Digital Commons Network^™

A Space For Learning: An Analysis Of Research On Active Learning Spaces, Robert Talbert, Anat Mor-Avi

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) are learning spaces specially designed to optimize the practice of active learning and amplify its positive effects in learners from young children through university-level learners. As interest in and adoption of ALCs has increased rapidly over the last decade, the need for grounded research in their effects on learners and schools has grown proportionately. In this paper, we review the peer-reviewed published research on ALCs, dating back to the introduction of “studio” classrooms and the SCALE-UP program up to the present day. We investigate the literature and summarize findings on the effects of ALCs on learning …

Habitat Use Of The Climate-Sensitive Snowshoe Hare (Lepus Americanus) In The Manistee National Forest In Michigan’S Lower Peninsula, Spencer D. West

Masters Theses

Snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) are a wide-ranging lagomorph that are important forest herbivores and a popular game species throughout their range. Across the southern boundary of their geographic range, snowshoe hares are experiencing population declines and possible extirpation due to increased predation pressure driven by climate change induced camouflage mismatch, competition for forage, degraded and fragmented habitat. One method of reversing the negative trends in snowshoe hare distribution is to increase and improve available hare habitat. A specific habitat analysis for local regions will most effectively advise managers how to target habitat management. I radio-collared 11 snowshoe hares in the …

Chapter 12: Dementia: Detection, Assessment, And Intervention, Sally Pelon

Books and Contributions to Books

This chapter considers various forms of dementia as well as the assessment and diagnosis process from a uniquely social work perspective. It also explores various psychosocial and practical interventions that may utilized by social workers as they support and assist both those with a dementia diagnosis and their loved ones.

Chapter 14: Hospice And End-Of-Life Care, Sally Pelon, Brandon Youker, M. Paola Leon

Books and Contributions to Books

This chapter explores end-of-life issues and concerns as well as the hospice movement’s role in assisting terminally ill individuals. Specific social work assessment and interventions tools are offered considered as well as controversial issues in end-of-life care.

Community Youth Development Service-Learning: Trauma-Informed And Culturally Responsive, Philip Monte Verde, Marie Watkins, Donovan Enriquez, Shalym Nater-Vazquez

Journal of Youth Development

As the demographics of the United States change, it is important for youth workers to be able to adapt. Most established forms of youth services model the norms and values of the dominant Western culture. To best engage with a complete spectrum of youth, it is vital to take their backgrounds into account. This means being trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and mindful of serving the whole community. This article demonstrates how these salient frameworks informed a partnership between service-learning university students and Puerto Rican youth who were displaced by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Leisure Experiences And Social Support Systems Of Latino Students With Daca Status, Austin Langley, Gwynn Powell, Toni Liechty, William Haller

Journal of Youth Development

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the leisure experiences of undocumented Latino young adults with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status in order to note any potential links between leisure experience and success in reaching higher education. This population faces a unique set of challenges in their transition to adulthood and their pursuit of and access to higher education. Research suggests that 3 common factors among undocumented young adults who have been successful in reaching higher education are extra-familial mentors, positive social supports, and supplementary educational programming. This study used these 3 factors …

Immigrant Youth In Juvenile Facilities: A State-By-State Review Of Recreation Programming, Maria León

Journal of Youth Development

Recent national events have increased attention towards immigrant youth. Youth placed in juvenile justice facilities go through processes overseen by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the Unaccompanied Children’s Program. While in placement youth are exposed to risk factors and face cultural barriers being in a new country. As publicity of the incarceration of immigrant youth increases, there is an emphatic need for researchers to examine the quality of care youth experience in placement facilities. One of the areas that has not been critically investigated is recreation programming in juvenile justice facilities. Recreation programs …

University Of California 4-H Latino Initiative: Experiences Of Bicultural And Bilingual Staff, Steven Worker, María Fábregas Janeiro, Claudia Diaz Carrasco, Katherine Soule

Journal of Youth Development

We report data from the first year of an initiative to engage Latino youth and families in the 4-H Youth Development Program, managed by the University of California. Through qualitative questionnaires and focus group interviews, we analyzed experiences of 6 new bilingual and bicultural program staff, hired specifically to implement youth development programming to reach Latino youth. Staff reported a steep learning curve, with competing demands to build relationships, engage youth, and show results. Lessons learned may help shape activities that other youth development programs may consider in similar efforts.

Social And Emotional Learning In Practice: A Resource Review, Allison Riley

Journal of Youth Development

Youth programs are an important context for social and emotional learning (SEL). To maximize opportunities for the development of skills such as self-management, empathy, and goal setting, youth workers need resources to increase practices that support SEL. Social and Emotional Learning in Practice: A Toolkit of Practical Strategies and Resources, Second Edition is a compilation of tools, templates, and activities that youth development programs can use to (a) enhance staff knowledge of SEL, how their program supports SEL, and their own emotional intelligence; (b) establish expectations, give feedback, and integrate reflection; (c) integrate SEL into program activities; and (d) collect …

Gender And Participating In Capturing Kids’ Hearts On Social Emotional Learning Of Ninth-Grade Students In Arkansas, Angela S. Dischinger

College of Education Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand gender differences in the Social Emotional Learning of students participating in the Capturing Kids’ Hearts program at a high school in Central Arkansas. In this quantitative, causal-comparative strategy study, there were 271 ninth-grade students who participated in a presurvey of social emotional learning outcomes and 476 ninth-grade students who participated in a postsurvey of the same outcomes a year after implementation of the Capturing Kids’ Hearts program. Both samples were drawn using a convenience sampling technique. The Hanover Social Emotional Learning Student Survey instrument was used to obtain data on students’ perception …

Adult Educators At The Crossroads Of Language Learning And Workforce Development: A Qualitative Study Of Teacher Agency, Liz Ging

Graduate Masters Theses

Since the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in 2014, there has been renewed questioning about the nature and purpose of adult education programs in the United States, including English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). The heavy workforce development orientation of the new law is a starker manifestation of trends focused on job training which have been sweeping through the field of adult education for the last few decades. In the midst of these shifts, little research has been done to investigate what the educators charged with meeting these policy goals think about these changes, the …

Social Movements And Charitable Dress: An Examination Of 19th Century Adornment At The Industrial School For Girls In Dorchester, Massachusetts, Madelaine A. Penney

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis is an examination of the 19th century adornment assemblage recovered from the archaeological excavation of two features (1859-1884) at the Industrial School for Girls in Dorchester located at 232 Centre Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The school was administered by middle class Bostonian women that wished to train working class girls from broken, abusive, or unfit homes in professionalized domestic work. This thesis is a rare examination of a site that is single-gendered, and predominantly single-classed and aged with a large collection of documented activity. This investigation was conducted in order to question the values that the administration of …

User Preference In Detail-Enhancement Adjustments For Images Captured By Camera Phones, Pawan Khake

Theses

Most smartphones now come with an integrated camera. Such a smartphone is called a camera phone. Popularity of camera phones is rising and it is expected that 87.8% of United States population will possess camera phones by year 2020 (Euromonitor International, 2017). A camera phone’s workflow for capturing, editing, and sharing images on social media has become very efficient. Its ease of use, accessibility, and automatic exposure settings to capture an image has contributed to its popularity. Camera phones are more compact and convenient than professional DSLR cameras. The popularity of this technology has created a need to study and …

Oblivion, Deema Ali

Theses

Oblivion tells a story of a plain-looking individual named Miech at a gritty, damp subway station en route to catch a movie. As he waits for a train, he faces a troubling memory of a past relationship and is confronted by a projection of his inner emotions that takes the form of a creature. In a desperate attempt to escape from this manifestation, he shifts his attention to his external surroundings only to find that his fellow commuters also have similar creatures. In Oblivion, I address a very human experience through the spectacle of an animated lens. This film is …

Exploring Hls Coding Techniques To Achieve Desired Turbo Decoder Architectures, Thomas Cenova

Theses

Software defined radio (SDR) platforms implement many digital signal processing algorithms. These can be accelerated on an FPGA to meet performance requirements. Due to the flexibility of SDR's and continually evolving communications protocols, high level synthesis (HLS) is a promising alternative to standard handcrafted design flows. A crucial component in any SDR is the error correction codes (ECC). Turbo codes are a common ECC that are implemented on an FPGA due to their computational complexity. The goal of this thesis is to explore the HLS coding techniques required to produce a design that targets the desired hardware architecture and can …

Perceptions Of The Ethics Of Persuasive Technology, Christopher C. Branch

Theses

This thesis explores the perceptions of the ethics of persuasive technology as applied to the design of user interfaces. The intentions are to learn whether consumers of software see persuasion through technology as ethical, whether producers of software view the development of persuasive technology as ethical, and whether these opinions can be reconciled. This research consists of a review of relevant literature on the topic, a survey of software consumers, interviews with software producers, and an analysis of the data, resulting in conclusions intended to influence the responsible design of user interfaces in the future.

The results suggest a number …

Understanding Gaps Between Established Software Engineering Process Knowledge And Its Actual Implementation, Sayantika Bhattacharya

Theses

A part of Software Engineering (SE) Process Improvement is to identify and bridge the gaps between what we learn about established SE Processes and what we actually execute. Students majoring in SE degrees learn about various established SE processes in class and also try to execute them in their academic projects. In our research, we analyze student SE projects and interview these project teams to identify the gaps between what students learn in class about SE processes, what they think they execute, along with understanding the cause behind these gaps.

Modeling Interacting Time-Series Signals, Kantha Girish Gangadhara

Theses

Many real-life systems consist of multiple information signals which might be potentially interacting with each other over time. These interactions can be estimated/modeled using techniques like Pearson Correlation (PC), Time lagged Cross Correlation (TLCC) and windowed TLCC, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), and coupled Hidden Markov Model (cHMM). These techniques, excluding cHMM, cannot capture non-linear interactions and does not work well with multi-variate data. Although cHMM can capture the interactions effectively, it is bound by Markov property and other assumptions like latent variables, prior distributions, etc. These influence the performance of the model significantly. Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is a variant …

Mydoula: An Interactive Screening And Support System For The Prevention Of Perinatal Mood Disorders, Meghan M. Lewis

Theses

Perinatal Mood Disorders (PMDs) are the leading complication in pregnancies today. They stretch beyond the mother and can affect fathers and non-biological parents or guardians as well. The negative implications of these disorders diffuse out through the family into society as a catalyst for hindered child development, attachment disorders, lower cognitive abilities, and behavioral issues. They often have a profoundly negative effect on the family unit such as causing higher rates of violence, divorce, and loss of work. Parents experiencing mood disorders often have lower compliance rates when it comes to safety measures, such as using child car seats and …

An Ar Enhancement Of Printed Educational Resources: Keeping Printed Educational Materials Competitive In A Digital Age, Dax Simitch Warke

Theses

Digital resources have begun to take over our educational system and overshadow traditional printed resources. While these digital resources are becoming increasingly popular research has shown that printed resources have notable benefits that should not be dismissed. Enhancing these printed resources with augmented reality (AR) technology will allow them to be competitive with digital resources while preserving their academic benefits. The readily available smart devices carried in the pockets of most students have already prepared many classrooms for the use of AR. The interactive and visual potential of AR makes it an appealing educational tool that can dramatically improve the …

Methods And Algorithms For Cardiovascular Hemodynamics With Applications To Noninvasive Monitoring Of Proximal Blood Pressure And Cardiac Output Using Pulse Transit Time, Yashar Seyed Vahedein

Theses

Advanced health monitoring and diagnostics technology are essential to reduce the unrivaled number of human fatalities due to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Traditionally, gold standard CVD diagnosis involves direct measurements of the aortic blood pressure (central BP) and flow by cardiac catheterization, which can lead to certain complications. Understanding the inner-workings of the cardiovascular system through patient-specific cardiovascular modeling can provide new means to CVD diagnosis and relating treatment. BP and flow waves propagate back and forth from heart to the peripheral sites, while carrying information about the properties of the arterial network. Their speed of propagation, magnitude and shape are …

What A Night, Jose Hidalgo Thormann

Theses

Producing an audiovisual work is the ability to transform an idea, a story, a script into a tangible product, to bring it closer to the screen. After the production of any project, it is ready to be filmed. In this project, you can find the memories to carry out the production of a fiction short film entitled What A Night. This paper discusses the making of the short film by Jose Hidalgo Thormann to fulfill his thesis requirement to receive his MFA in Film and Animation from the Rochester Institute of Technology

Uvm Verification Of A Floating Point Multiplier, Nicholas J. Marsaw

Theses

Increased design complexity has resulted in the need for efficient verification. The verification process is crucial for discovering and fixing bugs prior to fabrication and system integration. However, as designs increase in complexity, the use of traditional verification techniques with VHDL and Verilog may fall short to provide a proper toolset. Especially when performing verification on designs involving audio signal processing, untested corner cases and bugs may result in significant and sometimes undiscovered processing errors. This paper explores the use of SystemVerilog and the universal verification methodology (UVM) class library to verify a pipelined floating-point multiplier (FMULT) within the adaptive …

Design Of An Efficient Design For Test (Dft) Architecture And It's Verification Using Universal Verification Methodology, Sushmitha Mavuram

Theses

The complexity of the circuit design has been significantly increased from 1980’s till date, and until 80’s, due to less complexity and technology node being down to 180nm, the need for Design for Test (DFT) equipment was not as important. The few System on Chips (SoC) were tested using test patterns sent from the external test equipment. As the technology node shrunk further, the devices became faster and the complexity of S0C’s increased as the chip could accommodate more transistors. The SoC’s have become more vulnerable to physical defects. Quality factor became a major issue, which pushed the industry standard …

A Novel System To Improve Over-Speeding Traffic Violation Ticketing Using A Black Box, Gaurav Mohan Shende

Theses

The paper will discuss the implementation of a novel system using a black box to make the overspeeding ticketing system more robust. The system will provide a physical proof of the drivers driving statistics. The system consist of three parts. First being a black box implementation using a raspberry pi 3b+ on the drivers side. It will track the current speed of the car via OBD-ii port with timestamp. Second being IOT device on the sheriff’s side which can fetch the speed information for past 20 minutes (speed information before vehicle came to compelete stantstill) from the black box and …

Perception Methods For Speed And Separation Monitoring Using Time-Of-Flight Sensor Arrays, Sarthak Arora

Theses

This work presents the development of a perception pipeline to passively track the partial human ground pose in the context of human robot collaboration. The main motivation behind this work is to provide a speed and separation monitoring based safety controller with an estimate of human position on the factory floor. Three time-of-flight sensing rings affixed to the major links of an industrial manipulator are used to implement the aforementioned. Along with a convolutional neural network based unknown obstacle detection strategy, the ground position of the human operator is estimated and tracked using sparse 3-D point inputs. Experiments to analyze …

Did I Tell You About My Date Last Night?, Palwasha Azimi

Theses

did i tell you about my date last night? is an animated short that illustrates a transformation in two characters who are experiencing their date together in different ways.

This film gives a small taste of a larger story that all women go through, whether or not they know it’s happening.

It is a tale of toxic masculinity, gaslighting, consent and entitlement. These things have been ever-present in history but never contested and brought to light on a scale like this. Recently, these issues have risen to the forefront of social change. Now, because of the internet, the support of …

System-Level Eco-Driving (Sled): Algorithms For Connected And Autonomous Vehicles, Hrishikesh Barad

Theses

One of the main reasons for increasing carbon emissions by the transportation sector is the frequent congestion caused in a traffic network. Congestion in transportation occurs when demand for commuting resources exceeds their capacity and with the increasing use of road vehicles, congestion and thereby emissions will continue to rise if proper actions are not taken. Adoption of intelligent transportation systems like autonomous vehicle technology can help in increasing the efficiency of transportation in terms of time, fuel and carbon footprint. This research proposes a System Level Eco-Driving (SLED) algorithm and compares the results, produced by performing microscopic simulations, with …

Prevalence Of Cigarette And “Waterpipe” Smoking Among “Duhok Universities” Students, Masood Abdulkareem Abdurahman, Jader Aziz Jader

Polytechnic Journal

Tobacco use is considered one of the largest public health threats facing the world. Waterpipe smoking (WPS) is a customary and cultural method of tobacco consumption in many parts of the world. This study aimed to find the prevalence of smoking among Duhok city University students in Iraq and to assess students’ knowledge regarding smoking. A cross-sectional, self-completed questionnaire-based study was conducted at four Universities in Duhok city. According to the study’s objectives, scientific and literature colleges from each university are selected. The selection of the number of enrolled colleges and departments is proportionate with total university students’ number. The …

Particle Swarm Optimization On Parallel Computers For Improving The Performance Of A Gait Recognition System, Shahla A. Abdulqader, Hasmek A. Krekorian

Polytechnic Journal

In recent years, the gait recognition (GR) using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm (OSO) has been execute very fast and accurate with single computer, but with the appearance of parallel computing (PC), it was necessary to use this technique to improve the results of GR. This study presents the use of parallel computing approaches (PCA) to implement PSO for a GR system (GRS) to decrease processing while maintaining reconstructed image quality. These approaches are: Codistributor and parallel cluster. Many experiments have been executed with recognition between the two approaches. The experimental results showed that increasing the PSO swarm size, decreasing …