Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Teacher Perception Of Community Support And Involvement At Their School And Student Rates Of Attendance, Graduation And Academic Proficiency, Sandra Hamer Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between educators perceptions of the quality of community support and involvement at their high schools and five longitudinally measured indices of school effectiveness. Given a sample of 248 Tennessee high schools, secondary data derived from the Community Support and Involvement subsection of the Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning (TELL) Questionnaire Survey administered in 2013 were merged with concurrent student attendance, student graduation, and student achievement outcomes archived and made publically available on the Tennessee Department of Education website.After controlling for the impact of student and faculty demographic variables, hierarchical multiple …

Optimal Delivery Of Remedial Mathematics Programs In U.S. Higher Education, Lisa Renee Loden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Remedial mathematics has been considered the roadblock to obtaining a college degree by students and educators for years. The purpose of this research is to determine the optimal time and delivery method of the three presented (fully module, module with a traditional lecture component, and fully on-line) for teaching remedial mathematics. This is accomplished by comparing pass rates. First, pass rates are compared to determine if there is a statistically significant difference between pass rates in the two models for teaching remedial mathematics (pre-requisite and co-requisite). Next, pass rates are compared to determine if there is a statistically significant difference …

Education On The Inside: Incarcerated Students' Perceptions Of Correctional Education Programs, Stephanie Cage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The United States has alarmingly high incarceration and recidivism rates. Many of those incarcerated have less education than their general population counterparts. Correctional education programs have a proven ability to reduce incarceration and recidivism rates by helping rehabilitate people. Current research on incarcerated students primarily focuses on the external benefits of correctional education programs such as recidivism. A limited amount of research is represented in the literature on incarcerated students’ perceptions about their academic experiences. The purpose of this study was to explore incarcerated students’ perceptions regarding their correctional education experiences. The study particularly investigated students at a Louisiana correctional …

Multiple Stimuli Responsive Drug Delivery System Based On Magnetic Nanoparticle Embedded Chitosan Microbeads, Ankita Mohapatra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Direct drug administration has several shortcomings such as low circulation concentration due to rapid flushing by the immune system, non-specificity to target tissue and inefficient delivery to avascular sites. A widely adopted solution to these limitations is to sterically shield the drug from a harsh in vivo environment by encapsulation in a biocompatible, bio-degradable substrate. These Drug Delivery System (DDS) can be localized at the site and release drug gradually until the drug reserve is exhausted. However, the efficiency of this DDS can be further enhanced by designing them to elute drug in response to an external stimulus. This enhancement …

Problems In Extremal Graph Theory, Kamil Popielarz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation consists of six chapters concerning a variety of topics in extremal graph theory.Chapter 1 is dedicated to the results in the papers with Antnio Giro, Gbor Mszros, and Richard Snyder. We say that a graph is path-pairable if for any pairing of its vertices there exist edge disjoint paths joining the vertices in eachpair. We study the extremal behavior of maximum degree and diameter in some classes of path-pairable graphs. In particular we show that a path-pairable planar graph must have a vertex of linear degree.In Chapter 2 we present a joint work with Antnio Giro and Teeradej …

Simulation Of Strong Ground Motions Using The Stochastic Summation Of Small To Moderate Earthquakes As Green's Functions, Farhad Sedaghati

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Central and eastern North America (CENA) is considered to be a moderately active region, but it suffers from a lack of recorded earthquakes in the magnitude-distance range of engineering interest. In this dissertation, region-specific synthetic strong ground motion time histories are generated using a new and improved stochastic summation of Green's functions method (SSGFM) for CENA. In addition, the synthetics are used to develop ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for this region. For simulating large earthquakes, considering the effects of finite-fault rupture such as rupture propagation, asperities, and fault-site geometry (saturation effect) are significant and influential. The SSGFM is a …

Teachers Perceptions Of Implementing M-Learning Using Pedagogical Approaches, James Albert Barnes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Mobile learning (m-learning) has begun its transition from focusing on technology devices to pedagogical approaches that guide the design, development, and implementation of teaching and learning. The trends in the literature have identified pedagogical approaches, professional development and instructional practices that have improved academic achievement with teachers abilities and perceptions as a contributing factor. However, a gap remains about the degree to which teachers effectively integrate and implement m-learning to make a significant impact on teaching and learning. To address this gap, this research was a causal comparative study examining two schools perceptions of implementing m-learning after receiving differing types …

The Relationship Between The Perceived Implementation Of Green's Four-Dimensional Model Of Educational Leadership And Students' Proficiency In Basic Skills, Josie Currie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this study is to investigate relationships between elementary-level educators perceptions of their schools implementation of Greens four-dimensional model of educational leadership and the percentage of students proficient in Language Arts and in Mathematics, averaged over three years. Represented by responses to twenty items selected from the 2013 state-wide administration of the Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning survey in Tennessee (TELL Tennessee), school-level means at 1,187 elementary schools were obtained for each of four five-item scales that were intended to measure each dimension of Greens model. Along with a grand mean computed across all twenty items and denoting …

Three Voices, One Goal: A Narrative Study Of High School Facilitators' Experience In A Community Of Practice, Ebony Briggs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Special education and general education teachers must work collaboratively in a single classroom that serves the diverse needs of all children due to federal regulations such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004. Evidence-based practices that foster collaboration are scarce. The purpose of this narrative inquiry research was to explore the perceptions of a team of educators which consists of a general education teacher, special education teacher, and an administrator on how their experience of participating in a community of practice is beneficial to addressing collaboration needs of team …

Learning From Errors In The Adaptive Mathematics Tutoring System, Jun Xie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Errors are considered to play a crucial role in facilitating self-reflection and knowledge acquisition. Nevertheless, nowadays how students benefit from errors in learning is still open to debate. That is, help is superior to practice for learning from errors or not. The goal of this dissertation is to systematically explore how students use help and practice to learn from errors in ALEKS (i.e. Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces), an adaptive math learning system. Based on the theoretical framework, the learning phase theory, this dissertation defined strategies to learn from errors in three types: help strategy (requesting worked examples in …

Multi-Period Transportation Network Investment Decision-Making Using Link Ranking And An Econometric Framework, Khademul Haque

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Prospective transportation infrastructure projects take numerous years of planning before they are scheduled for construction. Moreover, limited funds are forcing national, regional and local governments to carefully prioritize their investments. Therefore, reliable quantitative tools are needed to help decision-makers choose their investments so that the allocation of available resources is optimized. Prioritization of projects over a multi-period planning horizon is a difficult task given a limited budget and an exhaustive set of possible combinations of when each project will be scheduled for construction. Although multi-period network investment is studied in the literature, its application by public agencies is limited because …

Effect Of Virtual Reality On Motivation And Achievement Of Middle-School Students, Michelle Bowen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The introduction of low-cost hand-held devices has provided K-12 educators with the opportunity to teach using virtual reality (VR). However, the efficacy of VR in K-12 classrooms for teaching and learning has not been established. Therefore, the purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the influence of virtual reality field trips on middle-school students social studies academic achievement and motivation. The district chosen for the study is in a rural, economically depressed county, where generational poverty persists. However, the district has a history of being an early adopter of technology. Participants included 76 seventh-grade students at two middle schools, …

Relations Between Reading Motivation And Reading Skills In Students With A Reading Disability, Jennifer Maria Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of the present study was to examine the short-term longitudinal relations between two constructs of reading motivation (reading self-concept and value of reading) and two aspects of reading (reading fluency and reading comprehension) in a clinical sample of elementary school students diagnosed with a SLD in reading. Skills in reading fluency and comprehension were assessed by the Gray Oral Reading Tests, Fifth Edition (GORT-5; Wiederholt & Bryant, 2012) and reading motivation was assessed by the Motivation to Read Profile- Revised (MRP-R; Malloy, Marinak, Gambrell, & Mazzoni, 2013). A cross-lag panel analysis was used to examine autoregressive paths (the …

Training Adult Volunteers To Judge In Competitive, Non-Traditional Educational Environments Using Online Learning, Tod Traughber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the comparative change in reported self-efficacy between an experimental group using an interactive, online instructional module and a control group using a traditional handbook. Three research questions were addressed in the study:1. To what extent does completion of an interactive, online training module, as compared to completion of a training manual, affect the self-efficacy of potential volunteer first-time academic competition judges to fulfill their role as a judge after controlling for initial self-efficacy?2. To what extent does completion of an interactive, online training module, as compared to completion of a training …

Chinese Middle And High School Students' Emotion Regulation: Intrapersonal And Interpersonal Approaches, Hui Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The overall goal of this dissertation was to examine the adaptivenss of eight emotion regulation strategies for Chinese middle and high school students. The adaptiveness was evaluated by using an intrapersonal approach that focused on individual students in Study 1 and by using an interpersonal approach that focused on same-sex best friend dyads in Study 2. By using an intrapersonal approach, Study 1 found that students chose to use developing competencies, redirecting attention, expressive suppression, and seeking social support more often than the other four strategies. Among the eight emotion regulation strategies, developing competencies was the most adaptive and venting …

Cyclic Performance Improvement Of Existing Steel Semi-Rigid Connections Using Post-Tensioning, Sepehr Movaghati

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

A practical retrofitting method for enhancing the inelastic performance of existing semi-rigid steel connections is introduced and verified in this study. The method entails adding high-strength steel strands parallel to the beam, passing them through the column, and anchoring and post-tensioning them properly. To verify the proposed retrofitting system, firstly, a series of semi-rigid bolted connections was experimentally tested under monotonic and cyclic loadings. Then, the post-tensioning system was applied on the connections with the same geometry, and the cyclic responses were studied under different post-tensioning parameters. Following the recommended setup explained in this study, a locally post-tensioned (PT) structural …

Regression Models For Analyzing Clustered Multinomial And Continuous Outcomes Under The Assumption Of Exchangeability, Peter Ogutu Ngutu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

We derive an expression for the joint distribution of exchangeable multinomial randomvariables and continous random variables for the purpose of analyzing clusteredmultinomial and continous data. In the past such clustered discrete and continous datacould be analyzed with the use of quasi-likelihood procedures and generalized estimatingequations to estimate marginal mean response parameters. Recently, the idea ofexchangeability has been introduced to handle such data but research has focusedprimarily on analysis of clustered binary and continous outcomes. In applications to areassuch as developmental toxicity studies, where discrete and contionus measures arerecorded on each fetus, the discrete data may not necessarily be binary. For …

Presenting A Hybrid Processing Mining Framework For Automated Simulation Model Generation, Susan Mckeever, Mohammad Messabah

Conference papers

Recent advances in information technology systems have enabled organizations to store tremendous amounts of business process data. Process mining offers a range of algorithms and methods to analyze and extract metadata for these processes. This paper presents a novel approach to the hybridization of process mining techniques with business process modelling and simulation methods. We present a generic automated end-to-end simulation framework that produces unbiased simulation models using system event logs. A conceptual model and various meta-data are derived from the logs and used to generate the simulation model. We demonstrate the efficacy of our framework using a business process …

Pathways To The Cosmos:The Alignment Of Megalithic Tombs In Ireland And Atlantic Europe, Frank Prendergast, Gabriel Cooney

Articles

Gabriel Cooney and Frank Prendergast present the context of and outline the approach to this one-day conference organised by Archaeology Ireland on behalf of the National Monuments Service at the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Office of Public Works to mark the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. The event will take place at Dublin Castle on 15 September 2018.

Survivability Strategies For Emerging Wireless Networks With Data Mining Techniques: A Case Study With Netlogo And Rapidminer, Ivan Garcia-Magarino, Geraldine Gray, Raquel Lacuesta, Jaime Lloret

Articles

Emerging wireless networks have brought Internet and communications to more users and areas. Some of the most relevant emerging wireless technologies are Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, Long-Term Evolution Advanced, and ad hoc and mesh networks. An open challenge is to ensure the reliability and robustness of these networks when individual components fail. The survivability and performance of these networks can be especially relevant when emergencies arise in rural areas, for example supporting communications during a medical emergency. This can be done by anticipating failures and finding alternative solutions. This paper proposes using big data analytics techniques, such as decision …

Generating Diverse And Meaningful Captions: Unsupervised Specificity Optimization For Image Captioning, Annika Lindh, Robert J. Ross, Abhijit Mahalunkar, Giancarlo Salton, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

Image Captioning is a task that requires models to acquire a multi-modal understanding of the world and to express this understanding in natural language text. While the state-of-the-art for this task has rapidly improved in terms of n-gram metrics, these models tend to output the same generic captions for similar images. In this work, we address this limitation and train a model that generates more diverse and specific captions through an unsupervised training approach that incorporates a learning signal from an Image Retrieval model. We summarize previous results and improve the state-of-the-art on caption diversity and novelty.

We make our …

On The Structure Of Dense Graphs, And Other Extremal Problems, Richard Snyder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Extremal combinatorics is an area of mathematics populated by problems that are easy to state, yet often difficult to resolve. The typical question in this field is the following: What is the maximum or minimum size of a collection of finite objects (e.g., graphs, finite families of sets) subject to some set of constraints? Despite its apparent simplicity, this question has led to a rather rich body of work. This dissertation consists of several new results in this field.The first two chapters concern structural results for dense graphs, thus justifying the first part of my title. In the first chapter, …

Attaining Scientific Literacy Through A Rhetoric Of Science Composition Pedagogy, Stephen C. Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

For the past sixty years, acquiring scientific literacy has proven to be a daunting task in education, especially for undergraduate nonscience majors. Although some education scholars have recognized the importance and use of arguments to teach science, these pedagogical practices often are aimed at primary school children rather than college students or involve reporting science experiments rather than actually studying or constructing arguments about issues related to science.However, in this dissertation, I contend that educators often neglect a more available tool that not only examines arguments concerning scientific issues but also demonstrates the very heart of scientific literacy: critical thinking. …

Principals Attitudes Toward The Inclusion Of Students With Disabilities In The General Education Classroom, Kendale Marquis White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of principals as it relates to the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education setting. This study replicates and extends research in relation to principals and their attitudes toward inclusion. In addition, the researcher determined whether a relationship, if any, exists between demographic variables and their attitudes regarding the most appropriate placement for students with disabilities. A self-reporting survey entitled the Principals and Inclusion Survey was used to collect the data from 105 principals. Results revealed principals training and experience were limited, principals supported inclusive placements for students …

Statistical Analysis Of Seismicity Catalog Of Alaska: The Mysteries Of The Timeseries, Shima Azizzadehroodpish

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Abstract:This dissertation presents the results of applying three independent statistical techniques on the seismic catalog of Alaska and Aleutian subduction zone. I perform Visibility Graph Analysis and Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis respectively on the seismic catalogs of several defined seismogenic zones in surface and depth. Forecasting earthquake hazard is based on the assumption that the Gutenberg-Richter relation represents the size distribution of future earthquakes and we show that the series produced by these methods have properties with close correlation with the b-value of the Gutenberg-Richter law. Visibility graph analysis basically maps a time series into the networks of nodes and …

Automated Artifact Removal And Detection Of Mild Cognitive Impairment From Single Channel Electroencephalography Signals For Real-Time Implementations On Wearables, Saleha Khatun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a technique for recording asynchronous activation of neuronal firing inside the brain with non-invasive scalp electrodes. EEG signal is well studied to evaluate the cognitive state, detect brain diseases such as epilepsy, dementia, coma, autism spectral disorder (ASD), etc. In this dissertation, the EEG signal is studied for the early detection of the Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). MCI is the preliminary stage of Dementia that may ultimately lead to Alzheimers disease (AD) in the elderly people. Our goal is to develop a minimalistic MCI detection system that could be integrated to the wearable sensors. This contribution has …

Middle School Teachers Perceptions Of The Factors That Support Or Impede The Inclusion Of Reading Strategies Into Classroom Instruction, Angelica S. Burks-Henley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This interpretive case study took place in an urban middle school where content area math and science teachers engaged in content area reading instruction designed to promote students reading development in their content area classes. Participants included eight teachers across grade levels six, seven and eight. Teachers participated in a Background Information Questionnaire designed to obtain their perceptions, literacy beliefs and literacy practices; focus group interviews created to explore their perceptions related to the key themes in the literature regarding content area reading instruction; structured one-on-one interviews to corroborate researcher interpretations of the initial data analysis and to collect individual …

Investigating Inquiry-Based Learning: Teachers Perspectives At A K-12 School, Rezaul Chowdhury

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is receiving a lot of attention and consideration as a modern instructional method. Teaching strategies that actively involve students in the learning process through inquiry instructions are more likely to increase conceptual understanding than of strategies that rely on more passive techniques. The purpose of this study is to better understand how a selected group of five teachers perceive and practice inquiry-based learning (IBL) as an instructional method in their classrooms across all disciplines at one K-12 school. This study employed a case study methodology to better understand teachers perceptions, practices, and technology integration, while using IBL …

Commencement 2018 (Program And Video), Illinois Wesleyan University

Commencement Ceremonies

The recording embedded here was posted to YouTube by University Communications without the remarks of Kirk S. Schroeder '84, honorary doctorate recipient. A recording of that portion of the ceremony is available in the University Archives.

Earthquake Early Warning System (Eews) For The New Madrid Seismic Zone, Luke Philip Ogweno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Part 1: Research in the last decade on Earthquake Early Warning Systems (EEWSs) has undergone rapid development in terms of theoretical and methodological advances in real time data analysis, improved telemetry, and computer technology and is becoming a useful tool for practical real time seismic hazard mitigation. The main focus of this study is to undertake a feasibility study of an EEWS for the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) from the standpoint of source location. Magnitude determination is addressed in a separate paper. The NMSZ covers a wide area with several heavily populated cities, vital infrastructures, and facilities located within …