As is passenger safety of paramount importance to the manufacturer of passenger vehicles, so is the security of the nation to its government. Recent developments in the usage of heavy vehicles by militant outfits to carry out attack has become the main concern of many governments around the world, hence the existence of some kind of barrier to stop heavy vehicles from entering restricted areas was thought of. This barrier must be able to provide both visibility and security without being much expensive. Existence of a concrete wall will undoubtedly provide security but at the same time visibility of the impending danger to the security personnel is compromised. A wall is usually rigid and costs a lot to repair, alter and replace. More over a wall can serve only the purpose stated above; it cannot be used as dead ends to stop vehicles. Also concrete walls occupy more space and are difficult to transport from place to place. A bollard pole with sufficient energy absorbing capability can be used, both, for the above stated reasons as well as a simple restraint at dead ends of a road to save lives. These are more versatile for the reason that they can be used as stationary or be motorized to serve the purpose. Also these provide pedestrians and cyclists through passage as well as restrict large vehicle from passing through. Three dimensional models of the bollard poles with various cross-sections are made and a study is done using Finite Element softwares such as LS-Dyna 970 to find the maximum energy the bollards can absorb and still be able to function normally. The bollards are made from two different materials and a study is made to see whether the material of the bollard is reason for bollard failure at high impact speeds. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. / "May 2006."

The purpose of this research is to examine the gender pay-gap and the potential factors that contribute to income inequality. Since passing the Equal Pay Act the median weekly earnings of women is still just $0.72 for every dollar men earn. To put this in context the pay-gap in 1970 was $0.62 and in 1992 it was $0.75 (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 1993). Secondary data analysis of the 2003 American Time Use Survey purports the potential reasons why the pay-gap still continues. This research employs an alternative income determination model with three component parts: the individual-level segment, which includes variables such as education and age; the structural-level segment, which includes variables such as hours worked per week, industry, and occupation; a gender-level segment, which includes variables such as sex, marital status, and with child under age six. Results indicate that, net of other factors, women earn $111.21 less per week than men in spite of having a higher percentage of college degrees and positions in white-collar high-skill employment. Analysis of the results suggests that there are two potential means by which the pay-gap can be reduced. Women are typically, either by choice or because they are forced, selected into gender homogenous positions such as education or healthcare that are devalued. Women therefore need to select positions that will generate a more heterogeneous employment structure and pursue occupations in typically male dominated areas. Additionally, the enactment of a Pay Equity Act could further restore the balance and redistribute income by evaluating positions based on the value of their work and not based on sex, race, or other personal/individual attributes. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of Sociology. / "May 2006."

This study investigated the effects of explicit teaching of morphemic analysis on vocabulary learning and comprehension and its transfer effects to novel words with sixth grade students. Because research states that vocabulary and the ability to decode unfamiliar words is vital for comprehension, an increase in vocabulary learning and comprehension was predicted. A sixth-grade reading class with low reading assessment results was specifically taught twelve affixes and roots chosen from a bank of morphemes tested in classroom theme and state reading assessments. The 18 students received pre and post assessments on comprehension and vocabulary with an additional post assessment on transfer effects. Results showed significantly higher post-assessment scores, but no visible improvement on student transfer to novel. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--Wichita State University, College of Education, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction / "May 2006."

Emerging voice over IP networks dictate a need for efficient network resource management schemes to mitigate the best-effort nature of IP. Traditional quality of service and call admission control mechanisms provide network resource allocation to static voice flows with parameters fixed by a selected voice codec. Frequently, the available bandwidth is not efficiently utilized, which results in a lower-than-possible average voice quality and potential wastage of resources. In this thesis, the author proposes a dynamic voice codec determination scheme that selects codec’s on per-call basis with respect to available resources. The proposed mechanism relies on continuous monitoring of a centrally managed IP network to determine the best voice codec selections for each pair of participating voice gateways. The determination process is modeled as a simple knapsack-like problem to take the fullest advantage of available resources, while maximizing the average voice quality. Overall, the new system is shown to achieve a better average voice quality and more efficient network resource utilization, when compared to traditional application centric QoS and all admission control solutions. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, Electrical and Computer Engineering. / "May 2006." / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 60-63)

Occupant safety in automobiles over the last few decades has become a very important research area where in continuous developments to improve is proposed everyday. New standards are set in pertinent to different crash scenarios such as the frontal crash, side impact, angled impact and so on. Among these standards, side impact is one of the fatal crash scenarios that lead to death of scores of people in the United States and across the globe. Side Impact beams are used in the doors to help protect the occupant being the victim of a crash. In the contemporary world, fuel consumption also poses a serious issue that has to be considered. With these constraints in consideration, a lighter and stronger material than steel, the composite material, can be used in the side door. Using this material would help in reducing the fuel efficiency without sacrificing the safety of the vehicle. In this research, a composite side impact beam is designed to replace the present beam and the injuries sustained by the occupant are recorded. An attempt is made to use Carbon/Epoxy and Glass fiber/epoxy composite materials in the beam designed in this study. In addition, a parametric study is carried out on the beam to determine the maximum possible energy absorbing parameters. It is demonstrated that the new design with the use of carbon/epoxy with a pertinent orientation and thickness may present more energy absorption than the present steel beam. Energy absorption, displacement and the acceleration of the present and the new design are also compared and discussed in detail. Occupant injuries, such as chest and head injuries are compared for the vehicle occupants with present and the new designed beam. It is demonstrated that the new designed composite beam with carbon/epoxy may be more effective than the present steel beam. With the advance in computer simulations, finite element (FE) model of the Ford Taurus and Moving Deformable Barrier (MDB) developed by the National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) has been used for different impact scenarios to predict the vehicle behavior and occupant response. In addition, MSC Patran has been used as the modeler and LS-Dyna as the solver to run the required simulations. MADYMO is used to predict the injury parameters. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering / "May 2006." / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 121-123)

The unified approach and singular perturbation theories are two of the most highly recognized and rapidly developed areas in the control field recently. In this thesis, a stochastic optimal controller design using state feedback is examined for singularly perturbed unified systems with Gaussian noise. The difference between the costs of full order systems and those of reduced order systems is just on the order of epsilon. The robust of a singularly perturbed unified stochastic system is investigated by exploring stability bounds under system uncertainties. A new unified stochastic bound is imported for the investigation. Practical application illustrates the validation of the concepts. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of Electrical Engineering. / "May 2006." / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 50-53)

The performance of decentralized detection in power constrained wireless sensor network is analyzed. We consider two distributed processing schemes; the analog relay amplifier local processing and the quantized decision local processing. In the first model, the system is assumed to be subjected to a total power constraint and the distributed nodes are assumed to perform analog relay amplifier local processing. Under these assumptions, we show that, we can monotonically improve the fusion performance by using non-orthogonal sensor-to-fusion center communication, as opposed to orthogonal communication. In order to quantify the performance, we employ circulant matrix theory to derive closed form asymptotic expressions. These asymptotic results allow us to observe the effect of each parameter on the total system performance. Numerical results show that these asymptotics provide a very good approximation to the exact performance, even for a small number of sensors. In the second model, distributed nodes are assumed to make binary decisions, in an inhomogeneous sensor system. i.e. the channel statistics are not identical among the sensors. We derive the asymptotic fusion performance via the Lindberg-Feller central limit theorem. A power allocation scheme is also proposed based on the well-known water-filling algorithm. The proposed scheme shows better performance corresponds to the equal power assignment when the total power is sufficient with respect to the network size. However, as we increase the network size the water-filling gain diminishes. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. / "May 2006."

Ever since Robert Brustein’s review of The Dark at the Top of the Stairs in November 1958, the role of the female characters in William Inge’s plays has been of interest to a number of critics. At that time, Brustein claimed that Inge’s female characters were "men-taming women" who were castrative to their husbands. After the publication of his review, many critics followed in suit and also described Inge’s women in the same terms; however, only one of these critics, Janet Juhnke, examines the correlation between Inge’s female characters and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Junke takes issue with Brustein’s claims and disagrees with his label of the female characters are predatory, castrative wives. While Juhnke makes some good points, her analysis of Inge’s most well-known plays lacks much depth. Even Come Back, Little Sheba, which she spends the most time discussing, has not been completely explored for its connections to the trends presented in Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. In fact, a compromise between Brustein’s and Juhnke’s observations may be possible in that Friedan found that women trapped in the feminine mystique often did become castrative wives. Thus, this thesis will take a close examination of the comparisons between William Inge’s female characters and the women Friedan describes in The Feminine Mystique. It argues that these women exhibit symptoms similar to those Friedan describes: boredom, a preoccupation with sex, and unhealthy mother-child relationships. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of English. / "May 2006." / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 35-36)

Being rich -- Germinate -- Inside -- Leaving the herd -- Burying aunt Billie. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of English. / "May 2006."

In the "Ode on a Grecian Urn", the poet-speaker uses many tools to distance himself from the urn. Many critics have argued for Keat’s agreement with the urn, using the poet’s letters and notions of Romanticism as guide. These criticisms, though, falter once stronger interpretations enter. Pronoun usage--ye and thee-- strongly affect the overall meaning of the work and the last lines in particular. Keats, aware of this pronoun usage as it still exists in poetry but not spoken language at the time of the ode’s creation, uses it for conflict. Keats also employs pastoral tradition to set up conflicts between port-speaker and urn. Keat’s letters also point to a belief in experience over escape. All these approaches demonstrate the binary opposition the ode employs. Each force, the urn and the speaker, employ a conflicting argument. The speaker sees stilled time and mentions change, and the speaker sees the ideal and comments on pain. This multi-faceted conflict, though, travels past a simple disagreement. The master-slave interpretation sheds new light on this conflict and shows how the speaker can destroy the urn. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of English. / "May 2006."