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- Title
- Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Third Grade Summer Reading Camp Intervention Program in a Larger Urban School District.
- Creator
-
Alchin, Danielle, Murray, Barbara, Taylor, Rosemarye, Murray, Kenneth, Baldwin, Gordon, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the third grade Summer Reading Camp (SRC) in a large urban school district. The SRC curriculum was assessed to determine if it aligned with effective remediation and filled the third grade students' knowledge voids in reading. The study further analyzed how the school district officials selected the curriculum content utilized in the SRC. This study was conducted using qualitative and quantitative methods. Data were collected through...
Show moreThis study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the third grade Summer Reading Camp (SRC) in a large urban school district. The SRC curriculum was assessed to determine if it aligned with effective remediation and filled the third grade students' knowledge voids in reading. The study further analyzed how the school district officials selected the curriculum content utilized in the SRC. This study was conducted using qualitative and quantitative methods. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews of school district personnel on the SRC committee regarding the implementation of the 2012 lesson plan, and from students' Winter Benchmark Assessment scores. The school district implemented the SRC to fulfill a state requirement that all students who received a Level 1 on the reading Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Reading must receive remediation. The SRC committee designed the curriculum using the state reading benchmarks and decided the activities required during SRC would be whole group, small group, writing, and independent reading. The program was to be evaluated each year using teacher and administrator survey data and the analysis of test scores to determine changes to be implemented. Of the 10 benchmarks assessed on the school district reading benchmark test, only three were aligned with the students' knowledge voids. There were a total of eight FCAT tested reading benchmarks that were not taught during SRC. The researcher suggests the school district re-align the curriculum with the needs of the students as identified by the Winter Reading Benchmark. It is further recommended that each student's specific remediation needs be evaluated to ensure the curriculum is meeting the needs of all the students in attendance at SCR.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0004803, ucf:49750
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004803
- Title
- MISALIGNMENT INDUCED NODAL ABERRATION FIELDS AND THEIR USE IN THEALIGNMENT OF ASTRONOMICAL TELESCOPES.
- Creator
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Schmid, Tobias, Rolland, Jannick, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Following the foundation of aberration theory for rotationally symmetric optical systems established by Seidel, Schwarzschild, Burch, Conrady, Buchdahl, and in its most useful form H.H. Hopkins, Shack, Buchroeder, Thompson, and Rogers developed a vectorial form of the wave aberration theory that enables addressing optical systems without symmetry. In this research, a vectorial theory is utilized and extended for the alignment of two- and three-mirror astronomical telescopes, including the...
Show moreFollowing the foundation of aberration theory for rotationally symmetric optical systems established by Seidel, Schwarzschild, Burch, Conrady, Buchdahl, and in its most useful form H.H. Hopkins, Shack, Buchroeder, Thompson, and Rogers developed a vectorial form of the wave aberration theory that enables addressing optical systems without symmetry. In this research, a vectorial theory is utilized and extended for the alignment of two- and three-mirror astronomical telescopes, including the effects of pointing changes and astigmatic figure errors. Importantly, it is demonstrated that the vectorial form of aberration theory, also referred to as nodal aberration theory, not only provides valuable insights but also facilitates a quantitative description of the aberrations in optical systems without symmetry. Specifically, nodal aberration theory has been utilized to establish key insights into the aberration field response of astronomical telescopes to misalignments. Important nodal properties have been derived and discussed and the theoretical predictions have been validated with optical design software. It has been demonstrated that the removal of on-axis coma in some of the most common astronomical telescopes in use today directly leads to a constraint for one of the nodes for astigmatism to be located at the field center, which is exactly true for Cassegrain or Gregorian telescopes, and approximately true for Ritchey-Chrétien (or aplanatic Gregorian) telescopes. These observations led to important conclusions concerning the alignment of astronomical telescopes. First, the correction of these telescopes on-axis for zero coma removes all misalignment induced aberrations only on-axis. Secondly, given that the image quality at the field center remains stigmatic in the presence of misalignments, for these telescopes non-zero astigmatism measured at the field-center directly reveals astigmatic mirror figure errors. Importantly, the effects of misalignments and astigmatic figure error can be clearly distinguished if present in combination, even in the presence of significant boresight errors. Having the possibility to clearly distinguish between misalignment and astigmatic mirror figure error provides an important prerequisite for the optimal operation of active/adaptive optics systems that are becoming standard in observatory class telescopes. Subsequent work on TMA telescopes revealed that even though TMAs are limited by fifth order aberrations in their nominal alignment state, third order nodal aberration theory provides accurate image quality predictions for misalignments and astigmatic figure (third order) effects in these optical systems. It has been demonstrated for the first time that analytical expressions can be devised that describe the characteristic misalignment induced aberration fields of any TMA telescope, leading to two main image quality degrading aberrations, field-constant coma and field-linear, field-asymmetric astigmatism. These new insights can be strategically leveraged in the development of alignment strategies for TMAs. The final part of this work analyzed how third and fifth order nodal aberration fields can be utilized in the alignment of wide-angle telescopes, with the specific example of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). In cooperation with the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) an alignment strategy has been developed for the LSST (without camera) to expedite the commissioning of the telescope, providing for the first time analytical expressions for the computation of misalignment parameters in three-mirror telescopes, taking into account fabrication tolerances for the alignment of the tertiary mirror on the primary mirror substrate. Even though the discussion has been focused primarily on alignment strategies of astronomical telescopes, the methods and algorithms developed in this work can be equally applied to any imaging system.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003339, ucf:48431
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003339
- Title
- FACULTY PERCEPTIONS OF ALIGNMENT OFADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICES WITH A UNIVERSITY MISSIONUTILIZING A HOSPITALITY MODEL.
- Creator
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Dickson, Duncan, Tubbs, LeVester, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of a university's faculty as to how the strategies, staffing policies, and systems procedures were aligned with the mission statement. Differences in perceptions were examined by college affiliation, rank, primary teaching assignment and gender. Data were analyzed to determine if there were correlations between faculty members' perceptions of alignment of the university's mission statement with administration's actions,...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of a university's faculty as to how the strategies, staffing policies, and systems procedures were aligned with the mission statement. Differences in perceptions were examined by college affiliation, rank, primary teaching assignment and gender. Data were analyzed to determine if there were correlations between faculty members' perceptions of alignment of the university's mission statement with administration's actions, policies, and procedures and their level of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and overall satisfaction with their job and the organization The population for this study was comprised initially of 1363 teaching faculty members of the University of Central with more than one year of service and reduced to 1285 who were determined to meet the criteria for inclusion. The 67-item survey instrument used in this study was developed and copyrighted by Dr. Robert C. Ford (Ford et al, 2006), and was administered during January and February 2006 A total of 297 usable responses (23.1%) were returned. An analysis of all responses indicated that there was a wide disparity in perceptions and that respondents did not believe that there was a strong alignment of mission with administrative practices, policies, and procedures. This confirmed an earlier finding as to the importance of perception (Dickson, Ford, & Upchurch, 2006, Ford et al., 2006). Significant differences in faculty perceptions by college affiliation, university rank, and primary teaching assignment were identified. Significant differences based on gender were minimal. The correlations of items representing level of organizational commitment were highly correlated. Items representing job satisfaction and overall satisfaction with their job and the organization were moderately intercorrelated, and the interrelationship was not strong.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001684, ucf:47221
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001684
- Title
- Investigation of Breakdown Power During Electrical Breakdown of Aligned Array of Carbon Nanotubes.
- Creator
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Bhanu, Udai, Khondaker, Saiful, Leuenberger, Michael, Zhai, Lei, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Massively parallel arrays of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) have attracted significant research interests because of their ability to (i) average out inhomogeneities of individual SWNTs, (ii) provide larger on currents, and (iii) reduce noise to provide higher cutoff frequency for radio frequency applications. However, the array contains both metallic and semiconducting SWNTs and the presence of metallic nanotube in an aligned array negatively affects the device properties. Therefore,...
Show moreMassively parallel arrays of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) have attracted significant research interests because of their ability to (i) average out inhomogeneities of individual SWNTs, (ii) provide larger on currents, and (iii) reduce noise to provide higher cutoff frequency for radio frequency applications. However, the array contains both metallic and semiconducting SWNTs and the presence of metallic nanotube in an aligned array negatively affects the device properties. Therefore, it is essential to selectively remove metallic nanotubes to obtain better transistor properties. It was recently found that although such a selective removal can be effective for a low density array, it does not work in a high density array and lead to a correlated breakdown of the entire array giving rise to a nanofissure pattern.In order to obtain a deeper understanding of such a correlated SWNT breakdown, we studied the breakdown power in the successive electrical breakdown of both low ( (<) 2 /um) and high density ((>)10 /um) SWNT arrays. We show that the breakdown voltage in successive electrical breakdown increases for low density array while it decreases for high density arrays. The estimated power required for the breakdown remains constant for low density arrays while it decreases for high density arrays in successive electrical breakdowns. We also show that, while a simple model of parallel resistor network can explain the breakdown of low density array, it cannot explain the behavior for the high density array implying that the correlation between the closely spaced parallel nanotubes plays a big role in the successive breakdowns of the high density SWNTs.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004518, ucf:49292
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004518
- Title
- Successful Organizational Change: Aligning Change Type with Methods.
- Creator
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Al-Haddad, Serina, Kotnour, Timothy, Mollaghasemi, Mansooreh, Hoekstra, Robert, Diaz, Rey, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The motivation behind this research is the prevalence of challenges and ambiguity associated with successful organizational change and the numerous available approaches in dealing with these challenges and ambiguity.Many definitions and methods have been suggested to manage change; however, organizations still report a high failure rate of their change initiatives. These high failure rates highlight the continuing need for research and investigation, and imply a lack of a valid framework for...
Show moreThe motivation behind this research is the prevalence of challenges and ambiguity associated with successful organizational change and the numerous available approaches in dealing with these challenges and ambiguity.Many definitions and methods have been suggested to manage change; however, organizations still report a high failure rate of their change initiatives. These high failure rates highlight the continuing need for research and investigation, and imply a lack of a valid framework for managing successful organizational change. This dissertation critically reviews the concept of having one change approach as the (")silver-bullet("). In pursuit of this goal, this research contributes a roadmap to the change management literature and provides definitions for describing change types, change methods and change outcomes. This dissertation also develops a conceptual model that proposes relationships and connections between the change types, change method and change outcomes that is assumed to enable successful change. To validate the research conceptual model, two hypotheses were developed and a self-administered survey was created and administered (paper survey and online). The respondents were professionals involved in change projects in the Central Florida region. The unit of analysis in this research was a completed change project. Respondents were asked to complete the survey for two different projects: a successful project and an unsuccessful project. Statistical processes were applied to verify the conceptual model and test the research hypotheses.Based on the data collected, exploratory factor analysis was used to verify the validity and reliability of the conceptual model measures. Results of the hypotheses testing revealed that there are relationships between the complexity of the change type and the use of change methods that significantly relate to successful change. The results also revealed that the alignment of the change type and change methods significantly relates to successful change.From the viewpoint of change project managers, the results of this dissertation have confirmed that the complexity of the change project type negatively correlates with change success and the increased use of change methods positively correlates with change success. The results also confirmed that the methods that highly correlate to change success address the following: (a) the situation that needs changing, (b) the proper implementation of change, (c) the establishment of suitable plans and controls to sustain change, and (d) the presence of a credible team leader who influences the major decisions during the change project.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005121, ucf:50691
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005121
- Title
- Femtosecond Filament Interaction as a Probe for Molecular Alignment.
- Creator
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McKee, Erik, Richardson, Martin, Baudelet, Matthieu, Chang, Zenghu, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Femtosecond laser filamentation is a highly nonlinear propagation mode. When a laser pulse propagates with a peak power exceeding a critical value Pcr (5 GW at 800 nm in air), the Kerr effect tends to collapse the beam until the intensity is high enough to ionize the medium, giving rise to plasma defocusing. A dynamic competition between these two effects takes place leaving a thin and weakly ionized plasma channel in the trail of the pulse. When an ultrafast laser pulse interacts with...
Show moreFemtosecond laser filamentation is a highly nonlinear propagation mode. When a laser pulse propagates with a peak power exceeding a critical value Pcr (5 GW at 800 nm in air), the Kerr effect tends to collapse the beam until the intensity is high enough to ionize the medium, giving rise to plasma defocusing. A dynamic competition between these two effects takes place leaving a thin and weakly ionized plasma channel in the trail of the pulse. When an ultrafast laser pulse interacts with molecules, it will align them, spinning them about their axis of polarization. As the quantum rotational wave packet relaxes, the molecules will experience periodic field-free alignment. Recent work has demonstrated the effect of molecular alignment on laser filamentation of ultra-short pulses. Revival of the molecular alignment can modify filamentation parameters as it can locally modify the refractive index and the ionization rate. In this thesis, we demonstrate with simulations and experiments that these changes in the filament parameters (collapse distance and filament plasma length) can be used to probe molecular alignment in CO2.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005033, ucf:50000
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005033
- Title
- AN ASSESSMENT OF ALIGNMENT BETWEEN PROJECT COMPLEXITY AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT STYLE.
- Creator
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Camci, Alper, Kotnour, Timothy, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The main drivers for this research are the complexities associated with the project management and an organization's project management style in dealing with these complexities. This research aims to demonstrate that alignment between project complexity and project management style increases project performance and decreases project issues, and also, with increased project issues, project performance deteriorates. In order to test these claims, this research developed measures for...
Show moreThe main drivers for this research are the complexities associated with the project management and an organization's project management style in dealing with these complexities. This research aims to demonstrate that alignment between project complexity and project management style increases project performance and decreases project issues, and also, with increased project issues, project performance deteriorates. In order to test these claims, this research developed measures for assessing project complexity, project management styles and project issues by employing a survey of project management professionals. The measure for project complexity is based on a taxonomy with four categories: organizational complexity, product complexity, methods (process) complexity and goal complexity. Project management style is defined as the management paradigm that guides the managers of an organization in perceiving and dealing with management problems. The measure for project nagement style is based on the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle and the Newtonian and complexity paradigms. Also the measures for project issues are developed after an extensive content analysis on the literature on project issues, risks and success factors. A self-administered survey instrument (paper-based and on-line) with 40 questions (seven point Likert scale) was utilized. The respondents were the project management professionals from different industries in the Central Florida region. Each respondent was asked to answer questions for two different kinds of projects: a successful project and a challenged project. Based on the data collected by the survey instrument, the results of confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses provide strong evidence that the final measures for project technology complexity, project management styles, project issues and project performance have adequate validity and reliability. Results of the hypothesis tests demonstrate that increased alignment of project complexity and project management style leads to increased project performance and decreased project issues, and also increased project issues leads to project decreased performance. From the perspective of project management, the results of this study have illustrated the importance of aligning a project's complexity and management style. These results suggest that project or program managers can improve the performance of their projects by any attempt to increase the alignment between project complexity and project management style. Project management professionals and theoreticians can use the methodologies provided in this dissertation to assess project complexity, project management style and alignment.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001195, ucf:46853
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001195
- Title
- FOREIGN LANGUAGE ORAL ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN FLORIDA MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS.
- Creator
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Kellermeier, Grace, Sivo, Stephen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Current foreign language pedagogy encourages a communicative approach to language learning. Instead of the reading and writing focus of the past, this communicative approach requires instruction in all skills, which include reading, writing, listening, speaking and having knowledge of associated cultures. A random sample of Florida foreign language teachers was surveyed to establish whether or not the goals and actual instructional practices were aligned. Respondents were asked to identify...
Show moreCurrent foreign language pedagogy encourages a communicative approach to language learning. Instead of the reading and writing focus of the past, this communicative approach requires instruction in all skills, which include reading, writing, listening, speaking and having knowledge of associated cultures. A random sample of Florida foreign language teachers was surveyed to establish whether or not the goals and actual instructional practices were aligned. Respondents were asked to identify how much of a typical class period is dedicated to each of the five skills, and how much of a typical unit test is dedicated to the same five skills. The research showed that only the instruction and assessment of writing were aligned. Instruction and assessment of the other skills were unequal. A comparison of the means revealed that listening was actually instructed much more than assessed. The other means were similar, including writing. Reading was found to be the only skill that was assessed more than instructed. The variables examined in this study included the level of fluency, level of education, and amount of experience of the teacher, available resources, amount of the target language used in the classroom, as well as demographic information. The interaction of the level of education and experience of the teacher was significant. Teacher gender was also significant, although the disparate gender groups made it difficult to compare means. The other variables revealed no statistical significance. Slightly less than half of the respondents stated that they do not believe that they include enough oral assessment as a part of instruction. They reported a lack of time, student resistance, class size and unreliable technology as reasons for not including what they perceived to be enough oral assessment.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003557, ucf:48912
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003557
- Title
- EDUCATIONAL VISION IN FLORIDA SCHOOL DISTRICTS: VISION ALIGNMENT AND LEADERSHIP STYLE.
- Creator
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Sikkenga, Cindy, House, Jess, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The purpose of this study was to address a gap in the organizational leadership research related to the sharing, or alignment, of leadership vision across organizational levels, with a focus on educational vision alignment in Florida K-12 public school districts. The study also sought to determine to what extent, if any, there were differences among Florida school districts exhibiting different levels of educational vision alignment. The broad question addressed by the current research was...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to address a gap in the organizational leadership research related to the sharing, or alignment, of leadership vision across organizational levels, with a focus on educational vision alignment in Florida K-12 public school districts. The study also sought to determine to what extent, if any, there were differences among Florida school districts exhibiting different levels of educational vision alignment. The broad question addressed by the current research was this: To what degree are the educational visions of superintendents and principals aligned within Florida K-12 public school districts? The following research questions further guided the study: 1. What common themes can be found in the published vision statements of the 67 Florida K-12 public school districts? 2. To what extent, if any, do Florida K-12 public school district superintendents and their respective principals agree with one another on the importance of the common themes found in Florida school districts' published vision statements? 3. What is the relationship, if any, between educational vision alignment levels in Florida K-12 public school districts and principals' perceptions of their superintendents' leadership styles? 4. To what extent, if any, are there differences among Florida K-12 public school districts exhibiting different levels of educational vision alignment? The Florida Educational Vision Questionnaire Superintendent Form (FEVQ-S), a researcher developed questionnaire, was administered to all 67 Florida K-12 public school district superintendents. With superintendent approval, two additional questionnaires were administered to a sample of 242 principals in 23 school districts. The Florida Educational Vision Questionnaire Principal Form (FEVQ-P) and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Form 5X Rater (MLQ-5X) (Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999) were returned fully completed by 105 principals in 21 districts. A total of 81 principal responses in 20 districts were usable, yielding overall usable response rates of 29.9% (superintendents) and 33.5% (principals). Comparisons of FEVQ responses of superintendents and principals in each school district were made using a researcher developed measure, the Educational Vision Alignment Index (EVAI). Within each district, the EVAI was compared with the superintendent's leadership style as measured by the principals' responses to the MLQ-5X. School districts were then compared using data obtained from the FEVQ demographic items, the Florida School Indicators Report (FSIR) (FLDOE, 2003a), the 2004 School Grades by District Report (FLDOE, n.d.), and the online Florida Public School Superintendents report (FLDOE, 2005c). The FSIR contains data on district characteristics such as operating costs, per pupil expenditures, school staff composition, student membership, student mobility rates, student stability rates, and teacher descriptors. The 2004 School Grades by District report contains both the school grades for each district and the total number of schools per district. The Florida Public School Superintendents report contains general school district information and superintendent status (i.e., elected or appointed) information. Detailed data analyses related to each of the four research questions indicated that: 1. Several common themes can be found in the published vision statements of the 67 Florida K-12 public school districts, 2. Florida K-12 public school district superintendents and their respective principals agree with one another on the importance of some of these common themes, 3. Several relationships exist between the educational vision alignment levels in Florida K-12 public school districts and principals' perceptions of their superintendents' leadership styles, and 4. There are differences among Florida K-12 public school districts exhibiting different levels of educational vision alignment. The current study illustrated that in Florida K-12 public school districts whose superintendents were perceived to be transformational leaders, a strong alignment of educational vision between the superintendents and their principals was also apparent, particularly in those districts having elected superintendents. Using the two researcher developed tools, the Florida Educational Vision Questionnaire (FEVQ) and the Educational Vision Alignment Index (EVAI), it was shown that this alignment pertained to specific content items, or themes, derived from an analysis of the educational vision statements of the 67 Florida school districts. These results indicate that the current emphasis in Florida on the development of transformational leaders who are knowledgeable in techniques for developing and communicating shared visions is therefore warranted.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001349, ucf:46995
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001349
- Title
- An Analysis of a Large Urban School District's Eighth-Grade Summer Reading Camp Curriculum and Student Performance Knowledge Voids.
- Creator
-
Sochocki, Eric, Murray, Barbara, Murray, Kenneth, Taylor, Rosemarye, Baldwin, Gordon, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study sought to determine if the 2012 Eighth Grade Summer Reading Campcurriculum was aligned with the students' needs. To determine if curriculum alignmentexisted, the researcher completed a qualitative and quantitative study. The qualitativestudy consisted of interviewing the school district program development team to ascertainhow the curriculum was designed. The quantitative segment involved runningdescriptive statistics for student performance on the Pre-program BenchmarkExamination....
Show moreThis study sought to determine if the 2012 Eighth Grade Summer Reading Campcurriculum was aligned with the students' needs. To determine if curriculum alignmentexisted, the researcher completed a qualitative and quantitative study. The qualitativestudy consisted of interviewing the school district program development team to ascertainhow the curriculum was designed. The quantitative segment involved runningdescriptive statistics for student performance on the Pre-program BenchmarkExamination. The determined student knowledge voids were compared to the amount ofinstructional time spent taught teaching those individual benchmarks to ascertain if thecurriculum was aligned with student need. The curriculum was determined to not bealigned with the performance deficiencies of the students.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005264, ucf:50595
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005264
- Title
- GEORGE LISKA'S REALIST ALLIANCE THEORY, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF NATO.
- Creator
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Kireyev, Sergey, Handberg, Roger, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
In many aspects, political theory forms a subjective structure of this abstract science. Perhaps, it is due to the fact that unlike natural sciences or mathematics, social sciences often lack the privilege of testing the theories in absolute and unadulterated conditions. Nonetheless, such nature of the science allows for a certain degree of flexibility, when applying political theories to real-world phenomena. Alliances and coalitions in international relations form the backbone of the theory...
Show moreIn many aspects, political theory forms a subjective structure of this abstract science. Perhaps, it is due to the fact that unlike natural sciences or mathematics, social sciences often lack the privilege of testing the theories in absolute and unadulterated conditions. Nonetheless, such nature of the science allows for a certain degree of flexibility, when applying political theories to real-world phenomena. Alliances and coalitions in international relations form the backbone of the theory, concerning IR scholars with two main questions: Why do alliances and coalitions form? And, what keeps alliances and coalitions together? As the core of my research, I examined NATO, as the most prominent and long-lasting alliance of our time, through the prism of alliance formation and cohesion theory introduced by George Liska. In particular, I explored the evolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over the term of its existence, and sought to determine whether Liska's principles still apply to the contemporary situation, and in particular, how may the variables have altered the application of this scholar's theory to our future understanding of alliances. In its essence, this is a comparative study of the same alliance during the different stages of its existence. In particular, the comparison dissects such aspects of alliance theory as alignment, alliance formation, efficacy, and reasons for possible dissolution. As a result, the study led to a conclusion, that despite the permutations around and within NATO, the basic realist principles that may explain the mechanism of this alliance's formation and cohesion still apply to the contemporary organization.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2004
- Identifier
- CFE0000211, ucf:46247
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000211
- Title
- TEXT-IMAGE RESTORATION AND TEXT ALIGNMENT FOR MULTI-ENGINE OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION SYSTEMS.
- Creator
-
Kozlovski, Nikolai, Weeks, Arthur, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Previous research showed that combining three different optical character recognition (OCR) engines (ExperVision® OCR, Scansoft OCR, and Abbyy® OCR) results using voting algorithms will get higher accuracy rate than each of the engines individually. While a voting algorithm has been realized, several aspects to automate and improve the accuracy rate needed further research. This thesis will focus on morphological image preprocessing and morphological text restoration that goes to OCR...
Show morePrevious research showed that combining three different optical character recognition (OCR) engines (ExperVision® OCR, Scansoft OCR, and Abbyy® OCR) results using voting algorithms will get higher accuracy rate than each of the engines individually. While a voting algorithm has been realized, several aspects to automate and improve the accuracy rate needed further research. This thesis will focus on morphological image preprocessing and morphological text restoration that goes to OCR engines. This method is similar to the one used in restoration partial finger prints. Series of morphological dilating and eroding filters of various mask shapes and sizes were applied to text of different font sizes and types with various noises added. These images were then processed by the OCR engines, and based on these results successful combinations of text, noise, and filters were chosen. The thesis will also deal with the problem of text alignment. Each OCR engine has its own way of dealing with noise and corrupted characters; as a result, the output texts of OCR engines have different lengths and number of words. This in turn, makes it impossible to use spaces a delimiter as a method to separate the words for processing by the voting part of the system. Text aligning determines, using various techniques, what is an extra word, what is supposed to be two or more words instead of one, which words are missing in one document compared to the other, etc. Alignment algorithm is made up of a series of shifts in the two texts to determine which parts are similar and which are not. Since errors made by OCR engines are due to visual misrecognition, in addition to simple character comparison (equal or not), a technique was developed that allows comparison of characters based on how they look.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001060, ucf:46799
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001060
- Title
- SOCIAL WORK VALUES AND HOSPITAL CULTURE: AN EXAMINATION FROM A COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK.
- Creator
-
Evans, Amanda, House, Jess, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The purpose of this study is to assess the perceptions of social workers employed in Florida hospitals in relation to the core values of their profession and the alignment of those values within the culture of their current work setting. The conceptual framework for the study was from organizational behavior theory specific to culture, values, and trust. The Competing Values Framework (Cameron & Quinn, 1999) provided a method to distinguish co-existing competing values within an organization....
Show moreThe purpose of this study is to assess the perceptions of social workers employed in Florida hospitals in relation to the core values of their profession and the alignment of those values within the culture of their current work setting. The conceptual framework for the study was from organizational behavior theory specific to culture, values, and trust. The Competing Values Framework (Cameron & Quinn, 1999) provided a method to distinguish co-existing competing values within an organization. The research findings indicated that 65% of the professional social workers who participated in the study perceived that the core values of their profession are very much in alignment with the written mission statement of their hospital. However, less than half of the respondents (42%) stated the daily business of the hospital strongly reflected the mission statement. The social workers perceived the current culture of hospitals in Florida as being closely clustered among four cultures: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy. However, they would prefer a stronger clan culture and less of a market culture in the future. A large majority (85%) of all respondents communicated that their work assignments allowed them to demonstrate their professional values on a regular basis. However, only 63% stated that they trusted that their hospital valued the knowledge and skills of their profession.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- CFE0000866, ucf:46673
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000866
- Title
- A FRAMEWORK TO ALIGN STRATEGY, IMPROVEMENT PERFORMANCE, AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION USING AN INTEGRATION OF SIX SIGMA AND BALANCED SCORECARD.
- Creator
-
Rodriguez, Adriana, Malone, Linda, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This dissertation investigated the development, implementation, and evaluation of a management methodology founded on the alignment among the strategy, performance, and customer to bring value to any organization. A case study/action research in a service organization, called Institution "Z," provided the opportunity to assess the effects of the proposed Six Sigma Scorecard (SSS) methodology in the productivity indicators (measured by cycle time, line capacity, and number of errors). The Case...
Show moreThis dissertation investigated the development, implementation, and evaluation of a management methodology founded on the alignment among the strategy, performance, and customer to bring value to any organization. A case study/action research in a service organization, called Institution "Z," provided the opportunity to assess the effects of the proposed Six Sigma Scorecard (SSS) methodology in the productivity indicators (measured by cycle time, line capacity, and number of errors). The Case study/action research was conducted in three phases: Model and Concepts Design, Data Collection, and Findings. During the research, validity was pursued by using triangulation and theory to help maintain the case under research control. The observation of the SSS methodology in a real organization allowed the researcher to describe the merging process between Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma methodology and their relationships to each other. The SSS methodology allowed identification of improvement projects that contribute to organizational strategy, implementation of strategies and provide feedback to the top level of management establishing alignment at three organizational levels – corporate, business, and functional. The results of the implementation of the SSS methodology in Institution Z showed a 40% improvement of the cycle time of the auto credit process, a 500% increase in the capacity of the process, and 65% decrease in the number of non-added value activities. During the same period of time, the BSC indicators showed a positive impact, specifically one financial indicator known as Level of Intermediation or GIC grew from 30% to 42% as it was expected by the end of the SSS implementation. The demonstration of the SSS framework in a Case study justifies the need for a combined methodology that aligns strategy, performance improvement and organizational outputs in a feedback loop. More research in this area is needed, especially investigations that include assessment studies where different management approaches are used alone and combined with strategic tools, and investigations that measure the relationship between level of coherence in the three merging points of the SSS and the results reached at the performance of the organization.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- CFE0002191, ucf:47903
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002191
- Title
- NEW COMPUTATIONAL APPROACHES FOR MULTIPLE RNA ALIGNMENT AND RNA SEARCH.
- Creator
-
DeBlasio, Daniel, Zhang, Shaojie, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
In this thesis we explore the the theory and history behind RNA alignment. Normal sequence alignments as studied by computer scientists can be completed in $O(n^2)$ time in the naive case. The process involves taking two input sequences and finding the list of edits that can transform one sequence into the other. This process is applied to biology in many forms, such as the creation of multiple alignments and the search of genomic sequences. When you take into account the RNA sequence...
Show moreIn this thesis we explore the the theory and history behind RNA alignment. Normal sequence alignments as studied by computer scientists can be completed in $O(n^2)$ time in the naive case. The process involves taking two input sequences and finding the list of edits that can transform one sequence into the other. This process is applied to biology in many forms, such as the creation of multiple alignments and the search of genomic sequences. When you take into account the RNA sequence structure the problem becomes even harder. Multiple RNA structure alignment is particularly challenging because covarying mutations make sequence information alone insufficient. Existing tools for multiple RNA alignments first generate pair-wise RNA structure alignments and then build the multiple alignment using only the sequence information. Here we present PMFastR, an algorithm which iteratively uses a sequence-structure alignment procedure to build a multiple RNA structure alignment. PMFastR also has low memory consumption allowing for the alignment of large sequences such as 16S and 23S rRNA. Specifically, we reduce the memory consumption to $\sim O(band^2*m)$ where $band$ is the banding size. Other solutions are $\sim O(n^2*m)$ where $n$ and $m$ are the lengths of the target and query respectively. The algorithm also provides a method to utilize a multi-core environment. We present results on benchmark data sets from BRAliBase, which shows PMFastR outperforms other state-of-the-art programs. Furthermore, we regenerate 607 Rfam seed alignments and show that our automated process creates similar multiple alignments to the manually-curated Rfam seed alignments. While these methods can also be applied directly to genome sequence search, the abundance of new multiple species genome alignments presents a new area for exploration. Many multiple alignments of whole genomes are available and these alignments keep growing in size. These alignments can provide more information to the searcher than just a single sequence. Using the methodology from sequence-structure alignment we developed AlnAlign, which searches an entire genome alignment using RNA sequence structure. While programs have been readily available to align alignments, this is the first to our knowledge that is specifically designed for RNA sequences. This algorithm is presented only in theory and is yet to be tested.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002736, ucf:48166
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002736
- Title
- The Comparison of the School District Curriculum Alignment with Algebra Content Standards.
- Creator
-
Lipscomb, Karen, Murray, Barbara, Doherty, Walter, Baldwin, Lee, Pawlas, George, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The purpose of this study was to analyze school district curriculum alignment with state and national standards to find content omissions that may contribute to low Algebra End-of-Course exam scores in ninth grade. The study primarily looked for algebra course content omissions in the algebra, functions, and statistics' domains of the algebra curriculum. These three categories were chosen because low achievement for ninth grades students was recorded in each category for a Medium Sized Rural...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to analyze school district curriculum alignment with state and national standards to find content omissions that may contribute to low Algebra End-of-Course exam scores in ninth grade. The study primarily looked for algebra course content omissions in the algebra, functions, and statistics' domains of the algebra curriculum. These three categories were chosen because low achievement for ninth grades students was recorded in each category for a Medium Sized Rural School District. The study also examined the pre-algebra curriculum for a Medium Sized Rural School District to see if alignment was present with the algebra curriculum. Embedded skills needed for algebra success were also recorded to develop an in-depth look at the curriculum alignment. The embedded skills are skills that should be mastered before students are placed in the pre-algebra course.The algebra state standards were compared with the Medium Sized Rural School District local algebra standards. From the local standards, 95 coded algebra skills were established as pertinent for mastery of algebra content. The 95 coded algebra skills were used in the constant comparison document analysis to find content omissions in the algebra curriculum, the pre-algebra curriculum, and the algebra textbook. The 95 algebra coded skills were also examined individually to record embedded skills needed for mastery of each skill. An additional study was performed on the amount of time given to the mastery of the 95 algebra coded skills or performance tasks.The following results were found in this research for curriculum alignment. In a Medium Size Rural School District, the algebra curriculum and algebra textbook were analyzed for the presence of 95 essential performance tasks in search for missing content. The algebra curriculum and algebra textbook were both found to be aligned with the algebra state standards. These findings allow educators to look at other factors that may contribute to low performance on the Algebra End-of-Course exam. Content omissions were found in the pre-algebra curriculum that showed a lack of alignment with the algebra course. Also, 77 embedded skills were recorded as prerequisites to algebra mastery. Last, the amount of material to be mastered in a ninth grade algebra course may be too numerous for ninth grade algebra students to master the material.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006348, ucf:51574
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006348
- Title
- ENTERPRISE BUSINESS ALIGNMENT USING QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT, MULTIVARIATE DATA ANALYSIS AND BUSINESS MODELING TOOLS.
- Creator
-
GAMMOH, DIALA, Elshennawy, Ahmad, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This dissertation proposes two novel ideas to enhance the business strategy alignment to customer needs. The proposed business alignment clock is a new illustration to the relationships between customer requirements, business strategies, capabilities and processes. To line up the clock and reach the needed alignment for the enterprise, a proposed clock mechanism is introduced. The mechanism integrates the Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) with the House of Quality (HoQ). The relationship...
Show moreThis dissertation proposes two novel ideas to enhance the business strategy alignment to customer needs. The proposed business alignment clock is a new illustration to the relationships between customer requirements, business strategies, capabilities and processes. To line up the clock and reach the needed alignment for the enterprise, a proposed clock mechanism is introduced. The mechanism integrates the Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) with the House of Quality (HoQ). The relationship matrix inside the body of the house is defined using multivariate data analysis techniques to accurately measure the strength of the relationships rather than defining them subjectively. A statistical tool, multivariate data analysis, can be used to overcome the ambiguity in quantifying the relationships in the house of quality matrix. The framework is proposed in the basic conceptual model context of the EBA showing different levels of the enterprise architecture; the goals, the capabilities and the value stream architecture components. In the proposed framework, the goals and the capabilities are inputs to two houses of quality, in which the alignment between customer needs and business goals, and the alignment between business goals and capabilities are checked in the first house and the second house, respectively. The alignment between the business capabilities and the architecture components (workflows, events and environment) is checked in a third HoQ using the performance indicators of the value stream architecture components, which may result in infrastructure expansion, software development or process improvement to reach the needed alignment by the enterprise. The value of the model was demonstrated using the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) process at the Industrial Engineering and Management Systems department at the University of Central Florida. The assessment of ABET criteria involves an evaluation of the extent to which the program outcomes are being achieved and results in decisions and actions to improve the Industrial Engineering program at the University of Central Florida. The proposed framework increases the accuracy of measuring the extent to which the program learning outcomes have been achieved at the department. The process of continuous alignment between the educational objectives and customer needs becomes more vital by the rapid change of customer requirements that are obtained from both internal and external constituents (students, faculty, alumni, and employers in the first place).
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003298, ucf:48506
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003298
- Title
- LEARNING GEOMETRY-FREE FACE RE-LIGHTING.
- Creator
-
Moore, Thomas, Foroosh, Hassan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The accurate modeling of the variability of illumination in a class of images is a fundamental problem that occurs in many areas of computer vision and graphics. For instance, in computer vision there is the problem of facial recognition. Simply, one would hope to be able to identify a known face under any illumination. On the other hand, in graphics one could imagine a system that, given an image, the illumination model could be identified and then used to create new images. In this thesis...
Show moreThe accurate modeling of the variability of illumination in a class of images is a fundamental problem that occurs in many areas of computer vision and graphics. For instance, in computer vision there is the problem of facial recognition. Simply, one would hope to be able to identify a known face under any illumination. On the other hand, in graphics one could imagine a system that, given an image, the illumination model could be identified and then used to create new images. In this thesis we describe a method for learning the illumination model for a class of images. Once the model is learnt it is then used to render new images of the same class under the new illumination. Results are shown for both synthetic and real images. The key contribution of this work is that images of known objects can be re-illuminated using small patches of image data and relatively simple kernel regression models. Additionally, our approach does not require any knowledge of the geometry of the class of objects under consideration making it relatively straightforward to implement. As part of this work we will examine existing geometric and image-based re-lighting techniques; give a detailed description of our geometry-free face re-lighting process; present non-linear regression and basis selection with respect to image synthesis; discuss system limitations; and look at possible extensions and future work.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001893, ucf:47394
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001893
- Title
- The effect of carbon nanotube/organic semiconductor interfacial area on the performance of organic transistors.
- Creator
-
Kang, Narae, Khondaker, Saiful, Leuenberger, Michael, Zhai, Lei, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) have attracted tremendous attention due to their flexibility, transparency, easy processiblity and low cost of fabrication. High-performance OFETs are required for their potential applications in the organic electronic devices such as flexible display, integrated circuit, and radiofrequency identification tags. One of the major limiting factors in fabricating high-performance OFET is the large interfacial barrier between metal electrodes and OSC which...
Show moreOrganic field-effect transistors (OFETs) have attracted tremendous attention due to their flexibility, transparency, easy processiblity and low cost of fabrication. High-performance OFETs are required for their potential applications in the organic electronic devices such as flexible display, integrated circuit, and radiofrequency identification tags. One of the major limiting factors in fabricating high-performance OFET is the large interfacial barrier between metal electrodes and OSC which results in low charge injection from the metal electrodes to OSC. In order to overcome the challenge of low charge injection, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been suggested as a promising electrode material for organic electronic devices. In this dissertation, we study the effect of carbon nanotube (CNT) density in CNT electrodes on the performance of organic field effect transistor (OFETs). The devices were fabricated by thermal evaporation of pentacene on the Pd/single walled CNT (SWCNT) electrodes where SWCNTs of different density (0-30/um) were aligned on Pd using dielectrophoresis (DEP) and cut via oxygen plasma etching to keep the length of nanotube short compared to the channel length. From the electronic transport measurements of 40 devices, we show that the average saturation mobility of the devices increased from 0.02 for zero SWCNT to 0.06, 0.13 and 0.19 cm2/Vs for low (1-5 /(&)#181;m), medium (10-15 /(&)#181;m) and high (25-30 /(&)#181;m) SWCNT density in the electrodes, respectively. The increase is three, six and nine times for low, medium and high density SWCNTs in the electrode compared to the devices that did not contain any SWCNT. In addition, the current on-off ratio and on-current of the devices are increased up to 40 times and 20 times with increasing SWCNT density in the electrodes. Our study shows that although a few nanotubes in the electrode can improve the OFET device performance, significant improvement can be achieved by maximizing SWCNT/OSC interfacial area. The improved OFET performance can be explained due to a reduced barrier height of SWCNT/pentacene interface compared to metal/pentacene interface which provides more efficient charge injection pathways with increased SWCNT/pentacene interfacial area.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004558, ucf:49252
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004558
- Title
- Belgrade: The Conference of Non-aligned States.
- Creator
-
Jack, Homer Alexander
- Date Issued
- 1961
- Identifier
- 1927616, CFDT1927616, ucf:4871
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FCLA/DT/1927616
