Digital Commons Network^™

Environmental Impact Assessments Of The Xiaolangdi Reservoir On The Most Hyperconcentrated Laden River, Yellow River, China, Dongxian Kong, Chiyuan Miao, Jingwen Wu, Alistair G.L. Borthwick, Qingyun Duan, Xiaoming Zhang

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Aesopian Language Of Soviet Era Children’S Literature: Translation, Adaptation, And Animation Of A Western Classic, Boryana Borisova

Honors Projects

Analyzing spoken, written, visual, or tangible material can offer sophisticated insight into the complexity of social life, understood through analysis of language in its widest sense; it offers ways of investigating meaning, whether in conversation or in culture. The idea of retelling foreign texts may be alien to some cultures, and understanding why, how, and when a particular work was created is essential for understanding the Russian one. In highly censored Russian culture, skepticism is a prerequisite for reading a text in the Soviet era, as it frequently served as an Aesopian hint or an allegory on contemporary issues. “Aesopian …

Refugees In The United States: Are They Worse Off?, Lily Chang

Mark A. Israel '91 Endowed Summer Research Fund in Economics

This paper aims to investigate how refugees perform in the US labor market in relation to economic immigrants and natives. Drawing from conclusions from human capital and discrimination theories, I hypothesize that compared to economic immigrants and natives, refugees are more likely to be disadvantaged in the US upon their arrival. For example, refugees often have less time and fewer resources to acquire desirable US-specific labor skills prior to their entry and may face taste-based and statistical discrimination from employers after they arrive. However, over time assimilation would occur for refugees as they obtain more US-specific human capital, such as …

Market Dimensions Of Industrial Juice Production, Anushree Priyadarshini

Articles

The juice sector is currently demonstrating positive and dynamic growth mainly due to a change in lifestyle, the tendency of consumers to prefer healthy products, and an increase in purchasing power. Fruit juices form part of what are termed the “new age beverages.” In sync with growing consumer inclination toward healthier choices, manufacturers are moving over to healthier ingredients in their juices. Numerous new and innovative products are being launched globally by manufacturers to stimulate sales through innovations in flavor blends, calorie and sweetness levels, and functional benefits, very much shaped by the major lifestyle trends. This chapter aims to …

River Terraces And Alluvial Fans: The Case For An Integrated Quaternary Fluvial Archive, A. E. Mather, M. Stokes, E. Whitfield

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Simulation Tools For The Study Of The Interaction Between Communication And Action In Cognitive Robots, Tomassino Ferrauto

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

In this thesis I report the development of FARSA (Framework for Autonomous Robotics Simulation and Analysis), a simulation tool for the study of the interaction between language and action in cognitive robots and more in general for experiments in embodied cognitive science. Before presenting the tools, I will describe a series of experiments that involve simulated humanoid robots that acquire their behavioural and language skills autonomously through a trial-and-error adaptive process in which random variations of the free parameters of the robots’ controller are retained or discarded on the basis of their effect on the overall behaviour exhibited by the …

The Impact Of Robot Tutor Social Behaviour On Children, James R Kennedy

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Robotic technologies possess great potential to enter our daily lives because they have the ability to interact with our world. But our world is inherently social. Whilst humans often have a natural understanding of this complex environment, it is much more challenging for robots. The field of social Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) seeks to endow robots with the characteristics and behaviours that would allow for intuitive multimodal interaction. Education is a social process and previous research has found strong links between the social behaviour of teachers and student learning. This therefore presents a promising application opportunity for social human-robot interaction. The …

A Reference Computational Model To Manage The Semantics Of Learning Environments Using Swrl Enabled Owl Ontologies, Eiman Almami

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

This thesis proposes a reference model and its computational core to support the creation of software applications within educational environments, which address Differences In Learning (DiffInL) and are applicable to both learners and instructors. This work differs from others in that the strength of this model resides on the re-usable character of the reasoning mechanism enabled by the computational environment. The starting point is the definition of agreed learning goals that the learner needs to achieve. In turn, the reference model generates personalised, best-practice teaching and learning materials, suitable for achieving the individual’s learning goals. This reference model consists of …

Barriers To Glaucoma Case Finding As Perceived By Optometrists In Ireland, Catriona Barrett, Colm O'Brien, John Butler, James Loughman

Articles

Background: This research was designed to provide an in-depth exploration of the perceptions of optometrists relating to the challenges of glaucoma case finding in the Irish health-care system.

Methods: A survey was developed, piloted and distributed for anonymous completion by optometrists registered to practice in Ireland. The survey included 10 five-level Likert items exploring potential barriers to glaucoma detection and a free-text box for participants to comment more broadly.

Results: One hundred and ninety-nine optometrists (27 per cent of registrants) responded to the survey. Among the barriers identified, there was notable agreement (71 per cent) with the need for extra …

Perceived Barriers Of Optometrists To Glaucoma Case Findings In Ireland, James Loughman, Catriona Barrett, Colm O’Brien, John S. Butler

Articles

Background:

This research was designed to provide an in-depth exploration of the perceptions of optometrists relating to the challenges of glaucoma case finding in the Irish health-care system.

Methods: A survey was developed, piloted and distributed for anonymous completion by optometrists registered to practise in Ireland. The survey included 10 five-level Likert items exploring potential barriers to glaucoma detection and a free-text box for participants to comment more broadly.

Results: One hundred and ninety-nine optometrists (27 per cent of registrants) responded to the survey. Among the barriers identified, there was notable agreement (71 per cent) with the need for extra …

How Well Do Engineering Students Retain Core Mathematical Knowledge After A Series Of High Threshold Online Mathematics Tests, Michael Carr, Fiona Faulkner, Cormac Breen, Mark Prendergast

Journal Articles

In the Technological University Dublin, high threshold core skills assessments are run in mathematics for third year engineering students. Such tests require students to reach a threshold of 90% on a multiple-choice test based on a randomised question bank. The material covered by the test consists of the more important aspects of undergraduate engineering mathematics covered in the first two years of the Honours degree programme and/or the three years of the Ordinary degree programme . Students are allowed to re-sit the assessment as frequently as required until they pass. In order to measure the effectiveness of such an exercise …

Using Pre-Lecture Activities To Enhance Learner Engagement In A Large Group Setting, Gemma Kinsella, C. Mahon, S. Lillis

Journal Articles

The disadvantage to students of beginning a module with no prior knowledge or inaccurate knowledge is well documented. For learners, the development of the necessary prior knowledge to facilitate their learning is essential. The use of screencasts, whether prior to or during class, is becoming more widespread. There is a need, however, to better understand how these are used and whether or not there is any impact on overall learner engagement and academic achievement when a component with instantaneous feedback (such as a multiple choice quiz) is embedded into the pre-lecture screencast activity. In this study, pre-learning activities consisting of …

Narratives Of Change And Citizen Participation In Modern Political Campaigning: The Origins Of The Trump Movement, Sergey Medvedev

Journal Articles

This article offers insights into how the storytelling aspects of the Donald Trump presidential campaign of 2016 contributed to the rise of the Trump movement and paved his way to the White House. With 50 Trump speeches being analysed, the study reconstructs the narrative Donald Trump communicated to the target audience on his way to the highest office. Exploring the idea of Donald Trump as a storyteller, the article discusses how the ideology of the Trump base was constructed and an eagerness to participate was ignited by the narrative. Methodologically, the article derives the seven principles of political storytelling from …

Lttc Resource Pack On Academic Writing & Referencing, Roisin Donnelly, Marian Fitzmaurice

Other resources

The purpose of this guide is to support you in undertaking your written assignments for the postgraduate programmes in order to help you organise your work in alignment with academic writing requirements.

Resource Pack On Active Learning, Roisin Donnelly, Marian Fitzmaurice

Other resources

The massification of higher education is now a global phenomenon Huge changes in the teaching and learning milieu within colleges. The forces of massification have brought multiple challenges with regard to pedagogy. What kind of pedagogy to employ? The role of the lecturer is to empower learning and it is challenging and complex. There is a need to employ a pedagogy which requires students to do things, to access information, to solve problems, to reflect on what they are doing and make connections to real world problems.

Educational research has revealed a number of important lessons for educators:

Importance of …

Assessing The Usefulness Of Different Feature Sets For Predicting The Comprehension Difficulty Of Text, Brian Mac Namee, John D. Kelleher, Noel Fitzpatrick

Conference papers

Within English second language acquisition there is an enthusiasm for using authentic text as learning materials in classroom and online settings. This enthusiasm, however, is tempered by the difficulty in finding authentic texts at suitable levels of comprehension difficulty for specific groups of learners. An automated way to rate the comprehension difficulty of a text would make finding suitable texts a much more manageable task. While readability metrics have been in use for over 50 years now they only capture a small amount of what constitutes comprehension difficulty. In this paper we examine other features of texts that are related …

How Short Is A Piece Of String?: The Impact Of Text Length And Text Augmentation On Short-Text Classification Accuracy, Austin Mccartney, Svetlana Hensman, Luca Longo

Conference papers

Recent increases in the use and availability of short messages have created opportunities to harvest vast amounts of information through machine-based classification. However, traditional classification methods have failed to yield accuracies comparable to classification accuracies on longer texts. Several approaches have previously been employed to extend traditional methods to overcome this problem, including the enhancement of the original texts through the construction of associations with external data supplementation sources. Existing literature does not precisely describe the impact of text length on classification performance. This work quantitatively examines the changes in accuracy of a small selection of classifiers using a variety …

Analysing The Behaviour Of Online Investors In Times Of Geopolitical Distress: A Case Study On War Stocks, James Usher, Pierpaolo Dondio

Conference papers

In this paper we analyse how the behavior of an online financial community in time of geopolitical crises. In particular, we studied the behaviour, composition and communication patterns of online investors before and after a military geopolitical event. We selected a set of 23 key-events belonging to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and the first period of the Ukraine crisis. We restricted our study to a set of eight so called military stocks, which are US-manufacturing companies active in the defence sector. We studied the resilience of the community to information shocks by comparing the community …

Snot-22 In A Control Population, Se Erskine, C Hopkins, A Clark, S Anari, N Kumar, A Robertson, S Sunkaraneni, Ja Wilson, S Carrie, N Kara, J Ray, R Smith, Cm Philpott, Hisham Khalil

Peninsula Medical School

Objectives: To assess SNOT-22 and its subscales in a non-rhinosinusitis UK-wide population. Design: Self-reported questionnaire. Setting: Based from 30 ENT departments around the UK. Participants: 250 Non-rhinosinusitis adults – no self-reported nasal problems in the past, no chronic conditions undergoing active treatment and no hospital admissions in the preceding 12 months. Main outcome measures: SNOT-22, SF-36. Results: The mean SNOT-22 total score overall was 12.0. The mean was 10.2 for males with a median of 6.5 and a mean of 13.2 for females with a median of 9. Females scored significantly more highly than males on the sleep/fatigue and facial …

Measuring Treatment Satisfaction In Ms: Is The Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire For Medication Fit For Purpose?, Patrick Vermersch, Jeremy Hobart, Catherine Dive-Pouletty, Sylvie Bozzi, Steven Hass, Patricia K. Coyle

Peninsula Medical School

Background: The Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (TSQM) was designed to assess patient treatment satisfaction in chronic diseases. Its performance has not been examined in multiple sclerosis (MS). The 14 items of the TSQM cover four domains: Effectiveness, Side Effects, Convenience, and Global Satisfaction. Objective: To evaluate performance of the TSQM in patients with relapsing MS, using data collected from the TENERE study (NCT00883337), in which 324 patients received oral teriflunomide or subcutaneous interferon beta-1a for ≥48 weeks. Methods: Five measurement properties were examined using traditional psychometric methods: data completeness, scale-to-sample targeting, scaling assumptions, reliability (including test-retest), and construct validity …

Sibling Influences On Risky Behaviors From Adolescence To Young Adulthood: Vertical Socialization Or Bidirectional Effects?, Shawn D. Whiteman, Alexander C. Jensen Phd, Susan M. Mchale

Faculty Publications

This study built on research on sibling influences to assess potential bidirectional effects of older and younger siblings’ risky behaviors on one another’s risky behaviors; our longitudinal design allowed us to test these effects when siblings were at about the same chronological age, at different points in time.We also tested whether the strength and/or direction of effects of siblings’ risky behaviors changed from middle adolescence to young adulthood. Reports of risky behaviors (i.e., deviant behaviors and excessive alcohol use) were provided by firstborn and secondborn siblings from up to 201 families on five occasions spanning 10 years. In general, accounting …

"Challenge Accepted": Cooperative Tutoring As An Alternative To One-To-One Tutoring, Dagmar Scharold

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Design And Pitch: Introducing Multiliteracies Through Scientific Research Posters, Sohui Lee, Russ E. Carpenter

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Delivery Of Usaid Aid To Afghanistan, 2001-2017, Abdullah Fayez Bataineh

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

DELIVERY OF USAID AID IN AFGHANISTAN, 2001-2017

by

ABDULLAH BATAINEH

May 2018

Advisor: Dr. Nadejda Marinova

Major: Department of Political Science

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Afghanistan is currently foreign aid dependent. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has allocated over 100 billion US dollars since 2001 for the development and modernization of Afghanistan. The United States has invested over 700 billion US dollars overall. There is a breakdown or a problem in USAID funding for Afghanistan, whereas not all the money allocated was utilized for intended purposes. Today Afghanistan remains a LDC, a least developed country, with extensive …

Middle School And High School Students Who Stutter: A Qualitative Investigation Of School Experiences, Tiffany Cobb

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WHO STUTTER: A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF SCHOOL EXPERIENCES

by

TIFFANY COBB

MAY 2017

Advisor: Dr. Derek Daniels

Major: Speech-Language Pathology

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and further understand the ways in which middle school and high school students perceive their school experiences within the school environment.

School has an important impact on the social development of children (Milsom, 2006). Learning is not done individually as classrooms are inherently social places. This suggests that students do not learn alone, but rather in the presence of many …

Psychosocial Predictors Of College Student Athlete Burnout And Engagement, Brigid Byrd

Wayne State University Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess salient psychosocial predictors of both academic and athletic burnout and engagement in college student athletes. Method: One-hundred and seventy-nine male and female college student athletes were recruited from a Midwestern University to complete a questionnaire at one time point. Results: The prediction model for athlete burnout was statistically significant, F (4,174) = 16.41, p<.001, and accounted for approximately 27% of the variance. The prediction model for athlete engagement was also statistically significant, F (4,174) = 9.25, p ≤ .001, and accounted for approximately 18% of the variance. The prediction model for student burnout was statistically significant, F (6,172) = 3.79, p<.005, and accounted for approximately 10% of the variance. The prediction model for student engagement was not statistically significant. Conclusions: Athletes who felt misunderstood by their coach, felt their coach did not provide options and choices, and who felt their coach was not confident in their sport ability experienced symptoms of athlete burnout while athletes who felt understood by their coach, felt their coach provided options and choices, and who felt their coach had confidence in their sport ability, believed in their ability to accomplish their sport goals, felt engaged in their sport. Also, athletes who felt their coach was less friendly and supportive if they were not training and competing well, felt intimidated by their coach, and who felt their coach tried to control their free time and who also felt their teammates did not encourage them to study or did not make sure they got to class had high student burnout. Application: Coaches should aim to create an autonomy supportive coaching climate in which athletes feelings of autonomy are enhanced. Exploratory findings also suggest decreasing controlling coaching behaviors and increasing teammate academic social support may be important in thwarting feelings of student burnout in student athletes.

Family Consultation To Reduce Early Hospital Readmissions Among Patients With End-Stage Renal Disease: A Randomized Clinical Trial, Matthew James Jasinski

Wayne State University Dissertations

Background: The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have mandated reducing early hospital readmissions (i.e., within 30 days of discharge) to both improve patient care and reduce expenses. Patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) have relatively high early readmission rates, due in part to their complex medical regimens but also cognitive impairment, health literacy problems, and lack of social support. We developed a brief family consultation intervention to address these problems and tested its ability to reduce early readmissions among patients with ESRD.

Method: 120 hospitalized adults with ESRD (M age = 57.5 years; 50% male; 86% Black, 12% …

How Religion Influences Coping With Stress And Challenges In Families, Michael A. Goodman, Antonious Skipper, David C. Dollahite, Loren D. Marks, Emily Layton

Faculty Publications

One key finding of our American Families of Faith research project is that (instead of being defeated by challenges) strong families find ways to effectively cope with and grow closer through stressful situations. Interestingly, six decades ago, Jeff Hill’s uncle, family sociologist Reuben Hill, began to conceptually and empirically examine why some families succumb to crisis as a result of a stressful situation, while other families remain resilient. While stress can lead to crisis, crisis can also lead to familial resilience and the ability of the family to better cope with future stressors. Different families obviously have different strengths and …

An Analysis Of Youth Participation In Athletics, Jonathan Wayne Klein

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

School athletics has a significant impact on the development of youth. This study is an exploration of the differences between youth who participate in school athletics and those who do not. Specifically, the study examined youth academic performance and behavior referrals, and variables such as grade level, age, gender, and ethnicity. In addition, the study examined whether or not there was a relationship between participation in the school’s free or reduced lunch program and athletic participation.

To determine the differences and relationships of youth that participate in school athletics and those who do not participate, an existing dataset of 4,078 …

Head Above Water Weighing: A Valid Method To Measure Body Fat Storage?, Molly Lin Hussey

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Hydrostatic weighing using underwater weighing with full lung expiration has been established as a valid method to assess body composition; however, many people do not prefer to submerse their heads in water due to various reasons. Keeping the head above water as a method for hydrostatic weighing at full lung capacity has been tested but has not been accepted as an alternative method. Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to determine if hydrostatic weighing with the head above water at residual volume could provide valid estimates of total body fat. Methods: Fifty-eight subjects (F=29. M=29) participated …