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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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- Work-life balance and policies among tenured/tenure-track professors in California public institutions of higher education
- The purpose of this research is to explore the complexities of the work-life balance of tenured and tenure-track professors in the social and behavioral sciences. It is a comparative study between professors that teach in California Community Colleges (CCC) versus those that teach in public universities, such as the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC), focusing on the Southern California area. This research uses qualitative methods, by the use of in-depth interviews with faculty members from the various institutions. Surveys are also administered prior to the interviews, in which respondents filled out information on their background. This study allowed for the emergence of patterns in the profession, and the analysis of the existing work policies that may aid or inhibit work-life balance among our local faculty members. The frameworks of family life course theory and role conflict theory allowed for the examination of how factors such as gender, stage of career, institutional type and professional responsibilities impact overall faculty work-life balance. Of the three types of public institutions of higher education in California, faculty interviewees from the UCs reported having better, and more varied family-friendly policies than both CSUs and CCCs. On average, university faculty reported working 50-70 hours a week whereas community college faculty reported working 40-50 hours a week. In terms of overall satisfaction with their work-life balance, tenured and tenure-track faculty members at UCs report being most satisfied with their work-life balance, followed by faculty at CCCs, with CSU faculty reporting the lowest level of satisfaction, on average. The data also showed that not only did faculty experience role conflict between work and family, but also within the work role itself, more specifically the role conflict between the teacher role and the researcher role were quite prevalent, which have traditionally been thought of as complementary., San Diego State University
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- Workflow for compound identification in untargeted metabolomics
- Metabolite identification is a significant bottleneck in untargeted metabolomics studies. While existing pipelines, such as XCMS Online, allow for rapid determination of significant features, annotation of metabolites, and mapping metabolites to biological pathways, these preliminary annotations have low confidence due to relying on exact mass alone. While other methodologies exist to improve confidence in identification through formula prediction and MS/MS fragment matching, these methods often require manual analysis of individual features, which can be time-consuming in studies with hundreds or thousands of dysregulated features. To improve the efficiency of metabolite identification, a pipeline, MZWork, was developed to annotate metabolic features using isotope ratio-based formula identification and MS/MS-based structural identification of LC-MS experiments in parallel using MS-FINDER and MS-DIAL. The highest-scoring annotations are compiled and input into an app to perform statistical analysis to determine dysregulated features. Features can be filtered on statistical significance, degree of dysregulation, overall abundance, and quality of formula and structure matches. MZWork then visualizes filtered features based on m/z and retention time values, as well as visualization of both isotope ratio and MS/MS matches for selected features. Quality of the metabolite identifications was assessed using a mouse intestine dataset and comparing this workflow to XCMS Online dysregulated features with predicted metabolite identifications using XCMS Online agrees with the highest-scoring formula from MS-FINDER in 33% of features, mismatched in 12%, and the remaining having no isotope pattern to match. Additionally, 19% of XCMS predicted metabolites agree with the highest-scoring MS/MS compound matches in MZWork. In the bile acid biosynthesis pathway XCMS predicted 7 dysregulated metabolites, all of which had matching formula identifications on MS-FINDER, and 3 metabolites were verified using MS/MS. Additionally, 5 dysregulated metabolites were identified by MS-FINDER based on the highest-scoring formula match that were not identified using XCMS Online. This workflow allows for rapid metabolite identification to supplement preliminary results from XCMS Online, facilitating insight into biological mechanisms., San Diego State University
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- Workforce prediction
- Thesis (M.S.) Computer Science, It sounds counterintuitive, but by 2030, many of the world's largest economies will have more jobs than citizens to do those jobs. Countries ought to look across borders for mobile and willing job seekers. But to do that, they need to start by changing the culture in their businesses. The aim of the thesis is to find the impact of factors like Labor force participation, Government debt to GDP, GDP, Labor costs, Inflation Rate, and Job vacancy on Unemployment rate using Regression model of the R language and to predict the Labor force participation and Job vacancies for the upcoming years using two R models — ARIMA model and Holt winters model. 4 places have been targeted - United States of America, Germany, China and Singapore. A Web application has been designed using JavaScript, JQuery, HTML, CSS, and JSON and the predicted values of Labor force participation and Job vacancies for each place are plotted on an interactive world map. The application gives the user a way to select the year and to view the forecast value of that year by hovering the mouse over that region. The user can also see all the predicted values and R plots by clicking on that place on the map. The application can be accessed using any standard web browser and Maps are implemented to make the application more responsive to the user. The study will help to analyze the workforce crisis of these places and suggest ways to prevent it. Language and Technologies used are R, JavaScript, JQuery, HTML, CSS, and JSON.
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- Working through the past : a postmodern visual analysis on Holocaust collective memories and The Nameless Library
- The Nameless Library is one of many Holocaust memorials created during a postmodern era when Europe and the United States were fixated on collective memory and commemoration (Widrich, 2013). Specifically located in downtown Vienna on Judenplatz square, this memorial is site specific and worthy of study since it represents a tragic event in a public space by counteracting an incoherent narrative that Austria hid under for years. Designed by artist Rachel Whiteread, the library re-focuses Austrian collective memory as guilty of Nazi crimes against their own people instead of the narrative of heroism or Hitler’s first victim. This thesis explores two conflicting narratives juxtaposed during its production period, illuminating how Austria’s Holocaust past is remembered and represented (Hansen-Glucklich, 2014) in order to understand contemporary memory. A postmodern visual analysis (Blair, et al., 1991; Finnegan, 2010; Jameson, 1991; Lyotard, 1984) is applied to The Nameless Library, focusing on the memorial’s compositional elements and discourse produced during its construction. This thesis concludes by suggesting that The Nameless Library has successfully aided Austrians and Austrian Jews to ‘work through the past’ by accurately representing the unrepresentable through a postmodern memorial.
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- Workplace anti-discrimination training effectiveness : a meta-analytic review
- The prevalence of workplace discrimination is a serious and costly problem for organizations. Beyond the high costs of settling or defending legal cases, organizations also face less-visible costs associated with discrimination, such as decreased productivity and organizational withdrawal. To mitigate the negative effects of discrimination, organizations often conduct anti-discrimination training with the assumption that it will reduce the incidence of workplace discrimination. However, this assumption has not been tested across studies of anti-discrimination training effectiveness. The purpose of the study is to conduct a meta-analytic review of the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination training (operationalized as diversity awareness training and sexual harassment awareness training), as indicated by a variety of training outcome types. When there was sufficient variance to model, potential moderators were examined. A literature search yielded 38 studies that met the inclusion criteria. The total sample size for all the studies is 364,828 (M = 9,601). Each study was coded for a number of variables by two independent raters. A comparison of the training interventions versus control groups was conducted using standardized mean differences (Cohens d). The vast majority of ds across all training outcome types were positive, which indicates that training overall had the desired effects on training outcomes. Moderator analysis revealed that that sexual harassment awareness training has a larger effect on outcomes as compared to diversity awareness training, especially when looking at specific training outcomes. In the analysis of study design as a moderator, larger effect sizes were found for studies that had a pre-test/post-test design as compared to a training/control group, post-test only design. In addition, these results did not support a moderating effect of the research setting (lab versus field) on training outcomes. Although it appears that anti-discrimination training is heading in a positive direction, further research is needed to determine the specific factors that influence the effectiveness of training.
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- Workplace bullying and harassment: Effects on absenteeism
- Few studies have investigated the mediating and moderating mechanisms that help explain the consequences of workplace bullying on individual psychological and physical health outcomes. The current research investigated a theoretical model of the effects of workplace bullying on employee attendance, and the role of supervisor support as a moderator of the relationship between individual-level workplace bullying and the hypothesized mediating effects by which bullying translates into absenteeism. Moreover, responses to negative acts at work are influenced by values and cultural beliefs, and hence, the present research sought to explore the role of nation-level differences in power distance on the relationship between bullying and each of the mediating individual-level outcomes. Data from 7949 individuals in 19 countries were obtained from the 2016 European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) and were analyzed with hierarchical regression analyses and multi-level modeling. Analyses of the data showed that job satisfaction, burnout, overall well-being, physical health problems, and sleep problems partially mediated the relationships between bullying and absenteeism. After controlling for these mediators, bullying had a direct effect on individual absenteeism, suggesting that bullying results in employee withdrawal both directly and indirectly through its effects on several mediating psychological states. Results failed to support the hypothesized moderating effects of supervisory support when data were analyzed across the entire sample, however significant within-country moderating effects of supervisor support were found in 13 of the 19 countries in the study. In these countries, the effects of supervisor support were inconsistent, with higher levels of support associated with stronger effects in some countries and weaker effects in others. Results failed to support the predicted moderating effects of power distance on the relationships between bullying and each of the mediators. However, the effects of bullying on absenteeism were stronger in countries with lower power distance, as would be expected. These results suggest that the effects of bullying in the workplace vary in complex ways across national cultures, where in some cultural contexts, bullying has more serious consequences for its victims. It is hoped that the present research will encourage future investigations of the effects of bullying in the workplace., San Diego State University
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- World history maps, a GIS-based teaching tool
- In view of contributing to the advancements in the field of e-teaching using modern mapping techniques, the Interactive Map Teaching Tool (IMTT) has been created for the History Department at San Diego State University (SDSU) by Ravali Yadavalli. IMTT would aid in teaching student geographic locations that are part of History 101/100/411 course curriculum of the SDSU History Department. GIS technology has been used in creation of geographic location types such as selected cities, oceans and seas, straits and passes, rivers, and mountain ranges. Each of the geographic location types was established as a layer on a world map. Based on the requirement, the layer created was a point layer or polygon layer or a line layer. Generally, the selection of the layer type is dependent on the shape and total area of the location type to be mapped. A user interface created using JAVA and MOJO software packages has been included in this tool for effective learning of users. Some of the user interface features provided in this tool includes zoom-in, zoom-out, legend editing, location identifier, print command, and a tool menu.
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- World's disputed territories using ArcGIS for Android
- Thesis (M.S.) Computer Science, Geographic information systems(GIS) are used for creating maps with information about the map, that can be analyzed and managed. ArcGIS is a geographic information system that serves this purpose. GIS applications for android can be built using ArcGIS SDK for Android. Native GIS applications for android can be built. A wide range of GIS mapping capabilities like routing, geocoding, data visualization can be integrated online, and in some cases offline too. ArcGIS is a product of ESRI (Environmental Science and Research Institute) that aids in creating and developing location based mapping applications. The aim of this project is to build an interactive ArcGIS tool using Android, which gives on outlook of the world's disputed territories. This tool helps in achieving a better understanding of the world's political standing and its territorial disputes. Major recognized territorial disputes are listed in the form of a drawer menu in Android, which when clicked displays the web map of that particular disputed area. Each mapped layout contains an info button which guides the user through the selection, with hyperlinks to webpages for further information. The tool was developed in Android using ArcGIS libraries, sourced from 'ArcGIS for developers' website. Web maps in each layout were created from the ArcGIS developers web tool for creating and sharing web based maps. Each web map is sourced into the respective layouts using URLs (universal resource locators) and user permissions. The tool was built for educational purposes and hence its features are restricted in complexity, for easier understanding.
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- Wrist movement classification using multi-channel surface EMG
- Surface electromyography (SEMG) has recently emerged as a nonconventional human computer interface in various fields, such as prosthetic controls, gaming and rehabilitation of upper extremities. Electrical signals generated by muscle movements are translated into commands in gaming and control applications, providing a new interface between human and external devices. In rehabilitation alone or game based rehabilitation, myoelectric signals are used for guiding the rehabilitation process or assessing the progress. Most myoelectric control applications rely on correct classification rate and recognition accuracy of movements generating the myoelectric signal set. In this study, a multi-channel SEMG system is developed to recognize seven different upper limb movements. This study also provides a comparison among three classifiers for recognition of wrist movements. The system offers 94.1% accuracy for the seven-class classification problem, 97.2% accuracy for the six-class classification problem and 98.6% accuracy for the four-class classification problem., San Diego State University