer regulatory and safety concerns, and cost effectiveness. However, the accuracy of parameters [soil temperature, electrical conductivity (EC_a), dielectric permittivity (ε_ra), and θ_v] reported by EM sensors need to be evaluated for them to be utilized for agricultural water management. In the current study, the accuracy of a wide …

Viscoelastic Behavior Of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites Incorporating Nanomaterials, Amy R. Garner

Civil Engineering ETDs

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites are increasingly being used in a variety of industries such as aerospace and infrastructure. This investigation experimentally examines the effect of incorporating alumina nanoparticles (ANPs), non-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (NF-MWCNTs), and functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (F-MWCNTs) on the off-axis stiffness and stress-relaxation of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. Epoxy- nanocomposites incorporating 0.0, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 wt.% ANPs; 0.0 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 wt. % NF-MWCNTs; 0.0 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 wt. % F-MWCNTs of the total weight of epoxy are examined. Off-axis tension stiffness and stress-relaxation tests were performed on CFRP coupons …

Development, Evaluation, And Application Of A Novel Error Correction Method For Next Generation Sequencing Data, Isaac Akogwu

Dissertations

Tremendous evolvement in sequencing technologies and the vast availability of data due to decreasing cost of Next-Generation-Sequencing (NGS) has availed scientists the opportunity to address a wide variety of evolutionary and biological issues. NGS uses massively parallel technology to accelerate the process at the expense of accuracy and read length in comparison to earlier Sanger methods. Therefore, computational limitations exist in how much analysis and information can be gleaned from the data without performing some form of error correction.

Error correction process is laborious and consumes a lot of computational resources. Despite the existence of many NGS data error correction …

Air-Processed Polymer Photovoltaics: Advanced Morphological Characterization And Synthesis Of New Materials For Increased Light Absorption, Levi Moore

Dissertations

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have undergone intense development in recent years due to their potential to produce inexpensive, flexible, lightweight, and portable solar cells utilizing organic photoactive materials. Polymer-based OPVs have recently surpassed the 10 % in laboratory-scale devices, but require strict processing conditions in inert environments. Materials and processing methods that are workable in air are therefore desired. In addition to the light-absorbing and charge transport properties of the active layer materials, the morphology, crystallinity and orientation of the components of the phase-separated blend are paramount in determining OPV device performance This dissertation explores the processing of the model polymer …

Radial Basis Function Differential Quadrature Method For The Numerical Solution Of Partial Differential Equations, Daniel Watson

Dissertations

In the numerical solution of partial differential equations (PDEs), there is a need for solving large scale problems. The Radial Basis Function Differential Quadrature (RBFDQ) method and local RBF-DQ method are applied for the solutions of boundary value problems in annular domains governed by the Poisson equation, inhomogeneous biharmonic equation, and the inhomogeneous Cauchy-Navier equations of elasticity. By choosing the collocation points properly, linear systems can be obtained so that the coefficient matrices have block circulant structures. The resulting systems can be efficiently solved using matrix decomposition algorithms (MDAs) and fast Fourier transforms (FFTs). For the local RBFDQ method, the …

Signature Whistle Production During A Bottlenose Dolphin Group Integration, Megan S. Broadway

Dissertations

Bottlenose dolphins are an important species of interest because they possess a variety of abilities that are relatively rare in the animal kingdom, one being complex acoustic communication. Signature whistles - distinctive calls that are unique for each individual – are one of the most studied call types, but we know little about how these calls are used in various contexts, such as during an introduction. Looking at the socio-behavioral context in which signature whistles are used is likely the best way of learning how these whistles are used in a particular context (Caldwell, Caldwell, & Tyack, 1990). For this …