With the emergence of the information society and globalization, educational advancement, especially college, has become paramount in achieving and maintaining economic independence. Over the last decade, women have increased their education stock at a faster rate than men. This research attempts to explain the factors that lead to women’s increased educational attainment over men’s. Secondary data analysis was used from the Current Population Survey of March 2007 consisting of 58,665 respondents. The alternative model used is comprised of individual, structural, and gender model level factors. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis were used to examine the independent effects on annual wages. The results suggest that unlike women, men have more non-degree job opportunities that allow them to earn wages above the median without having to invest in their human capital to the extent that women do. / Thesis [M.A.] - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of Sociology

This research attempted to analyze the North Korean nuclear crisis using a rhetorical history that evaluated the discursive framings of the George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations. I used an inductive format to use rhetorical criticism to create interpretive lenses for each presidential administration. Studying each presidential administration’s rhetoric provided for a number of thematic elements that informed the context of the crisis. I found the George H.W. Bush administration deployed a rhetoric of compliance. This rhetorical frame failed to meet the needs of the North Koreans to be seen as legitimate. The William J. Clinton administration used a rhetoric of negotiation. Clinton’s rhetorical posture was unable to account for the suspicions of the Republican Congress elected in 1996 that derailed the Agreed Framework of 1994. The George W. Bush administration utilized a rhetoric of verification. George W. Bush’s rhetorical choices produced the six-party accord, but ultimately may not be able to satisfy the need for complete transparency. This is especially true in light of the events surrounding North Korea and Syria’s nuclear program. It was concluded that each presidential administration failed to satisfy the exigency of the situation due to a number of constraints. By studying these rhetorical constraints, scholars can better understand the role that presidential rhetoric and history play in how events unfold. / Thesis [M.A.] - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Elliot School of Communication

Studies agree that fathers influence the socioeconomic statuses of their children. However, not many studies address whether fathers influence their sons and daughters similarly. Four groups of factors - family background, individual, structural, and gender - contribute to the understanding of socioeconomic status and mobility in general by focusing on different aspects of the development of a person’s socioeconomic status. This study uses a composite model which includes those four areas to examine the differences in intergenerational socioeconomic mobility for sons and daughters. Secondary data analysis was conducted using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979-2004) data. Bivariate analysis showed that fathers had a relatively equal influence on daughters across the socioeconomic distribution, but fathers have more influence on sons at the top and bottom of the distribution. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression showed that an increase in fathers’ socioeconomic status will raise children’s socioeconomic status, net of other factors; but sons benefit from this increase more than daughters, net of other factors. Finally, fathers’ socioeconomic status explained more of the variance for sons’ socioeconomic status than for daughters’. / Thesis [M.A.] - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of Sociology

The Māori and Pākehā (non-Māori New Zealander-European descent) bicultural society in a rural community around Mount Maungatautari, New Zealand, seems to have overcome some significant culturally-embedded differences as exhibited in collaboration on a large-scale and complex conservation project that is community-based and driven, with minimal government control and funding. The emergence of this and other such community-initiated projects in New Zealand invites an examination to determine the socio-cultural factors associated with the emergence of such projects. A comparison of Hawaii’s state of community conservation is felt to highlight those key factors. Through the comparison, Polynesian and Western cultural-historical factors emerge as part of a suite of socio-cultural factors contributing to the New Zealand community’s cross-cultural communication and collaboration. Maori-Polynesian culture and values influence the present stage of collaboration with the elements of valuing differences, the maintenance of strong ties to land through tribal organization, tribal land recognition, ever-stronger culture and identity transmission, and a willingness to apply their own notion of tapu (sacred restriction or removal from the sphere of the profane) to suspend other cherished cultural traditions, allowing the regeneration of species in conjunction with community conservation. Pākehā culture in this project is derived from the re-visioning of New Zealand as a nation intended to be a bicultural society by both group’s ancestors in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and contemporary Waitangi tribunals, the cultivation of a “kiwi” identity that expresses multiple-generational ties and affection to land, and an increasing valuation of local biota and indigenous tikanga (ways of doing things) through local and international cross-cultural and environmental discourse. / Thesis [M.A.] - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of Anthropology

RFID is a well known acronym for Radio-Frequency Identification, which is a technology similar to the existing bar code identification. This particular technology is capable of uniquely identifying tagged objects, which can be either living or inanimate. Items such as documents, people, animal, vehicles, containers and practically everything on this planet are capable of being tagged. With the enhancement of condensing the size and the cost, RFID has become a promising technology and has created infinite opportunities for new and improved services for consumers. In particular, RIFD technology will have an extensive variety of positive impacts in the supply chain. The main mechanism by which this will take place is the EPCglobal network, originally proposed by EPCglobal, Inc. The primary purpose of the EPCglobal network is to share product data in the supply chain. The current architecture of the EPCglobal network presents exceptional opportunities for all- from manufacturers to retailers, to overcome challenges in the supply chain. It is designed to function as a robust, extensible, scalable, and platform independent system. Even though it does achieve the majority of its objectives, it has some limitation when it comes to address the issue of data aggregation methods. In this thesis, the author analyses the current architecture of the EPCglobal network and provides a detailed explanation of the proposed solution in order to address the issues in the existing EPCglobal network. As the Author states, the current network does achieve the most of its duty, but there are some limitations related to data aggregation at the EPCIS of the retailer. Since every query goes out to the internet in order to retrieve its master information from the manufacturer’s database, this introduces a significant delay as well as consumes existing bandwidth of the EPCglobal network. The proposed technique introduces a method for aggregating data based on the information in each query and will be aggregated in order to enhance the performance of the existing EPC network. In this thesis, it has been proved that the proposed data aggregation method have enhanced the performance of the EPCglobal network. / Thesis (M.S) - Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Mobile ad-hoc networks are fast emerging and play a very important role in the field of wireless communications. With the advantages of mobility and infrastructure less the applications of ad-hoc networks have increased drastically. There are different routing protocols specifically designed for ad-hoc networks. Some examples of these routing protocols are DSDV, DSR AODV and DSR. Each of the routing protocols proposed for ad-hoc networks has its own advantages. For example DSDV is best suited for small scale ad-hoc networks and the design principles are very simple and are not very efficient when there is mobility and the size of the network increases. AODV and DSR are on-demand routing protocols and are best suited for large networks and also when a lot of mobility is involved among the wireless nodes in the network. Thus it is not possible to define a single routing protocol that would best suite all ad-hoc networks. The selection of a routing protocol purely depends on the application and also the scalability of the network. Having said that there cannot be a single routing protocol for all kinds of ad-hoc network this thesis concentrates on the concept of having interoperability between ad-hoc routing protocols. This thesis proposes a methodology which involves defining a universal packet which would be understood by all routing protocols. The design of having interoperability between the ad-hoc routing protocol involves three phases namely Bootstrap Phase, Route Discovery Phase and Data Exchange Phase. The method involved does not propose any changes to the existing protocols but an addition of universal packet format which would be understood by all routing protocols. Having discussed the proposed methodology for having interoperability between ad-hoc routing protocols this thesis discuses a mathematical model to calculate the maximum time involved in the Bootstrap Phase and the Route Discovery phase. The simulation results show that not only the number of hops to the egress node play important role in the time determination in Bootstrap Phase but also the distance between the source and the egress node play a key factor in the time determination process. / Thesis Thesis [M.S.] - Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Production planning is a function performed in isolation from process capability to estimate available capacity. Process capability is a systematic study performed to understand the process performance. After a complete review of the literature available on capacity and capability a gap was identified between them. This research is aimed at proposing a model for representing a relationship between machine capacity and performance capability. Also presented are the impact of capability on capacity utilization and capacity planning. A traditional machine capacity calculation model is replaced with a modified model, which incorporates the yield percentage. Where, capacity is estimated as a product of available time, productivity and yield percentage .The yield percentage is estimated based on the performance capability .A systematic methodology is provided for the manufacturer to arrive at identify the root cause of capacity related problems. The importance of quality in capacity planning is emphasized by explaining the effects of deviation to capacity plan that can occur due to variability in the process. A case study is carried out in an aircraft company on a single machine to estimate performance capability and capacity of the machine in comparison to the demand. The results from case study indicate that there exists a 32% deviation from the required capacity calculated considering the process performance. The manufacturer decision based on outcome of the proposed model, points out the need for improving both productivity and utilization of the machine. An alternative to the current decision was also presented to the manufacturer, to increase the available time of the machine that is to increase the machine operation time from 7.6 Hrs to 10 Hrs in order to meet customer demand. It is left to the discretion of the manufacturer to decide on a corrective action after giving due consideration for the costs involved in the solution to meet customer demand. / Thesis (M.S.) - Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The addition of carbon nanotubes into a variety of nano-composites permits the enhancement of properties like mechanical strength, conductivity and corrosion resistance thus making them more functional. In the present study, multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) were incorporated into two different types of epoxy polymer in order to study the effect of carbon nanotubes on the mechanical properties of the polymer. The thesis work involved fabrication of nano-composite films of epoxy and MWCNT using magnetic stir-bar mixing and open mold casting process. Nanocomposite films containing different weight percentages of carbon nanotubes (0.5% to 2.0%) were prepared using the above method. Ethanol was used as the solvent to enable effective dispersion of the nanotubes into epoxy. Two different quantities of solvent (5gms and 10gms with a stirring time of 6 hrs and 12 hrs respectively) were used to evaluate the conditions required for a good dispersion of the nanotubes in the epoxy and hence to achieve a good improvement in mechanical properties of the nano-composite thus obtained. In each case the samples were subjected to uniaxial tensile testing. Finally, the design of experiments analysis was conducted which showed a substantial improvement in mechanical strength achieved with increasing weight percentages of nanotubes with the best result obtained at 12 hrs stirring of the solvent for both types of epoxy. / Thesis (M.S.) - Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

Estimation of path duration in MANET's is useful and it can be used in various ways to improve the performance of communication in MANET's. One such application is the assignment of optimum route cache TTL for "on demand" routing protocols which helps to improve the routing protocol's performance significantly. Estimation of path duration becomes difficult due to the random nature of mobile nodes. This thesis provides a way to estimate average path duration for a n-hop path in mobile adhoc networks. Random Way Point (RWP) model is used as it is the most largely deployed and accepted model. The accuracy of the proposed analytical model is verified by comparing the analytical results with the experimental results available in literature. This thesis also considers a network parameter "node density" and provides the results of the impact of "node density" on path duration. / Thesis (M.S.) - Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Science Engineering

In a second grade classroom in an urban school district in the Midwest, there was a lack of number sense in the students’ mathematics skills. District common assessments were given quarterly and each quarter the standard of number sense was low. Two points of view about teaching children mathematics were found in the research to solve the problem: (1) to teach math the way it has always been taught, or (2) a need for number sense instruction. This research project focused on the implementation of teaching number sense thirty minutes a day, four days a week for eight weeks. Madelyn Hunter’s model of direct instruction was used to teach number sense strategies. Results indicated that the post test gains in computational fluency can be predicted by the post test scores in number sense. / Thesis [M.Ed.] - Wichita State University, College of Education, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction