Digital Commons Network^™

Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2017/2018, Tennessee. Department Of Safety & Homeland Security.

Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Gearing Up For College, Beatriz Amy Huerta

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Sadly, in the Greenfield community, there are exceedingly high rates of individuals who lack post-secondary education. The Census (2010), states that only 4.8% of persons age 25 years and older in Greenfield, CA obtain a bachelor’s degree. At Greenfield High School over the past five years, an average of 16 students enrolled at a CSU campus (The California State University, 2018). In efforts to promote higher education, Gear Up (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) empowers students and families of the Monterey County by fostering equitable access to postsecondary education and career readiness through relevant rigorous academic and …

Improving Parent Involvement, Judith Sanchez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The capstone’s site is Greenfield High School (GHS) and is located in Greenfield, CA. One of the concerning issues at GHS is the low rate of parent involvement. There are plenty of events that Greenfield High School puts together for parents and students to attend, as well as, a good number of educational workshops and informational meetings during the school year. Unfortunately, the attendance of parents participating during these events is really low. There are about 1,200 students enrolled in GHS and about 50% of parents participate during the school year. According to the Department for Education and Skills, researchers …

Performance In Edm - A Study And Analysis Of Djing And Live Performance Artists, Jose Alejandro Magana

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

As electronic dance music (EDM) culture has risen from the underground to the mainstream, the term “DJ” is often used colloquially to describe anyone performing any kind of electronic dance music. However, distinctions can be made between the mix-DJ who performs with turntables and software and the live performance artist (live P.A.) who performs electronic music via hardware or a combination of hardware, software and traditional acoustic/electric instruments. The use of analog electronic instruments, DJ Controllers, MIDI controllers, and software used in live performances and DJ sets will be examined critically, along with how the tools and techniques used in …

The Impact Of Limited Internet And Computer Access Within An Urban Community, Marie Lizbeth Alonzo

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Loaves, Fishes and Computers (LFC) is a non-profit organization located in Monterey County which focuses on helping low-income individuals obtain computers and other services, such as low-cost internet access and technical support, to help bridge the technology gap in the county. It has been seen that there is a lack of accessibility to the Internet and computers within the low-income community of Gonzales, CA. The impact of limited accessibility within the community is affecting the way individuals gain the knowledge necessary in attaining their goals and becoming self-sufficient. This project helped collect data to build a collaboration to help bridge …

Resource/Activity Guide For Casa Advocates, Kathreen Lopez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

CASA of Monterey County is a public non-profit organization that supports the foster youth population in “pursuing safe, permanent homes” through a volunteer advocacy program. With that being said, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) youth have many needs and challenges. Some advocates feel unsure about how to adequately advocate and connect with their CASA child throughout their advocacy because there was no easy access to resources, activities, and community events information. For this reason, the resource/activity guide website for CASA advocates has been dedicated to providing advocates with a central place to access resources on services for CASA kids in …

Music Rehabilitation Programs In California State Prisons, Sarah Hanson

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

With 2.3 million people in the United States prison system, reducing recidivism rates in prison is crucial. One of the most prevalent ways California has been able to reduce recidivism and encourage less punitive measure on prisoners is through music rehabilitation programs. This research explores the current prison population, history of music rehabilitation in prisons, positive and negative psychological effects music can have on inmates, an active music rehabilitation program (Dance Kaiso), and how inmates have been utilizing these programs. By exploring the current prison population and how music rehabilitation began in the United States and California, there’s a clearer …

Core Advocate Training Information, Paola Sauceda

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

CASA of Santa Cruz County is a non-profit 501(c) 3 agency that trains and supports court appointed special advocates for foster children from newborn to 18 years of age. Advocates are volunteers who are required to go through thirty-five hours of core service training, and CASA offers four core trainings throughout the year. Volunteers are required to commit to seeing the child for two to four hours a week, for up to two years. However, every case varies in length, and at times a case may require additional hours per week and may go on longer than two years. There …

Creating Access With Technology, Guadalupe Lopez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Encompass Head Start and Early Head Starts main office located in Watsonville, CA, is where the behind the scenes work for the 18 toddler sites within Santa Cruz county is performed; including designing methods for family recruitment. Encompass Head Start and Early Head Start has been designated as Chronically Under Enrolled for its continuous trend of under enrollment in its programs, with Early Head Starts Home Base/ Home Visitors program impacted the most. An online form was implemented to add to the methods of collecting applications for Encompass Early Head Start Home Base/ Home Visitors program. Families will have more …

Overtone Singing: History, Development, And Influence In Contemporary Music, Jocelyn Black

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Overtone singing also known as Throat singing, is an ancient vocal technique where a soloist produces two different tones through the resonance created by the airflow of sound through the lungs, throat, and mouth. Often associated with the Tuva population of Central Asia, this art form is also practiced by the Inuit women of North America, and in South Africa by women of the Xhosa tribe. Overtone singing is an integral part of each cultural tradition and may vary in style and meaning across cultures. Traditional performances of Overtone singing include: celebratory ceremonies, tribal dances, games, and meditation. In the …

Breaking Through The Echo Chamber: Teaching Students To Use Technology For College Research And Global Citizenry, Kaitlin Drake

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Preparing high school students for college level courses is vital to their success in higher education. Information literacy and digital literacy are necessary skills for college students in order to conduct their research for their classes. My own research was a compilation of scholarly articles and books focused on digital literacy, information literacy, and the issues surrounding these terms to understand what today’s students need in the classroom to succeed as young researchers. Search engines like Google operate under a facade of being an unbiased source. In reality, they are a for profit company whose search results go through an …

Take Action Curriculum, Christina Yasay

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Safe Ag Safe Schools (SASS) is a coalition of 30-plus organizations, and individuals who work together to reduce pesticide exposure to Monterey County residents. Despite efforts to reduce pesticide use near schools, large amounts of drift-prone pesticides continue to be applied near our most vulnerable population. Our children are the ones who attend these schools and suffer the consequences. The Take Action curriculum was created to increase knowledge on pesticides while encouraging students to be civically engaged in their community. The Take Action Curriculum was taught at El Sausal Middle School to an 8th grade history class for 4 days. …

Let’S Talk About It: Special Education Communication Barriers With General Education Teachers, Claire Going, Edith Diaz, Clarissa Carrillo

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The focus of this Capstone Project is the communication barriers between Special Education and General Education educators. The importance of this issue is the lack of time given in order for all subject departments to have efficient time to collaborate during the school year. The negative effects on teachers are then reflected on students academic achievements. Unfortunately, this has issue has been around for decades yet no effective methods have been put in place. Methods that have been considered are more teacher training, peer-mediated instruction, and time allotment between Special Education and General Education teachers. Data was collected from interviews …

Friends Of Walnut Avenue, Elena Owens

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Walnut Avenue Family & Women’s Center (Walnut Avenue) is a nonprofit agency that provides services to women, children, and families in Santa Cruz County. Programs include domestic violence services, early childhood education, and youth engagement. To provide these services, Walnut Avenue depends heavily on restricted funds, but this can be an unstable revenue stream. If an unexpected cost arises, restricted funds designated to a specific program cannot be reappropriated to alleviate the expense. Losing a critical grant may also force an organization to make cuts in programs or staff, impacting the quality of services. In order to expand revenue sources …

Free Trade And Corporate Social Responsibility: Ethical Dilemmas In Global Economic Development, Sarah Papion

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Through the lens of the free-trade-optimist, it is black and white: corporations bring jobs, and jobs equal a happy and healthy economy. A major oversight in this neoliberal Utopian ideology is that corporations are not in the business of building communities, nor do they have an interest in keeping their operations stationary enough to allow economic growth to occur over a span of years. Corporations abandon communities as quickly as they arrive to find their next cheap labor hub. Quite contradictory to the original purpose of free trade, economic growth in Free Trade Zones is not long term or secure. …

Swiping Your Life Away Failing To Find Love Through Dating Apps, Jesus A Ramirez Martinez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This essay focuses on examining the dating experience and interactions in the age of digital technology, specifically where social disempowered users of dating applications tend to reinforce systemic social oppression. This research draws from literature about communication ethics, critical theory studies, digital media studies and includes personal observations and experiences. Even though some apps have allowed minorities; the LGBTQ community, people of color (POC) and other groups, to interact in a platform where they share common interests, there are still some dating apps which are more mainstream. Dating within the same platform where ethical communication and intent has been swayed …

The Representation Of Latin@S In Media: A Negation Of Blackness, Yadira Nieves-Pizarro

PALARA: Publication of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association

The denial of African ancestry in the articulation of Latin@ identity is evident in Latin@ media in the United States. Furthermore, there is limited representation of Afro-Latin@s in current programming even though they claim to appeal to all Latin@s in the US and in Latin America. This trend has its roots in Latin American discourse of mestizaje and reproduces itself in Latin American media content that is exported to the diaspora in the United States. This article reviews the sociological reasons for the invisibility of Afro descendants in Latin America and the Hispanic Caribbean. Finally, this manuscript will account for …

Developing A Python-Based Workflow To Modernize User Interaction With Legacy Programs, Robert H. Hunter

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the process of refactoring legacy scientific software to improve overall usability and the ease with which a researcher can modify the software. The legacy code is Fortran code used to run different mechanical loading scenarios on a user-defined material subroutine. Each material is represented by a Fortran subroutine, and a separate Fortran program was used to call the material. To upgrade this program without sacrificing too much performance and functionality, the material subroutine is compiled into a Python library using f2py, and the driver code is translated into Python. This paper covers this upgrade process, the impact …

Susceptibility And Resilience To Cyber Threat: Findings From A Scenario Decision Program To Measure Secure And Insecure Computing Behavior, Carl F. Weems, Irfan Ahmed, Golden G. Richard, Justin D. Russell, Erin L. Neill

Faculty Publications

Interest in the individual differences underlying end user computer security behavior has led to the development of a multidisciplinary field of research known as behavioral information security. An important gap in knowledge and the motivation for this research is the development of ways to measure secure and insecure cyber behavior for research and eventually practice. Here we report a study designed to develop a technique for assessing secure and insecure cyber behavior for broad research use. The Susceptibility and Resilience to Cyber Threat (SRCT) is an immersive scenario decision program. The SRCT measures susceptibility to cyber threat and malicious behavior …

A Novel Ultrasound Imaging Technique Using Random Signals, Anahita Khalilzadeh

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Ultrasound imaging has been used extensively because of its benign nature and relatively low cost implementation. The most common approach for forming an image is Brightness Mode (B-Mode), which uses an array with dynamic focusing. Focus is performed through Phase Shifters that are bulky and complicated components which increases the device cost.

This research describes a new method to form an Ultrasound image, without relying on phase shifting. The proposed method offers a lower cost solution compared to the B-Mode systems and overcomes some of their inherent limitations.

Student-Centered Collaborative Classrooms And Critical Thinking Skills, Becky Leonard

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

The purpose of this action research was to determine if implementing a student-centered, collaborative classroom would have a positive effect on student critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Data was collected at six points during the study. Three set were collected prior to the intervention and three sets were collected after. After analyzing the data, the research suggests that students working in peer collaborative groups can have a positive impact of their problem-solving strategies and improve their critical thinking skills.

Water Fun At Exploration Station Final Design Report, Brandon Dean Puccini, Sarah Rose Means, Natasha Tamlin O'Connell-Mackay

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

The Sea Ranch: Unforeseen Failures And Statewide Successes Of An Ecologically Conscious Coastal Community, Robert Daley

Senior Theses

The term “residential development” or “planned community” brings to mind images of a stereotypical suburbia. The planned community of The Sea Ranch, along the Sonoma County coast in Northern California is a direct challenge to the suburban ideal. Construction of the nearly 1500 homes began in the late 1960s and continues to present day. All of the homes must meet specific design requirements including being ecologically sound and they must fit within the landscape. The strict architectural elements is what provides the distinct look of the community. The construction of a housing development along a ten-mile strip of untouched and …

Improving Ultra-Wideband Localization By Detecting Radio Misclassification, Cory A. Mayer

Master's Theses

The Global Positioning System (GPS) and other satellite-based positioning systems are often a key component in applications requiring localization. However, accurate positioning in areas with poor GPS coverage, such as inside buildings and in dense cities, is in increasing demand for many modern applications. Fortunately, recent developments in ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology have enabled precise positioning in places where it was not previously possible by utilizing multipath-resistant wide band pulses.

Although ultra-wideband signals are less prone to multipath interference, it is still a bottleneck as increasingly ambitious projects continue to demand higher precision. Some UWB radios include on-board detection of …

Removing Barriers For Contemporary Student Success, Amy Beth Rell, Elisa Robyn

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This paper examines the contemporary student in higher education and how to position this student for success. Through analysis of Leviticus chapter nineteen verse fourteen (19:14), which states “You shall not curse the deaf, and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind”, the authors examine how to remove barriers often placed in front of the contemporary post-secondary student. Utilizing the analogy of the contemporary student and the institution of higher education being “blind” and/or “deaf” as in the Biblical verse, the authors propose institutional responses and institutional repercussions that can remove barriers and thereby allow the contemporary …

Mutual Relations Of Macroeconomic Balances – Conclusions From International Comparisons, Jerzy Żyżyński

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

We are still witnessing many misconceptions stemming from misunderstanding of macroeconomic conditions upon which macroeconomic stability relies. The economy is a complex mechanism consisting of great many communicating vessels between which the income and expenditure of a variety of entities are flowing. According to the most synthetic macroeconomic approach, in the case of an open economy, such flows make an arrangement of three macroeconomic balances which are interrelated by the following equation, discussed hundreds of times in macroeconomic literature: (G – T) = (S – I) + (Z – X). The very essence of the conditions of the macroeconomic stability …

Changes In Value Added Tax In The Context Of Counteracting Tax Avoidance And Tax Evasion At Years 2016–2018, Robert Wolański

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

The article discusses the problem of legal changes in VAT introduced in 2016–2018, which counteracting the avoidance and evasion of this tax. The purpose of this article is to determine causes, methods and effects of introducing these changes. To realize the purpose of article, as a research method, used the overview of selected literature, legal acts and statistical data on tax evasion and avoidance. As the result of the article is the verification of following thesis: the legitimacy of choosing VAT to reduce the tax gap, simultaneously increasing budget revenues; changes in VAT lead to a reduction of avoidance and …

Creative Corporate Communication In Social Media – How To Effectively Build Relations And Receive High Quality Resumes From Younger Generations, Barbara Drapała

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Nowadays, companies increasingly often face the dilemma of how to reach and recruit younger people. The goal of this paper is to present different values, important for every generation still active on the labour market, and to present the content attributes influencing the response to recruitment posts and the number of obtained resumes. The paper uses quality analyses in the form of a case study in order to analyse social media recruitment campaigns of the chosen marketing agency. The discussion is divided into three parts. The first part covers the analysis of the form, type of content and message, used …

The Optimum Cognitive Load Of The Employee, Grażyna Wieczorkowska, Magdalena Sieradzka

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

The goal of the current article is an attempt to synthesize the knowledge on the consequences of cognitive overload/underload of the employees on their work outcomes. The course of the argument has been organized in the form of 4 theses. (1) Employee performance depends curvilinearly on the level of arousal (Yerkes i Dodson, 1908). This relationship is affected by the size of the available cognitive resources. The effect of emotions on the level of arousal depends on their type. (2) The magnitude of tonic arousal is primarily defined by the temperamental traits. The relationship between the arousal level and the …

Men’S Cosmetics: Challenging Conventional Marketing Wisdom, Dae Ryun Chang

Asian Management Insights

The marketing of men’s cosmetics is challenging conventional wisdom in Asia.

Men and beauty seem to be two contradictory domains because we often rely on an outdated assumption that men only want to appear manly and nothing more. The reality for modern men, however, is significantly different from that perception.