This study attempts to identify the factors that account for the unequal distribution of paid labor. Using the Current Population Survey March 2007, variables included in my saturated model (age, education, rural, southern status, immigrant status, work hours per year, union membership, number of workers in company, employment in the good producing industry, level of occupational prestige, sex, occupational sex segregation, marriage status , children under 6, and minority status). Using univarite and bivarite analysis to determine a model for the multivariate use of a ordinal least squares regression to regress the independent factors of individual, structural, and gender level variables on annual earnings. The most important finding was that related to the hypothesis that as occupational sex segregation increased income decreased. It was found that women still suffer a loss of earnings net of other factors of $4,485.05. That marriage largely benefits men over women net them four times as much increased income. While this analysis showed that men suffer more grave effects by entering occupations where women are over-represented it is important to note that women are more likely to work in occupations that are sexual segregated. This provides a much greater harm to women in general than it does to men. As the literature states, male workers are interested in keeping as many as possible of their coworkers male, and therefore, men’s wages are raised by keeping women restricted to subordinate positions where they are less of a threat. / Thesis (M.A)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Sociology / "December 2007."

Thesis (M.A)-- Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of Anthropology / "December 2007."

The Bluff Creek complex is a series of archeological sites along the Bluff Creek drainage system in Harper and Sumner Counties in south central Kansas. It is one of the least well understood archaeological complexes of the Middle Ceramic Period (A.D. 900-1500). The recent excavation of a series of features at the Armstrong site (14HP5) in Harper County, Kansas provides new data which serves to bring the archaeological record of south-central Kansas into sharper focus. New radiocarbon dates provide solid footing for the temporal placement of Bluff Creek among its contemporaries in the southern and central Plains and substantial artifact inventories allow for the comparison of Bluff Creek sites with neighboring and distant groups. A reanalysis of ceramic sherds previously reported for 14HP5 indicates that the ceramic assemblage from Bluff Creek sites is more homogeneous than was thought. Analysis of artifacts obtained in the 2004-2005 excavations at the Armstrong Site indicate that horticulture and bison hunting were of immense importance. The faunal assemblage indicates an early emphasis on bison hunting. In addition to recent excavations, local collectors have graciously allowed their collections to be documented and have offered information about site locations and the local environment. All of this new data allows a preliminary definition of the Bluff Creek phase and its differentiation from contemporaneous groups in the southern and central Plains. / Thesis (M.A)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Anthropology / "December 2007."

Generally facility layout problems are solved traditionally using assembly layout or process layout or cellular layout. Hybrid layouts are layouts that combine all three traditionally layouts considering product characteristics and capacity requirements. In this research, a systematic methodology to design the hybrid layouts is performed. The need for developing a hybrid layout is justified based on the product routing and layout requirements. The size of the problem is minimized using product analysis techniques which also minimizes the computational time. New similarity measures are developed to consider the missing entities of the previous research works. Products and machines are segregated for different type of layouts (assembly layout, process layout and distributed layout) based on machine utilization and the similarities between the products. Mathematical models are developed to arrange machines that are segregated for the different types of layouts. The computational time of the mathematical models are also minimized by introducing the product machine incidence matrix as the input data. The effective utilization of the machines is maximized by sharing the machines between the layouts. The proposed methodology is evaluated by two case studies. It is proved that the methodology is effective to solve large sized facility layout problems. / Thesis (M.S)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering / "December 2007."

This thesis proposed a scheme of obtaining an estimate of channel coefficient and noise power spectral density (PSD), using iterative expectation-maximization (EM) channel estimation, based on a low-density parity-check (LDPC) code-division multiple-access receiver. At the receiver, an initial estimate was obtained with the aid of pilot symbols. Pilot bits were distributed among subframes followed by spreading and binary phase-shift keying. Subsequent values of channel coefficient and noise PSD both were updated iteratively by the soft feedback from the LDPC decoder. The updated channel coefficient and noise PSD were iteratively passed to the LDPC decoder, which resulted in improved decoding accuracy. The algorithm was tested on both a single user for constant noise PSD and a more realistic multiuser environment for a time-varying interference-plus-noise PSD estimation. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering / "July 2007."

According to the National Center for Health Statistics in 2004 over 478,000 people Underwent Total Knee Replacement surgeries in 2004. The number is rapidly growing due to advances in implant surgeries, knee implants, and longevity but is limited to patients older than 60 years. Knee implant surgery failures have also increased which has lead to increased number of revisions. Recent attempts have been made to design and optimize customized knee implants for young patients and provide a solution for current failures in knee replacements. The objective of this research is to compare the femoral components of customized and traditional implant designs using femur bone interface. The comparison was made using three load levels of body weight acting on the femur bone with attached femoral components at two gait angles with four orthopaedic materials. Statistical analysis was conducted using a general factorial design to quantify the effect of these factors. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was performed to measure the maximum stress level (_max) for design comparison. The statistical analysis concluded that the two-factor interaction involving knee design and angle had a significant effect on the average stress level. Based on the assumptions the FEA results indicated that the femoral component of the traditional knee implant design was better than the customized knee implant design with respect to maximum stress level (o-max) / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering / "July 2007."

Voice over IP is fast emerging as a strong contender to the traditional circuit-switched PSTN networks. Unlike the PSTN network, which requires dedicated lines, VoIP can share the network that is laid out to carry data traffic as well as other traffic categories. Securing VoIP and other real-time traffic is necessary considering the easy ways of hacking communication over internet. Most of the existing security solutions for VoIP such as IPSec, Secure Real Time Protocol (SRTP) and ZRTP use the standard symmetric encryption algorithms for encrypting voice traffic. In this thesis, the author proposes an alternate encryption scheme that uses PKI architecture for the initial authentication and key exchange, and encrypts the real-time traffic with a symmetric algorithm using a unique key for each packet. The proposed algorithm expected to be less complex compared to the traditional encryption schemes in addition to enhancing the security of the communication. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been simulated by modifying libSRTP. The analysis carried out shows that the proposed scheme helps in improving the voice quality to a certain extent while maintaining the security of the communication. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering / "July 2007."

This thesis investigates the subjective factors which motivate and influence occupational aspiration of high school youth. An alternative model is presented, which shows the filtering effect that subjective experiences have upon background characteristics. The study utilizes univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis of data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS): 2002, which is a nationally representative sample of high school tenth graders (N=6928). Findings suggest that socioeconomic status has both a direct and indirect effect on aspiration, high school boys have higher occupational aspiration levels than high school girls, and that higher educational aspiration leads to higher occupational aspiration. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Sociology

The shape of the orbital aperture has long been a method for assessing both sex and group affiliation in human skeletal remains. Very few studies have been undertaken to test the validity of this observation. The present study analyzes the shape of the orbital aperture and immediately surrounding structures to test their usefulness in determining both sex and group affiliation. The orbit and mid-face were defined via a series of twenty-one measurements and three observations which were recorded on a sample of American Blacks and Whites from the Hamman-Todd Collection. Results identified statistically significant differences in several of the measurements between both sex and group affiliation. Furthermore, through the use of discriminant function models, there is evidence for changes in the size and shape of the orbit for the four iterations of group and sex (White males – White females; Black males – Black females; White males – Black males; White females – Black females) as well as the pooled sex and groups sample. The success rate of these models ranges from 43 percent to 84 percent, indicating limited usefulness of both the discriminant function models and orbital aperture shape for the purpose of group and sex estimation. This study identified the weakness of the nonmetric standards, and the limited reliability of traditional definitions of orbital aperture shape. / Thesis (M.A): Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Anthropology / "December 2007."

Mass transportation systems and specifically bus systems are a key element of the national transportation network. According to the Traffic Safety Facts report from 1999-2001, total of 333 fatal involvements of transit bus operators in fatal crashes have been reported from 284,000 bus related traffic accidents. Thus bus occupant safety research is an effort for the enhancement of bus operator safety. Crashes resulting in injuries were distributed between front, door side, driver side and rear collisions. This study is aimed at the evaluation of potential bus operator injuries during different accident scenarios of a mass transit bus in frontal, side and rear crashes. Dynamic sled tests of the bus operator and its environment are first conducted at National Institute for Aviation Research. From Numerical models of the crash event including bus and bus operator are developed using the MADYMO and LSDYNA codes, and validated against the experimental sled tests. Validation is carried out by comparing the kinematics of the bus operator represented by a Hybrid III ATD in actual sled tests and simulations. To ensure validity, a comparison of various acceleration profiles and forces -moments experienced by the bus operator under various test conditions are compared. Furthermore, potential injury levels sustained by the operator in the actual sled tests and the simulations are compared with FMVSS standards. This is done to analyze biomechanical performance under different loading conditions. The developed models once validated for their realistic applications, are performed with parametric study to obtain optimized configuration that provides protection to bus operator in the course of a crash. / Thesis (M.S)-- Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering / "December 2007."