Digital Commons Network^™

A Study Of Support For The Bereaved In The Local Congregation, Ngoy Nadine Ilunga

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The bereaved often face the ongoing challenges of grief with little support from the Church. This study aimed to resource the Church with practical methodologies to help congregants cope with grief. The study examined the troubling issues the bereaved experience after the death of a loved one. Survey data was collected from ten United Methodist members and had lost an immediate family member within the past five years. The measure consisted of interviews and questionnaires. An email and a verbal announcement during church worship service built the sample. Findings reveal that approximately 90% of participants experienced grief and emotional effects …

The Strong Black Woman And Marital Satisfaction: A Mediation Moderation Analysis Of Mental Health And Religiosity, Jessica Christine Wright

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between endorsement of the Strong Black Woman (SBW) schema (stoicism and independence subscales), mental health (depression and anxiety), marital satisfaction, and the potential moderating effects of religiosity (negative and positive religious coping) on the strength and direction of this relationship. Participants consisted of four-hundred and thirty-nine married women who were recruited via Qualtrics. The women completed inventories to assess for SBW endorsement, marital satisfaction, depression, anxiety, and both negative and positive religious coping. The results indicated embracing characteristics of SBW-stoicism predicted decreased marital satisfaction and increased anxiety and depression. In …

Financial Globalization And Its Effects On Developing Countries In Latin America And The Caribbean, Jean Paul Francois

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Financial globalization is characterized as an aggregate concept designated to expand global connections through cross-border financial flows. This quantitative correlational study aimed to examine the relationship between instability from financial globalization and lack of profitability within financial institutions in countries Latin America and the Caribbean. The problem addressed was that instability from financial globalization resulted in the lack of profitability in developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The study extended the research literature to analyze the effect of financial globalization on economic instability and financial development and found a statistically significant relationship between financial globalization and profitability, economic …

Corneal Perforation In Ocular Graft-Versus-Host Disease, Cathy Y Zhang, Asim V Farooq, George J Harocopos, Eric L Sollenberger, Joshua H Hou, Charles S Bouchard, Christine Shieh, Uyen L Tran, Anthony J Lubniewski, Andrew J W Huang, Grace L Paley

2020-Current year OA Pubs

PURPOSE: Corneal perforation is a rare, vision-threatening complication of ocular graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and is not well understood. Our objective was to examine the clinical disease course and histopathologic correlation in patients who progressed to this outcome.

METHODS: This study is a retrospective case series from four academic centers in the United States. All patients received a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) prior to developing ocular GVHD. Variables of interest included patient demographics, time interval between HSCT and ocular events, visual acuity throughout clinical course, corticosteroid and infection prophylaxis regimens at time of corneal perforation, medical/surgical interventions, and histopathology.

RESULTS: …

A Study Of Students’ And Teachers’ Beliefs About Learning English As A Second Language In Hindi Medium Schools In India, Samir Toppo

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study is an exploration of beliefs about learning English held by English as a second Language (ESL) students and teachers from Jharkhand, India. The basic premise of the study is that the learners’ and the instructors’ beliefs about learning a language affect the learning approach, learning strategy use, personal motivation, the choice of instructional material and the instructional method. Thus, beliefs indirectly affect language learning. The assumption of this study is also that the participants in this study hold debilitative beliefs about English language learning. A mixed method research approach was used in this study. The quantitative data …

Widening Spinal Injury Research To Consider All Supraspinal Cell Types: Why We Must And How We Can, Murray G. Blackmore, Eliazbeth Batsel, Pantelis Tsoulfas

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

The supraspinal connectome consists of dozens of neuronal populations that project axons from the brain to the spinal cord to influence a wide range of motor, autonomic, and sensory functions. The complexity and wide distribution of supraspinal neurons present significant technical challenges, leading most spinal cord injury research to focus on a handful of major pathways such as the corticospinal, rubrospinal, and raphespinal. Much less is known about many additional populations that carry information to modulate or compensate for these main pathways, or which carry pre-autonomic and other information of high value to individuals with spinal injury. A confluence of …

Microstructure And Mechanical Properties Of Cast And Hot-Rolled Medium-Carbon Steels Under Isothermal Heat-Treatment Conditions, Byungsue Shin, Kwangyuk Kim, Sung Yi, Sanggyu Choi, Soongkeun Hyun

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this study, the changes in the microstructure and mechanical properties during isothermal heat treatment of cast steel before and after hot deformation were investigated using medium carbon steel with low alloy content. The microstructural characteristics of the cast and hot-rolled medium-carbon steel under isothermal heat-treatment conditions were examined using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy in conjunction with electron backscatter diffraction. The variation in the mechanical properties was evaluated using Rockwell hardness and tensile tests. After maintaining an austenitizing condition at 1200 ◦C for 30 min, an isothermal heat treatment was performed in the range 350–500 ◦C, followed by …

Development Of A Magnetic Confinement Attachment For Enhanced Signal In Handheld Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Soil Analysis, Alfred C. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

Field techniques for characterizing low levels of heavy elements of less than 100 parts per million in soils tend to be unreliable because of the relatively weak signal of these elements and the large, variable background inherent to analyzing soils with minimal sample preparation. To enhance the detection and analysis capability of a handheld laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument, this work investigates the effects of a unique magnetic confinement apparatus on signal intensities, focusing on five iron lines as well as those from actinides in 11 soil samples. The proposed magnetic confinement apparatus achieved over 0.8 T but did not …

Approaches To Improve The Execution Time Of A Quantum Network Simulation, Joseph B. Tippit

Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating quantum networks is an expensive and time-consuming task that benefits from simulation. A potential improvement is to utilize GPUs, namely by leveraging NVIDIA's programming framework, CUDA. To avoid performance pitfalls of higher level languages and programming models such as the so called "two language problem," the Julia Programming Language provides the basis for the development effort. This research develops a two module prototype quantum network simulation framework using GPUs and Julia. Performance of the software is measured and compared against other languages such as MATLAB.

Characterization Of Infrared Metasurface Optics With An Optical Scatterometer, Matthew R. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

An optical scatterometer is used to characterize the infrared scatter of a dielectric metasurface cylindrical lens and two variants of that design. The design uses dielectric nanopillars to create the parabolic phase delay required for lensing; the variants change the length of the nanopillars from the design length of 4 microns to 0.9 and 5.2 microns. Scatter measurements were made at the design wavelength of 4 microns, and at 3.39 and 5 microns. These measurements showed wide-angle scatter greater than that measured for a conventional refractive optic, and that these metasurfaces perform their optical function best at the design wavelength …

Using Custom Ner Models To Extract Dod Specific Entities From Contracts, Kayla P. Haberstich

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Sustainment Center collected 3.7 million contracts onto the Air Force Research Laboratory’s high power computers. They are in the format of a .pdf or scanned document, making them unstructured data. The Data Analytics Resource Team extracted the documents into a textual format for use in further analysis. This thesis looks to extract four DOD specific entities (NSN, Part Number, CAGE Code, and Supplier Name) from the contracts using custom NER models. This newly extracted information will allow the Air Force to identify what parts are supplied by which vendors. This information along with historical CLIN pricing for …

Assessment Of Visual Field Performance Asymmetries While Utilizing Aircraft Attitude Symbology, George A. Reis

Theses and Dissertations

Two experiments were conducted to examine visual performance asymmetries when perceiving complex, meaningful visual stimuli, such as the Arc Segment Attitude Reference (ASAR). The ASAR symbology represents an aircraft’s attitude. Experiment 1 examined participants’ performance while recalling and reporting various attitudes of ASAR symbology and a Gabor patch, which were briefly presented in the peripheral visual field. Performance was assessed for coordinate and categorical judgments at various display locations. The results were consistent with the horizontal-vertical anisotropy literature, which implies that performance would be better for stimuli placed on the horizontal meridian as compared to stimuli placed on the vertical …

Meta-Analysis Of Performance Characteristics Of Modern Database Schemas, Carter Grove

Theses and Dissertations

Industry and academia alike are more commonly using databases as solutions to advanced and complex problems. Unfortunately, not all database schemas are created equal and can yield different advantages in different areas. To try to understand what database schema might be best suited for a user’s needs, we sought out to distinguish how databases are measured against each other, what their performance characteristics are, and what advantages each type of database inherently possesses. To allow for the ingestion of data across the five different categories of database schemas, we used a met-analysis of past literature and aggregated the data to …

The Effect Of Information Acquisition Automation And Workspace Design On Human Pattern Recognition For Information Fusion, Kellie L. Turner

Theses and Dissertations

Automation employed in information fusion systems is designed to help humans combine information derived from multiple sources to form a cohesive assessment of the situation. Research using the Levels of Automation model (Parasuraman, Wickens, and Sheridan, 2000) have produced conflicting results, which Patterson (2017) posited was because it focused solely on analytical processing while neglecting the effects of intuitive cognition. The present study examined how information acquisition automation affects the human’s ability to detect patterns in data needed to reach higher levels of information fusion. Results showed that when information acquisition was performed through manual operations, pattern recognition performance was …

The Effect Of Shot Dependency On Composite Materials Subject To Ballistic Testing, Clayton C. Hankins

Theses and Dissertations

Ballistic analysis was performed on four common composite armor materials: 3k standard modulus plain weave carbon fiber, 8HS satin weave S-glass fiber, plain weave Kevlar® KM2 600 Denier fiber, and Spectra Shield® 4232 ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene to determine shot dependency based upon shot-to-shot impact distance, degree of penetration from the initial impacts, and the delamination effects from the initial impact. The primary measure of ballistic performance was the projectile velocity which represents a 50% probability of penetration, V₅₀. This velocity was determined using a three-phase optimal design test method with an average of twelve shots per test. …

Creep Behavior And Deformation Mechanisms Of Spark Plasma Sintered Oxide Ceramics For Aerospace Systems At 1300˚C - 1400˚C, David D. Swanson

Theses and Dissertations

The mechanical behavior of YAG and LuAG was investigated at elevated temperatures. The specific materials investigated in this work include high-purity, polycrystalline YAG, high-purity, polycrystalline LuAG, and two doped variants of YAG: 2at% Yb-doped, polycrystalline YAG and 2at% Er-doped, polycrystalline YAG. Several billets of each material were prepared and processed by means of spark plasma sintering (SPS). Many different sintering parameters were utilized in order to obtain materials with various physical properties and to identify the effects of sintering parameters on the average grain size of the resulting materials. The compressive creep behavior of these materials was investigated at 1300°C …

Injection Studies On A Small-Scale Rotating Detonation Engine With Improved Flow Control, Jonathan J. Wyatt

Theses and Dissertations

The Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) has gained increasing attention in recent years for its potential advantages over typical deflagration combustion. A Micro-RDE design with an outer diameter of 28mm operating on Nitrous Oxide and Ethylene was recently developed, which stretched the limits of small-scale detonation engines. The testing on this rig has shown a stable one wave mode detonation with frequencies reaching 16.8 kHz. Key parameters that influence the detonation wave mode are cell size, fill height, and wave speed, which are heavily influence d by injection schemes. Previous testing utilized a partially premixed jets in crossflow (JIC) injection scheme, …

Information Literacy For Global Inclusion: Designing An Annotated Bibliography For Global Search And Selection, Pamela A. Espinosa De Los Monteros, Elizabeth L. Black

Communications in Information Literacy

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the notion that our world is global and interdependent. Despite the ever-increasing connection of global with local, there continues to be formidable barriers in accessing information produced in different international contexts and languages. This Innovative Practices article details the redesign of an annotated bibliography assignment in an international studies course to support the inclusion of global perspectives into the information practices of undergraduate students. The redesign embedded explicit information literacy dispositions and global citizenship education competencies through the search and selection of global information sources. The authors discuss the instructional elements used, student outcomes, and …

Remote Reference Consultations Are Here To Stay, Emily Reed

Communications in Information Literacy

Remote reference consultations have considerably increased due to the need to provide remote services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conducting reference consultations via videoconferencing not only offers many benefits to student researchers it also presents an opportunity for librarians to embrace a learner-centered teaching mindset when approaching remote consultations by developing consultation learning goals in alignment with the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Designing consultations to be learner-centered yields benefits for students such as the student actively practicing their own searches as well as more thorough source evaluation. Additionally, videoconferencing technology allows for a more seamless information sharing …

A Perfect Meal, Stewart Brower

Communications in Information Literacy

No abstract provided.

Beam Me Up: Teaching Rhetorical Methods For Source Use And Synthesis, Ashley Roach-Freiman

Communications in Information Literacy

BEAM is a schema for categorizing the rhetorical positions of authors according to the author’s intention or purpose of the information. The author critiques common methods of teaching source evaluation and proposes that instruction librarians teach BEAM to students who may struggle using a source once they have located it. A lesson plan is included as supplemental materials.

The Preconstruction Of Foundation For A Greenhouse, Alla I. Hashim

Construction Management

This project outlines the preconstruction process for building a concrete base for a prefabricated greenhouse unit. This project was initiated by the Cal Poly Garden Club so they could plan for the installation of a greenhouse at the Student Experimental Farm on Cal Poly’s campus. The members of the club currently share a greenhouse with another Cal Poly Club which restricts their ability to use the greenhouse freely. The initial goal of the project was to request a permit, however, that will be postponed until the specific location is determined. This project still provides the necessary elements for requesting a …

City Of Guadalupe Cultural Arts & Education Center Veterans Memorial Wall, Alejandra Arroyo Perez

Construction Management

As a student in Construction Management, the importance of firsthand experience in the construction industry should not be taken lightly. The responsibility of every construction manager is to learn how to take a project from concept to reality. The primary five elements of construction management entail project programming, design development, material specifications, estimating, and scheduling. This paper documents the construction management process related to a Veterans Memorial Wall. Through coordination with the project stakeholders (i.e. property owners, engineer consultants, material fabricators, and vendors) a fully immersive construction management experience is gained. One of the stakeholder requirements was to establish a …

Hybrid: The Future Of Construction Meetings In The Digital Age, Nicholas G. Orozco

Construction Management

Over the last few years, many construction companies have had to upheave traditional methods of construction meetings to adapt to rapidly changing COVID-19 safety and regulation protocols. For many, this has meant taking common in-person meetings (OAC, pre-construction, and design) and shifting them virtual. As companies continue to move forward in a post-pandemic climate, the question of whether they will continue with virtual meetings or revert to in-person meetings still lingers in the air. To get a better read on the future of construction meetings post-pandemic, a survey was sent to determine what most people prefer. A total of 21 …

Forecasting Technology Trends Through The Gap Between Science And Technology: The Ase Of Software As An E-Commerce Service, Tugrul Daim, Esraa Bukhari, Dana Bakry, James Vanhuis, Haydar Yalcin, Xiaoli Wang

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Identifying technology trends can be a key success factor for companies to be competitive and take advantage of technological trends before they occur. The companies always work to plan for future products and services. For that, it is important to turn to methods that are used for technology forecasting. These tools help the companies to define potential markets for innovative new products and services. This paper uses text mining techniques along with expert judgment to detect and analyze the near-term technology evolution trends in a Software as a Service (SaaS) case study. The longer-term technology development trend in this case …

A Design Build Company’S Pain Points For Field Staff Working Outside Of A Company’S Home Area, Mason Barber

Construction Management

Design-Build is the project-delivery system of the future but is not without pain points. The Design-Build system is an efficient form of project delivery that has a strong focus on relationships and can begin the construction phase while the design phase is still active. This study aims to identify and analyze the additional challenges or pain points that arise when Design-Build construction is taking place in an unfamiliar location and distant from the company office. The pain points are identified with field staff feedback through the form of survey responses. This study uses The Neenan Company as an example because …

Protecting The Caed Shop Equipment Yard, Chloe K. Stevens

Construction Management

Anytime a construction project is considered, there is a lengthy process that happens before breaking ground. It is important to consider the environment around the project, the intended purpose and use of the space, and the materials, time, and budget needed to develop it. If you do not take these things into consideration correctly, it will negatively impact the functionality and the efficiency of both the use and the construction process. This project consists of creating a pre-construction plan for building out a weather protective and space efficient enclosure at the College of Architectural and Environmental Design Shop Yard. The …

Granulated Blast Furnace Slag And Its Effects On Concrete Mixes, Adam Jacobson

Construction Management

This paper explores what place slag, or granulated blast furnace slag has in our changing environment and evaluates how it compares to Portland cement. The purpose of this research is to discern how slag will be applicable in the future of construction and find what place it will have in concrete mixes. Slag is a Supplementary Cementitious Material (SCM) that is being utilized in more and more concrete applications due to its desirable properties and low environmental impact. Slag also reduces the amount of CO2 released that is produced in manufacturing and placing concrete. In this research, compressive strength of …

Exploring The Relationships Between Gpa, Gender, Internship Participation, And Familial Influence In Salary And Salary Growth Of Construction Management Alumni, Kyra Leigh Glaus

Construction Management

College students seek to make themselves desirable to employers upon graduation, and employers use subjective and objective information to determine the best applicants. This study aims to survey the factors of college GPA, gender, internship experience, and familial influence and independently explore their relationship to career success as measured by starting salary and salary growth. A convenience sample was collected from construction management graduates from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The data for this sample found higher starting salaries for respondents who reported having higher GPAs, being female, having completed more internships, and who had an immediate family …

Reimagining The Construction Vest Through The Facilitation Of A Hackathon, Cole Bernabei

Construction Management

This paper outlines the organizational process prior to hosting a Hackathon event in the upcoming year. When the event happens, it will be held in the Simpson Strong-Tie Building on California Polytechnic State University’s Campus. Data from a previous study shows that many individuals feel the current construction vest is flawed; the fit as currently designed is unfit for women. To resolve this, this paper will identify how a Hackathon can help produce a new prototype for the standard construction vest, while also highlighting the steps taken to develop a sound logistics plan and a financial breakdown for the event. …