Stander Symposium Projects

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  The Graying and the Disgruntled: A Needs Assessment of Associate Professors

  Grace L. Pregent

  Recent national surveys of associate professors (Modern Language Association, 2009; Jaschik, 2012) present a bleak picture: associate professors receive little support from institutions. Without this support, they frequently lose focus, motivation, and experience professorial burnout or melancholia (Baldwin, 1990; Schwab, 1983; Karpiak, 1996). The first part of this study reframed the definition of faculty development, reviewed the related literature, and investigated three themes: the portrait of the associate professor, the results of national surveys, and recent institutional programming efforts for these professors. Through an online qualitative survey, the second part focused on the collection and analysis of data regarding the needs of associate professors at the University of Dayton. Ultimately, this study sought to assess the climate for associate professors and to propose strategic initiatives for institutional administration to support these professors, encourage their self-authorship, and engage them as vital faculty.

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  The Impact of Advisors on Student Organizations

  Molly R. Robinson

  The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of student organization advisors on organizational success, based on the expectations set by the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (2012). This study looked for differences in the perception of an advisor's involvement from the perspective of advisors and student organization presidents. The study also looked to see if there was a correlation between advisor involvement and student organization president's perception of organizational success. Participants of this study were asked to rate, using a lickert scale, the involvement of the advisor and how successful the student organization performed specific tasks. Due to the dearth of research on this particular topic, the study findings open doors for further research with larger sample sizes for more generalizable results. Results of this study may interest student organization leaders, advisors, and higher education professionals looking to increase organizational success.

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  The Impact of Social Awareness, Empathy, and Confidence on Blindness to Change in Facial Emotions

  Adam Barnas, Joseph R. Pauszek, Jeremy T. Schwob

  This study investigates the phenomenon known as change blindness, or the inability of an observer to detect changes in stimuli, such as variations in facial indications of emotion. Previous studies have shown that gradual changes of facial emotion produce substantive levels of change blindness when observers are instructed to report the changes verbally (David et al., 2006). However, measures of ocular gaze (i.e., visual scan paths, fixation times, and pupil dilations) assessed by eye-tracking equipment, reveal that more attention is focused on features of a face that are thought to be more indicative of a change in emotion (e.g., eyes) than on static non-facial stimuli (Davies & Hoffman, 2003). It has also been noted that observers express high levels of confidence in their ability and accuracy in detecting a change in a stimulus if it were to take place even though they consistently fail to detect changes (Blackmore et al., 1995). The proposed research will utilize videos showing changes in facial emotion and questionnaires to gauge social awareness (cognizance of what is needed by others in a social situation) and empathy (sensitivity to the emotion of others). Based partly on extant results, there are three hypotheses. First, gradual changes in the facial emotion of an actor in a video will attract more gaze and fixation time, as measured by eye-tracking equipment, and be detected more frequently than gradual changes in a neutral stimulus (e.g., changing the color of a shirt). Second, changes in facial emotion will be detected more often by observers who have greater social awareness and empathy. Third, observers who are unable to detect changes in facial emotions will express, a priori, more overconfidence in their ability to do so compared to observers who are able to detect changes in facial emotions.

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  The Influence of High Solids Loading Concentration and Scaling-up Operation in Coal Slurry Just-Suspended Agitation by High-Efficiency Impellers

  Hong Liu

  The just-suspended condition is often regarded as the optimum criterion for liquid-solid agitation in chemical industries for processes such as crystallizing and dissolution. Literarily it is defined as the minimum speed that all particles are in motion and no particle remains on the vessel base for more than 1 to 2 seconds. Compared to uniform suspension in which the solids are dispersed throughout the liquid phase, just-suspended agitation reduces power consumption and equipment investment while exposing the entire solid surface to surrounding liquid. In this research, the characteristics of coal powders just suspended in water prior to transportation in pipelines were studied. Zwietering developed a correlation for just-suspended speed that indicated that it was affected by various parameters, such as solid and liquid properties and impeller characteristics, with each effect being presumed to be independent. However, this correlation was developed based on limited data such as low solid loading. In the current study, the solids loading exponent reflecting the effect of high solids concentration on just suspended speed is contrasted with Zwieterings' correlation. Also, effort was devoted to exploring the influence of scale-up in coal slurry just-suspended agitation. Additionally, the unsuspended solids fraction at stirrer speeds below just-suspended speed was studied. The solids loading exponents of this study were higher than those found by Zwietering, and the higher the solids loading, the higher the exponent. The scale-up exponent that describes the effect of scale on the just-suspended speed was found to depend on solids loading, with the scale-up exponent increasing with increasing solids loading. It was found that the suspended solids fraction did not fall below 98% until the stirrer speed was decreased to 70% of the just-suspended speed. Specifically, reduction of the speed by 30% reduces power requirements by 65% while keeping 98% of the solids in suspension.

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  The Influence of Personal Height and Eye Level on the Perception of Object Dimensions and Affordance Judgments

  Adam Barnas, Kevin Longacre

  The embodied cognition approach to perception suggests that spatial perception involves the integration of visual cues and body-based cues when perceiving capabilities for action, or affordances, in extrapersonal space. For example, behavioral studies suggest that altering the affordances of the observer (e.g., by giving the participant a tool to extend reach) alters the perceived body size (peripersonal space) and perceived dimensions of the environment (extrapersonal space), such as the perceived distance to a target (Reed & Farah, 1995). Eye height is also likely to play a role in judging object dimensions, the perception of affordances, and other action capabilities (Warren & Whang, 1987). Studies recording participants' performances walking under a series of obstacles show that people require a larger margin of safety when wearing an apparatus on their head or feet that increases their physical height because of the unfamiliarity of the adopted body dimensions. Across three experiments, we will utilize several measures to examine the effect of body height and eye height on perceived object height and perceived passability through a vertical aperture in extrapersonal space. To this end, we hypothesize that body height and eye level manipulations will ultimately alter the perception of the observer's environment, such as reporting smaller object sizes and more difficult passability. All three experiments require participants to match the height of several vertical apertures and report whether they could walk through the apertures without ducking or touching the top. Experiment 1 will serve as a control since body height and eye level will not be manipulated. Experiment 2 will manipulate body height by using rods of varying lengths and Experiment 3 will manipulate eye level by having participants stand on platforms of varying heights. These studies will demonstrate the importance of body dimensions in perceiving external space and affordances with vertical apertures.

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  The influence of self-esteem level on interpretation of ambiguous stimuli after a rejection experience

  Nicholette T. Smith

  How do rejection experiences influence the interpretation of messages in people with high self-esteem versus people with low self-esteem? The present study examined the relationship between self-esteem, rejection experiences, and whether self-esteem levels buffer against lasting mental anguish caused by rejection. It was hypothesized that people with low self-esteem who have experienced a rejection experience will interpret an ambiguous message more negatively and will be more likely to interpret the message as threatening, whereas people with high self-esteem who have experienced a rejection experience will interpret an ambiguous message more positively and will be less likely to interpret the message as threatening. First, participants completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (Downey & Feldman, 1996), and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin & Terry, 1988) to provide baseline measures. Next, each participant was randomly assigned to one of three tasks: writing about a past experience of rejection (rejection condition), writing about a past experience of acceptance (acceptance condition), or ordering a list of social topics by their preference to write about each one (control condition). Finally, participants read emotionally positive, negative, and neutral/ambiguous emails, ostensibly written by another person, and evaluated whether they perceived the text to be emotionally positive or negative, as well as their perceptions of the writer. These emails were written to imply that the sender and recipient had gone out to dinner together and the sender responded in each email differently. Results from data analysis are forthcoming. It is important to find connections between variables like self-esteem and rejection sensitivity and determine under which circumstances people carry rejection experiences into other aspects of life to predict subsequent influence of rejection.

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  The Jury's Still Out: Cognitive Development of First-Year Law Students

  Robert O'Hara

  Since the work of Erikson, researchers have striven to compile data and literature on the stages and patterns of college students' abilities to think, behave, relate, and learn (Chickering & Reisser, 1993). This study posed the question, if law students are stunted or hindered in their development, can they truly be good at what they do? The purpose of this study was to provide insights and data to the cognitive development and meaning making ability of first year law students. Designed from Baxter Magolda's (1992, 1999, and 2001) longitudinal research on college student epistemological growth, the research looked at the effect law school Socratic pedagogy had on first year law students (1Ls) ability to construct meaning from the material studied in the classroom. Law by its very nature is contextual, however, Socratic pedagogy can force students into what Baxter Magolda (1992) calls, absolute knowing, the stage of knowing where students accept the facts from the professor as the absolute truth. The results will provide law school faculty with evidence on how pedagogy affects students. Furthermore, it will provide the literature of student development theory with a more in-depth view of how students develop, at least in terms of cognitive growth. Information collected throughout the study will also help law schools determine if a single strict pedagogy is appropriate for lawyers in this century. Having a better understanding of how students think and how they come to understand knowledge is valuable information that may inform educational planning.

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  The Kou Jump-Diffusion Model for Option Pricing

  Gracie Fasano, Sophia S. Munyemana

  The Black-Scholes based model has been a useful tool for option pricing in the stock market. Yet there are two phenomena the leptokurtic feature and the implied volatility curve which naturally occur in asset pricing. The model proposed by S. G. Kou not only offers an explanation of the leptokurtic feature and the volatility smile, but also leads to analytical solutions to many option pricing problems such as European call and put options. Our research focuses mainly on the analytical solution of the Kou model in MATlab for the European option using what Kou defines as the Hh function. This function can be viewed as a generalization of the cumulative normal distribution function. More precisely the left tail of the Hh function has a polynomial growth rate, and the right tail has an exponential decay. We also evaluate the integral Kou defines as I_n which is important in option pricing to determine the arbitrary constants alpha, lambda and beta. For our research, we determine these constants in a MATlab code and then use them in Kou's Upsilon function to determine the value of the European option.

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  The Micro-Ecology of Plant Invasion: Assessing Impacts of the Invasive Exotic Shrub Lonicera maackii on the Ecology of Soil Microbial Communities

  Kara J. Dickey

  Invasive exotic species are a significant threat to ecosystems across the globe and pose a monumental challenge for resource managers. The mechanisms by which these species impact ecosystems are imperfectly understood and science is still without a unified theory to explain how these species usurp habitat space, displacing natives. Invasive species dominance may be partially explained by escape from pathogens that suppress native plants, or disruption of native mutualisms. A relatively unstudied aspect is the relationship between invasive species and microorganisms inhabiting soil. Lonicera maackii is a model invasive species that impacts forests in the Miami Valley of southwestern Ohio. In this study we will focus specifically on colonization of roots by the microbial community and potential feedbacks to plant growth. The microbial community on L. maackii roots will be compared to that of native species using a metabolic profiling technique.

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  The Origin and Possible Role Of L-dopa Containing Proteins in Biomineralization Processes

  Wesley D. Tidball

  Marine organisms such as Mytilus edulis L (the blue mussel), Crassostrea virginica (the eastern oyster), and Mercenaria mercenaria (the hard shell clam) produce structural proteins and peptides that are critical in adhesive strategies as well as the formation of new shell. The unique properties of these proteins and peptides are induced by their specific amino acid composition. One unique catecholic amino acid is of utmost importance: L 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-dopa), which has been implicated in the enzymatically catalyzed sclerotization (or cross-linking) of these proteins that can form moisture-resistant adhesive bonds to a variety of substrates, or the formation of an insoluble organic matrix that plays a vital role in biomineralization and shell formation. The exact origin and role of L-dopa found in these structural proteins is still a source of debate within the biomineralization community. Therefore, the focus of this research was to determine the origin and possible role of L-dopa containing proteins involved in the process of biomineralization and the formation of new shell in the three bivalve mollusks previously mentioned. Studies were performed to determine the origin and relative abundance of L-dopa throughout the process of shell growth and regeneration by inducing a cellular response at the shell growth margin and harvesting serum contained within the adductor muscle. Induction of localized shell growth was achieved by notching the shell; the serum was collected from the adductor muscle closest to the notch at a regular time interval, beginning at time of induction. The serum was centrifuged and hemocytes were harvested and rinsed in filtered sea water; the resulting serum supernatant, hemocytes and rinses were analyzed for amino acid composition. Freshly regenerated shell was also harvested from the shell notch and analyzed. All amino acid analysis has been done using liquid chromatography. Preliminary results indicate that L-dopa is produced within the hemocytes of these three organisms.

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  The Role of Safety and Risk in the Returns to Stocks in Volatile Markets

  Hayley J. Douglas, Mark F. Kocoloski

  The period 2008-2012 in the stock market has been characterized as highly volatile. During the period, it was not uncommon to see the Dow Jones Index up or down 200 points in one dat. One would expect, therefore that risk adverse investors would be using a flight to safety investment strategy. If this is indeed the case, we should expect stocks with lower debt to equity, higher dividends, and dividend yields to outperform. To test this hypothesis we select the 10 worst performing industry groups and the 10 best performing industry groups in 2012 and compare their average and median metrics for debt to equity, dividend levels and dividend yields. We would expect the top performing industry groups to have lower debt to equity ratios, and higher levels of dividends and dividend yields.

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  The Role of Visual and Proprioceptive Limb Information in Affordance Judgments and Action Capabilities

  Adam Barnas, Jessica L. James, Lindsey C. Meter, Jeremy T. Schwob

  In the mirror illusion, visual information from a mirror reflection of one hand influences the perceived location of the other hand. Holmes, Crozier, and Spence (2004) demonstrated this visual capture effect on a spatial localization task in which visual information was found to influence reaching movements toward a target when the seen (in the mirror) and felt (proprioception) position of the hand did not match. Furthermore, past results suggest that visual information about hand position overrides the proprioceptive information when the hands were used to indicate perceived object length. The conflict between vision and proprioceptive information of limb location was further examined in three experiments by means of a task in which participants adjusted the physical distance of their unseen hand in the horizontal plane and sagittal plane during judgments of affordance. In each trial, participants viewed their visible hand and its reflection in a mirror, while their unseen hand was positioned at several positions located behind the mirror. At all times, the visible hand was positioned fifteen centimeters in front of the mirror, and as such, the unseen hand always appeared to be thirty centimeters from the visible hand regardless of its actual position. While viewing their visible hand and its reflection, participants performed simultaneous finger movements with both hands to maximize the visual capture illusion. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants then viewed a series of tubes of varying lengths presented in ascending and descending order and called out the point at which they were no longer able to catch the tube given the current distance between their hands, whether felt or seen. In Experiment 3, participants viewed an object presented at different locations in the sagittal plane and repositioned their unseen hand such that it was underneath the object. Future experiments should examine other action capabilities.

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  The State of Digital Production within International Educational Publishing: Obstacles, Innovations, and Possible Solutions

  Kristina L. Demichele

  E-books are becoming increasingly popular in the United States with the constant creation of new technologies and innovative business plans. However, very little research has been done on how the international publishing sector is dealing with the transition to digital production. My honors thesis is a case study of Sonrisa Publishing, a bilingual educational publisher in Madrid, Spain. Specifically, I observed and interviewed publishing profession- als during my editorial internship about how they are handling the transition to electronic publishing. My thesis identifies five categories of obstacles that Sonrisa Publishing faces in the transition to digital production: systemic, technical, personnel, cultural, and financial obstacles. From the investigation of these obstacles I have developed strategies for how Sonrisa Publishing should move forward with their digital strategy.

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  The Themes of Catholic Social Teaching integrated into the work of UD's Center for Catholic Education's (CCE) Urban Child Development Resource Center (UCDRC)

  Julie A. Iuliano

  The learning needs of students in classrooms are impacted by more than their academic needs. There are the non-academic barriers to learning that educators must be sensitive to in working with students. The Center for Catholic Education's Urban Child Development Resource Center (UCDRC), works in five local schools in the Dayton area, striving to help students cope with these social and emotional barriers to learning. This study examines the data from the impact of the UCDRC's programs and connects it to three of the seven Themes of Catholic Social Teaching, as stated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. These seven themes include: Call to Family, Community, and Participation; Option for the Poor and Vulnerable; and Care for God's Creation.

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  Train, Test, Send out the Best: Teaching styles and student achievement among military training

  Jessica A. Siehl

  The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine if there was a relationship among teaching style and student academic achievement. The research focused on a statistical analysis drawn from the results of student test taking. The analysis showed areas where there were challenges within the curriculum. The study used exam results from two classes within the Bioenvironmental Engineering military career field. Approximately 66 students' scores were analyzed and compared with the teaching style that was used while learning the information. The quantitative report may assist in understanding the weaker areas within the curriculum and, in turn, allow possible revisions. This study may be of help to the military career field and the training standards by explaining how teaching style is an important factor in the way a student performs.

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  Understanding Chinese students in a Global Context

  Ya You

  Nowadays, more and more Chinese students choose to study in American higher education institutions. According to "Open Doors," the number of Chinese students enrolled at American colleges jumped 23% between 2010 and 2011, to 194,029, which is 25% of the total number of international students enrolled at American colleges. Along with that increase various challenges arise. The need to address global-centered settings becomes more and more urgent in American higher education. American universities set up curriculum and co-curriculum based on the assumption that every student has some certain knowledge or skills, which are usually lacking in the case of international students. Future research need to be done on how to help institutions become global-centered instead of American-centered. Few research studies addressed this question based on the cultural dimension of Chinese students as a group. This study followed that line to explore what Chinese students think their greatest struggles are in American higher education; why Chinese students act differently than other college students; and what constitutes success for a Chinese student? Utilizing a qualitative approach, this research focused on Chinese students enrolled in the University of Dayton to understand Chinese students based on their own expectation, personal consideration, academic consideration and cultural consideration. This poster provides a better understanding of Chinese students by connecting with their cultural background and recognizing the major challenges that Chinese students face. Presenting goals and challenges to local and foreign students, the poster may assist administrators who currently work with Chinese students and provide insights to faculty members to create a global centered curriculum.

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  Using Normalized P/E Ratios to Project Future Stock Price Movement

  Matthew Chkautovich, Dimitrios G. Tsiribas, Alex H. Van Tiem

  Many financial analysts prefer to normalize a firm's key drivers of growth i.e., revenues and earnings, in order to obtain a clearer picture of its financial prospects. In this study, we look at a sample of stocks from the Dow Jones Industrial Average to evaluate normalized price-earnings ratios. Using 5 and 10 year averages of earnings and current price i.e. P/NE, we compare the Normalized Price-Earnings Ratio to the firm's price-earnings ratio with current earnings. If P/NE is greater than P/CE, we would expect P/CE to trend upwards especially over short periods of time. If P/NE < P/CE, we would expect P/CE to trend downward. In both cases, we would expect the stock price to be the primary mover over short periods of time, i.e. 6-12 months. We test our hypothesis for the year 2012 based on 10 years of previous data.

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  Using Relative Valuation and Earnings Momentum to Measure the Returns to Stocks within Industry Groups

  Christopher R. Cole, Samuel W. Orman

  Several academic studies indicate that measures relative valuation (e.g. price to book, price to earnings, etc.) are useful predictors of stock returns. The working hypothesis is that stocks with lower price to book and price to earnings ratios are considered undervalued and have greater prospects for outperformance in the near term. Unfortunately, strongly undervalued stocks may be undervalued for a reason ' their earnings prospects are bleak! In this study are combine relative valuation measures with earnings momentum measures to determine stock performance. Using stocks within four industry groups, two each from consumer staples and consumer discretionary sectors, we use cross sectional regression analysis to test our hypothesis. The period of analysis is 2011-2012. The database finviz provides the data for the study.

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  Using the SLOSH model to predict flood hazard areas along the New Jersey coast: both present and future risks as sea levels rise

  Ellen L. Comes

  The ability to predict where flooding will occur during different intensity hurricanes is an essential tool that could save many lives; such information would allow populations in the most critical areas to be evacuated first. During Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey was one of the hardest hit states as it was right in the storm's path as it made landfall. Should New Jersey find itself in the path of another hurricane in the future, the state would benefit to be aware of which coastal areas will flood and thus should evacuate first. Furthermore, as climate change affects the sea levels, an interesting predictor can be used to determine how the flooding of coastal New Jersey will change during hurricanes as sea levels rise. This information from analysis could be used for determining suitable locations for future development project sites and how many more people will be affected my flooding caused by hurricanes. The Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model was developed by the National Weather Service to estimate storm surge heights. The Delaware Bay SLOSH model basin will be overlaid over three coastal counties of southern New Jersey, including Cape May County. The flood risk areas are the areas that have an elevation below the theoretical surge height provided by the model. A variety of hurricane intensities will be used to highlight high-risk areas within the county. Once these high-risk areas are established, recent US census data will be used to analyze the socio-economic impacts of the flood areas to answer the question: how many people will be affected? Furthermore, by taking into consideration the rise in sea level that is likely to occur, how will these high-risk flood areas change and who will be affected?

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  Veterans Voices: Veteran Success in Higher Education

  Brittany Arthur

  Veteran students' experiences within higher education are different compared to their nonveteran peers. Veterans enter institutions with experiences that are unique to their military background. The purpose of this study is to understand what veterans attribute to their success, or what they believe would help them in being successful. Findings provide insight into the experiences of veteran students at a Midwest religiously affiliated campus. The research question examined is what resources assist veterans to be successful in higher education. In regards to veteran's experiences, data analysis identified their interpretations of their experiences in college, their needs within higher education, and their suggestions for institutional change. The results of this research may help institutional administrators, specifically veteran affairs offices, in planning programs and services to help their veteran students be more successful.

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  Visual Cues used for Relative Distance Judgements in 2D Displays

  Laura A. Janosko

  Our experiment will investigate distance judgments in computer generated 2D displays. Distance judgments in 2D images are made all the time in fields such as architecture and design, the medical field and satellite images. Our experiment will investigate the role of the depth cues shadows and texture. A 2D display of a desktop with between 5 to 8 objects will be presented to participants. Each scene will have two conditions: high quality (simulations of objects with correct texture and shadow information) and low quality (objects have incorrect texture information and no shadows). Unit-less relative distance judgments will be made between objects to determine if the visual cues texture and shadow information aid in spatial perception. An eye tracker will be used to determine on which visual cues participants rely. Results will provide information about how shadow and texture information in 2D displays are used in spatial perception. Our hypothesis is that participants will be more accurate in high quality conditions. We also expect participants to focus on shadow and texture information in the high quality condition. In contrast, participants will use object geometry to judge distances in the low quality conditions.

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  Warm-Ups to Business Suits: Identity development of female student-athletes at the University of Dayton

  Ann T. Burkhardt

  This study strived to determine the impact of being an intercollegiate female student-athlete had on females' ability to develop an identity and internal voice. In order to determine how females integrated their athletic experiences with their sense of self, intercollegiate female student-athletes were asked a series of questions about how their college experiences in general as well as how their academic experiences had affected them. The proposition was that female student-athletes have a challenging time moving to a place where they can listen to their internal voices because the college athletic system is designed in a way where this group is consistently responding to a variety of external authoritative voices during their college experiences such as coaches, advisors, and trainers. Furthermore, previous research suggested that student-athletes who had a stronger manifestation of their student-athlete identity had a more challenging time determining a future path if it is not connected to athletics. Results suggested that the majority of female student athletes experienced a substantive influence on their identity from external authorities and the regimented lifestyle. The choices each student makes in how to handle this pressure determine how the athlete facilitates growth or continues to listen to authority rather than an internal sense of self. Many professionals in the field of higher education would be interested in learning the results of this study including, but not limited to: athletic academic advisors, learning specialists, coaches, career advisors and others. This information may assists higher education professionals to recognize the need to emphasize greater self-reliance in student decision making processes in terms of developing personal identity.

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  Water Body Segmentation in Aerial Imagery

  Fatema A. Albalooshi, Alex Mathew

  Image segmentation is a very mature field that is used in several applications such as medical imaging, machine vision, object detection, object recognition, traffic control systems, and many more. Several general-purpose algorithms and techniques have been developed for image segmentation and fast implementations and libraries are available. Water body segmentation in aerial imagery is a harder problem as the properties of water, such as reflectivity varies with several environmental factors. For instance, surface brightness changes with incident light according to time of the day, haze and cloud, angle of capture, and specular reflectivity dictated by Fresnel equations. In addition, the color of water can vary depending on the presence of micro-organisms and size of water body area. Over the past decade, a significant amount of research has been conducted to extract the water body information from various satellite images. The objective of this research is to segment out water bodies to narrow down the search regions for oil leak detection. Color, texture and gradient features are used to extract water body region. The histogram of hue, saturation, and value,( H , S and V) are concatenated together to form a 'color feature vector'. These features are used to train a Support Vector Machine(SVM) classifier. Each pixel is then classified as water or non-water based on the histogram of pixels in a 3 x 3 neighborhood around it. The location of camera, time of capture, presence or absence of sunlight, and depth of water body are challenges that have been analyzed and discussed. We have also given a comparison with other well known segmentation methods such as K means clustering, mean shift clustering, and graph cut. Important factors to be taken into consideration for future research work are also identified and discussed.

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  Accelerating Robotic Arm Calibration on GPGPUs

  Chong Chen

  We examine the acceleration of a robotic arm calibration algorithm using a general purpose GPU (GPGPU). The algorithm utilized requires a radial basis function neural network for calibration and takes approximately 9 days to run on a standard desktop computer. The most time consuming component of this algorithm is a matrix inversion operation. This is carried out on an NVIDIA GPGPU using the Cholesky Factorization. On an NVIDIA Tesla S1070 GPGPU, this same algorithm ran about 300 times faster than a standard desktop computer running an optimized version of the code.

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  After-school Programs and Parental/Guardian Impact on Literacy

  Rebecca A. Olinsky

  The purpose of this research was to gain an understanding of parent/guardian views on literacy and to gain information on how high quality after-school programs can impact literacy development. After-school programs and facilities can have a positive impact on children who attend on a daily basis. This research project utilized focus groups at a high quality after-school facility, Adventure Central in Dayton, to learn more about the needs and desires that the parents would want. The focus groups consisted of parents who have children attending the community based program two times per week. The after-school facility is a partnership with Ohio State University Extension, 4-H, and Five Rivers MetroParks. The focus is positive youth development and utilizing nature and science to enhance young childrenâs lives.