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Collection Description
Collection of student theses and dissertations from as early as 1939, but mainly from 2010 to present.
Pages
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- A comparative study of the personality patterns of older and younger sisters
- As increasing emphasis is placed upon the importance of personality patterns in social, occupational, and personal relationships, the factors which influence personality development become more and more important in understanding and developing methods of dealing with personality variations in many different situations. Among the factors of thought to play an important part in the formation of personality, relationships among siblings have long been considered significant. Frequent reference is made in psychological literature to the effects upon personality of being an older child, a younger child, an only child, etc. Unfortunately most of these references have had little scientific evidence upon which to base their conclusions., San Diego State College, Digitization of this archival thesis was made possible through a generous donation from Robin B. Luby.
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- A comparative study of the relative readability of original and simplified stories for retarded junior high school pupils
- For many years educators have been seeking effective reading materials suitable to the needs and interests of educationally and/or mentally retarded pupils. There have been several level of difficulty formulae evolved which purport to estimate with some degree of accuracy the level of reading difficulty of a given piece of writing. So far as the writer has been able to determine these formulae have never been applied to the actual task of simplifying written material for use by retarded children. It was toward this end that this study was undertaken., San Diego State College, Digitization of this archival thesis was made possible through a generous donation from Robin B. Luby.
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- A comparative study of two generations of female piano teachers and their independent piano studios
- The purpose of this thesis is twofold: first, to compare the generational similarities and differences of female piano teachers; and second, to discover if and how a former generation of teachers has adapted their studio practices to the twenty-first century. This study is specific to female piano teachers who (a) taught piano lessons between of January 1, 1970, and December 31, 1979, and were between eighteen and forty years of age during the decade, or (b) taught piano lessons between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2009, and were between eighteen and forty years of age during the decade. The study includes, but is not limited to, the following: demographics of teachers and their students; business procedures used in the private studio; choice of musical materials and teaching aids; and technological changes within the piano studio. Comparisons were made in thirteen areas. Significant similarities were in the areas of student demographics and repertoire. The average student of both generations was female and between eight and ten years of age. Teachers from both generations incorporated a through mixture of repertoire from all musical periods and did not intentionally incorporate music by women composers. Although there were similarities between the generations, there were significant differences in education, professional involvement, teaching methods, and lessons and rates. When the two generations were compared, the younger generation possessed half as many bachelor's degrees in piano as the older generation did in the 1970s. During their respective decades, the older generation taught six to ten students weekly, while the average teacher of the younger generation taught one to five students weekly. The older generation charged $2.00 more for private thirty-minute lessons than the younger generation, but the younger generation charged about $2.50 more for forty-five-minute lessons and about $4.00 more for hour lessons. Approximately one-fifth of the older generation adapted to the twenty-first century through the use of websites. The older generation's use of computer programs, keyboards, and MIDI disks exhibited elements of modernization. Each generation favored a different published teaching method. Because the younger generation had not yet incorporated transposition, composition, and creative exercises into their lessons, the older generation reflected a more comprehensive approach to teaching. A majority of the older teachers indicated they were not the sole provider for themselves or their families. Approximately 47% of the younger teachers were not the sole financial providers for themselves or their families. When both generations were between eighteen and forty years of age, twice as many teachers of the older generation had the responsibility of children who lived with them., San Diego State University
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- A comparative study on ultra-wideband and ultrasonic technologies for Wireless Body Area Networks and healthcare
- With the advent of MEMS and integrated circuits, size of device reduced to the order of mm, with micro-sensors and microprocessors and other components on it. This low power miniature sensor device placed on the human body or inside the human body can collect the information or symptoms of the body that can be used for diagnosis, and in some cases for cure or relief. This information can also be sent to the medical center for the remote monitoring. For networking of these devices an appropriate choice of radio technology and communication methodology has to be made, that is suitable for requirements of such networks like heat dissipation, transducer size, QoS provisioning, propagation inside body, interference, transmission power etc. UWB has been identified as a solution for WBAN in IEEE802.15.6, but there are issues to be addressed such as attenuation inside body for implantable devices, energy efficient networking with low heat dissipation. Ultrasonic communication although an emerging without much well established standard or protocols promises better propagation inside body in which water content is high and hence well suited for implantable devices. It is known to be used without much health hazard in Medical applications. This thesis compares and evaluates two technologies for Wireless Body Area Networks, compares their applications. There is a initial discussion on existing technologies for Body Area Networks. This thesis provides an extensive survey of existing work on UWB and ultrasonic for body area networks that helps in making the radio choice for different medical applications, design choices for WBAN protocols and highlights the unaddressed research challenges in using UWB and Ultrasonic for WBAN applications., San Diego State University
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- A comparison of demons image registration algorithms to monitor longitudinal changes in knee cartilage: Data from the OsteoArthritis Initiative
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 67-70)., Osteoarthritis (OA) is a slowly progressing disease characterized clinically by pain, deformity, enlargement of the joints, and limitation of motion. OA causes, among other changes, loss in cartilage volume that increases as the disease progresses. OA is a complex disease and objective documentation of disease progression or response to treatment is challenging. Approximately 27 million adults age 25 and older have clinically diagnosed OA; however, cartilage loss with disease progression is small and localized to sub-regions of the cartilage. Detection of these changes is challenging and manual methods are tedious and error prone. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive modality that provides high-resolution, 3-dimensional images with high contrast between cartilage and the surrounding anatomy. Highly accurate measures of cartilage volume, and thickness (global and local) can be extracted from morphological MR images. The focus of this research is on development of accurate tools to quantify the small and localized changes in cartilage morphology to facilitate comparisons between patient cohorts with varying degrees of OA as well as to track longitudinal changes (normal progression and response to treatment). The application area is the femoral cartilage but the methodology can be readily extended to the patellar and tibial cartilage. We explored a fast, readily implementable algorithm called the 'Demons Algorithm'. We implemented and compared the registration accuracy of four variants of the algorithm on cartilage image volumes. The registration algorithms were also evaluated for the accuracy of the average Jacobians. Evaluation was performed on 36 subjects using the baseline and later time point images acquired after 12 months. The symmetric evolved demons algorithm provided the best in registration accuracy evaluated using quantitative metrics of mean squared error and voxel overlap. The average Jacobian of the cartilage was compared to the ratio of volume change for validation. The symmetric simple demons and symmetric evolved demons performed equally well in terms of the Jacobians. The techniques developed here will be used, in future studies, to explore differences in cohorts segregated by disease severity and correlation of local changes to clinical variables.
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- A comparison of procedures for testing noninferiority using proportion difference, odds ratio, and proportion ratio between two independent binomial samples
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 20-21)., Testing noninferiority is frequently used in clinical trials to demonstrate that a new experimental treatment is not much worse than an active control treatment. If the new treatment is noninferior to the existing one, the new treatment can be a useful alternative treatment to the active control treatment when the former is less expensive, easier to administer, and has fewer side effects. We evaluate the performance of test procedures for testing noninferiority using proportion difference (PD), odds ratio (OR), and proportion ratio (PR) between two independent binomial samples. We further use data taken from a study of two antibiotics, clarithromycin and erythromycin, to illustrate the practical use of these test procedures, power function, and sample size calculation formulas. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we found that the proposed procedure based on the PR showed significant improvement in terms of a substantial increase in power and a significant reduction in the minimum required sample size.
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- A comparison of the Monte Carlo method to the discrete ordinates method in FLUENT for calculating radiation heat transfer in a particle solar receiver
- The Combustion and Solar Energy Laboratory (C&SEL) at San Diego State University is developing a Small Particle Heat Exchange Receiver (SPHER) to absorb and transfer heat from concentrated solar radiation to a working fluid for a gas turbine. The SPHER is to be used with a Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) system where a heliostat field highly concentrates solar radiation on the optical aperture of the SPHER. A unique carbon nanoparticle gas mixture within the cavity of the SPHER volumetrically absorbs the solar radiation. This research focuses on comparing a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model using the ANSYS FLUENT Discrete Ordinates (DO) Model and a program developed by the C&SEL which uses a Monte Carlo Ray Trace (MCRT) method to calculate the spatial and directional distribution of radiation for an idealized solar receiver geometry. Previous research at the C&SEL has shown successful implementation of the MCRT method to calculate the spatial and directional distribution of radiation for an idealized solar receiver geometry. An alternative method for calculating the Radiative Transport Equations (RTE) being considered uses a FORTRAN program, developed by the C&SEL, with the ANSYS FLUENT DO model for calculating the RTE. The methodology used for determining the correct CFD mesh, radiative boundary conditions, optimal number of DO theta and phi discretization, as well as the optical properties of the participating fluid are presented in this thesis. For a gray semi-diffuse radiative input with absorption the DO and MCRT method calculate a mean outlet temperature and receiver efficiency of 1320 K, 75.1%, 1406 K, and 85.2% respectively. Adding a scattering to the gas-particle mixture, the DO and MCRT method calculate a decrease in the mean outlet temperature of 1286 K, 69.0%, 1383 K, and 80.3% respectively. Using a non-gray radiative input with a 4-band absorption coefficient and linear anisotropic scattering coefficient the DO method calculates a mean outlet temperature of 1328 K and receiver efficiency of 72.0%. The MCRT method calculates a mean outlet temperature of 1410 K and receiver efficiency of 81.7%., San Diego State University
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- A comparison of the effectiveness of training films and teacher demonstrations as supplementary devices for teaching related information in industrial arts electricity
- This report is the result of the writer's desire to investigate the effectiveness of the educational motion picture in industrial arts. Demonstrations in shop classes have long been considered the outstanding method of instruction. In recent years, however, proponents of the motion picture have reiterated the potentialities of film as teaching media. Much educational philosophy and classroom procedure seems to be based on informational experimentation and observation by the teacher. It was the writer's desire to go a step farther and scientifically compare the two media. An experiment was planned and executed in a classroom situation wherein film and teacher demonstrations were used to teach identical items of technical matter in the field of electricity. Both of these methods were compared to traditional textbook methods. The results of the experiment should prove to be interesting to industrial arts teachers, teacher trainers, and others concerned with technical instruction of an abstract nature., San Diego State College, Digitization of this archival thesis was made possible through a generous donation from Robin B. Luby.