Falls are one of the most common causes of injury among young children and have been recognized as a major cause of death and disability worldwide among children 1-3 years old. A characteristic of injuries among very young children is that aspects of their normal behavior, such as natural curiosity or physiologic development of their motor skills, could be associated with an increased injury risk, especially in non-friendly and new environments. It has been reported that there have been incidents when children fell from the entry stairs while boarding an airplane. The small size and unpredictable nature of children combined with the size of the gap in the handrails creates risk for children to fall. Falls have long been studied in relation to nursery equipment and playground equipment from heights less than 1-2 meters, but not where the ground is asphalt or concrete. The present study aims to assess fall-related injuries among children on a concrete the airport tarmac. Since little is known regarding the biomechanics of such falls and injury risk associated with them, computer simulation provides a valuable tool to investigate and predict injury outcomes. The validity of the model is crucial to the reliability of the outcome. In this study, a computer simulation of a child falling from a step of the stair surface onto a hard surface was analyzed for head accelerations using the MADYMO Hybrid III-3 Year Old Child dummy model. There was no crash pulse applied, gravity was used as the fall force. Automotive and aerospace companies perform tests and computer simulations in order to optimize and design safety devices in their vehicles. This study investigates the fall injury related parameters for the head and neck, as well as the influence of contact friction forces between the dummy and surface, the kinematics of the fall, and on the head and neck acceleration forces. This study may result in an increased study of passenger safety. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Individual, structural, and gender perspectives were applied to examine the wage gap between men and women. This study uses data from the American Time Use Survey of 2006, a supplement to the Current Population Survey. The results of this study reveal a median wage gap of 71.2%. Net of other factors, being female resulted in a loss of $71.31 per week. Removing each model segment separately reveals that the structural perspective explains the largest portion of variance in the dependent variable of weekly income. Research limitations and possible policy implications to reduce the wage gap are included in the conclusion section. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Sociology

A composite material can be defined as two or more materials combined to form another material with enhanced properties. A composite material shows high strength to weight ratio, light weight, tailored properties, high stiffness, high corrosion resistance and high fatigue life. In the recent past, the usage of composite materials in the aviation industry has been increasing and most of the lap joints are being used in aircraft fuselage. This study mainly focuses on the load transfer in hybrid (bonded/bolted) joints when they are subjected to tensile load. It is difficult to calculate the load transfer in hybrid (bonded/bolted) joints because of the difference in stiffness of the varied loads. A three dimensional Finite Element (FE) model has been developed to compute the load transfer in hybrid composite single lap joint. This model has been validated by comparing the results of FE model with experimental results for single bolted hybrid lap joint. A parametric study is done next to investigate the effects of various parameters such as material properties, tensile load, adherend thickness, bolt diameter and overlap length on load transfer by bolt. It is observed that hybrid joining (the combination of mechanical fastening and adhesive bonding) can provide enhanced structural performance, when compared to adhesive bonding. This study also discusses the modeling of contact between the bolt and hole and nonlinear material behavior of the model. The parametric study also quantifies relationship between the load transfer and adherend thickness, bolt diameter, tensile load, material properties and overlap length. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

This research deals with testing the satisfiability of a subclass of XQuery and XPath expressions that contain node identity constraints. This subclass of expressions is called Conjunctive XPath. A query is satisfiable if there exists a database of XML documents that will result in a non-empty answer to the query, whereas a query that is not satisfiable will result in an empty answer when run against any database. Determining that a query is unsatisfiable prior to execution will result in savings in computer run-time by not executing unsatisfiable queries. Although the general problem is undecidable, we examine a subclass of queries called Conjunctive XPath where satisfiability is decidable. Previous researchers have presented algorithms for determining satisfiability based on predicate logic and also using non-deterministic finite automata. We present an algorithm for XPath queries with a single node identity constraint, based on topological sorting. This algorithm has faster run-time compared to previously known algorithms. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Computer Science

In 2000, the city of Las Vegas broke away from traditional tourism marketing and started using the destination brand of “adult freedom” in their promotional campaigns. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority not only changed the way they promoted the city of Las Vegas but more importantly, in 2003, changed the way Americans communicate about the city, with the often quoted, “what happens here, stays here” slogan. Las Vegas’ success was examined to glean insights into this rhetorical strategy and into how destination brands impact place attachments. This study draws from the works of Campbell & Jamieson in advertising, Campbell & Huxman in rhetoric and Altman & Low in place attachment theory in examining the campaign’s context, television spots, and portrayal in the media through critical discourse analysis of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority campaigns from 2000-2006. Employing methods of literature review, textual analysis and content analysis this study revealed several theoretical implications for theories in communication and anthropology. The analysis highlights a return to core forms of communication to understand destination branding, the role of participation in brand construction, and suggests the incorporation of place attachment theory into destination branding research. In addition, this study identified key phases of destination brand construction as well as critical probes useful in destination brand evaluation. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Elliott School of Communication

It is important to provide throughput fairness in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) so that each node has a fair chance at sending its packets through the network. Existing protocols for WMN’s do not provide throughput fairness for nodes that are more than one hop away from the gateway. In some cases, nodes that are further than one hop away from the gateway experience throughput starvation especially is this the case when the network load is increased [5], [7]. The purpose of this thesis is to simulate a new Mesh Fairness Algorithm (MFA) for a single branch of a mesh network and show that the MFA gives a much greater fairness as far as throughput for each node. In this MFA, the packet queue will be modified and the backoff counter in each node will be changed based on the actions and locations of other nodes in the network which will result in greater throughput fairness / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering.

This study examines the effects of political bias on students‟ willingness to speak out. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann‟s Spiral of Silence theory is used to test this. Convenience sampling is used in order to gain an undergraduate sample of students at a mid-sized Midwestern university. Thirty-Three students participated and were rewarded extra credit for doing so. It was concluded that students do not see political bias as much of an issue to be concerned about. Students also feel that if they choose to speak out, they will have specific reasons for doing so and feel as though the professor has a profound impact on whether or not they will speak out. Students do not mind political leakage occurring as long as the discussion does not monopolize class time and it is relevant to the class material. There were different levels of silencing that occurred with these students. Future research should focus on differences that could affect the silencing of the students / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, The Elliott School of Communication

Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni and Asser’s De Rebus Gestis Ælfredi document the lives of two of the most fascinating kings to influence Western civilization – Charlemagne and Alfred the Great. The two biographies were written approximately seventy years apart by clerics who were closely connected to each ruler’s court. Einhard and Asser reinvented and popularized the genre of secular biography for the medieval Christian world. Their descriptions of Christian kings aided the development of a specifically European identity which incorporated classical, Germanic and Christian traditions. The two Vitae are superb examples of an ever-occurring theme in medieval European history, which historian Patrick Wormald calls “the parallel development and the interdependence of Frankish and Anglo-Saxon history.” This thesis compares some of the common themes and distinctive traditions of ninth and tenth century Frankish and Anglo-Saxon society as they are presented in the Vita Karoli Magni and the De Rebus Gestis Ælfredi / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of History

In this work, a systematic methodology to construct cellular layouts using GT technique for large size problems has been developed. Previous researches in this field have addressed heuristics that can be used to solve only medium size problems. A mathematical model that uses reduced intercellular count as a criterion for cell formation is developed. The developed model includes details like machine sequence, production volume and machine revisits for formation of cells. A performance measure that is used to evaluate the cells being formed is proposed after some modifications in the existing method from Nair & Narendran (1998). Once the cell configurations are evaluated, separate layouts are developed for each cell depending on the amount of flow between machines within their respective cell. The best configuration is selected based on the least material handling cost that a configuration accounts for. This process defines entire steps of the proposed approach. The validity of the proposed approach was verified using small, medium and large case studies. From the case study results, it is concluded that the proposed methodology can be used to solve large facility layout problems using GT. The developed model proved to be efficient irrespective of the size of the problem considered, even after inclusion of details such as machine sequence, production volume and machine revisits along with the performance measure for the cells formed. By restricting the number of cell configurations between an upper and lower limit, the model eliminated the possibility of unwanted configurations that increases the complexity of the problem. So for a large size facility layout problem, the proposed method can be used to get the actual number of intercellular movement between cells and also can be used to select the best configuration for a given production plan using reduced material handling cost as the criteria. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Schütz is a programmer's editor designed by Dr. Rodney Bates. Through its language definition language, users may adapt Schütz to any programming language. Describing a programming language in the language definition language involves writing largely parallel rule sets in three different syntaxes—the concrete syntax, the abstract syntax, and the format syntax. In this thesis, we present a method for mechanically generating the concrete syntax rule set, given the rule sets of the other two syntaxes; we also prove that the concrete syntax rule sets thus generated are correct and unambiguous, given the same traits in the rule sets of the other two syntaxes. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Computer Science