No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>Complex Word Processing in Teenage Poor Readers- Does Morphological Knowledge Help or Hinder?</p> <p>Abstract</p> <p>This longitudinal study addressed development of morphological awareness in fourteen-to-seventeen-year-olds reading disabled (RD) high school students enrolled in the Wilson Reading Program (Wilson, 1989). Our lexical decision experiment and reading fluency assessment took place in the first (session 1) and last months (session 2) of the school year that included training with morphologically complex English words. The lexical decision stimuli were composed of derived (<em>critical</em>), compound (<em>bathtub</em>) and pseudo-complex (<em>postpone</em>) words from the training program (trained words), matched complex words not in the training program (untrained words), and nonwords. Accuracy and response times were compared between sessions, and with a comparison group of age-matched typical readers. The RD group did not demonstrate large post-training gains in reading fluency, but, there were significant improvements in accuracy and speed in visual lexical decision. These improvements did not extend to auditory lexical decision, suggesting that the observed improvements in visual word recognition were a result of the training, and not a practice effect due to multiple testing sessions. Additionally, there was post-training improvement in both trained and untrained words implying that the RD students were able to generalize their acquired knowledge of grapheme-phoneme mappings and morphological processing to novel words. Both the RD and comparison group demonstrated the same hierarchy of accuracy and response time patterns for complex words suggest a processing advantage for visually presented derived and compound words that is not skill dependent.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

This qualitative study describes members of the Liberal Arts/English adjunct faculty at one mid-Atlantic urban community college (MAUCC), their perceptions of the organizational climate of their program, and their satisfaction and motivation patterns. The study was designed as a case study focusing on one MAUCC department. Adjunct faculty members constitute a growing percentage of the teaching force in higher education institutions--particularly in community colleges (Eagan, 2007; National Center for Educational Statistics, 2011). With rising economic pressure, community colleges increasingly rely on adjunct faculty for teaching their students, particularly in introductory and remedial courses (Eagan, 2007; National Center for Educational Statistics, 2011). However, research suggests that, relative to students taught by full-time faculty, students in introductory courses that are taught by adjunct faculty members are less likely to be successful and to persist to degree completion (Harrington & Schibik, 2001; Eagan, 2009; Jaeger, 2009). Some research suggests that adjunct faculty's work conditions interfere with the quality of their instruction (Eagan, 2007; Lei, 2008). Other research concludes that adjunct faculty members' motivation for teaching and/or method of teaching is incompatible with the investment required for supporting community college students in developmental courses (Adamowicz, 2007; Glenn, 2008). However, little is known about the way contemporary community college adjunct faculty members perceive their role in the organization and their responsibility for promoting students' learning, development, and academic success. The completed research answers the questions: (1) How do adjunct faculty members teaching developmental courses in a community college describe their satisfaction within their current organizational roles? (2) How do adjunct faculty members teaching developmental courses in a community college perceive their responsibility toward student learning and academic success? (3) How do adjunct faculty members describe their motivation within their current role? and (4) How do these adjunct faculty members' perceptions of satisfaction, instructional effectiveness, and motivation relate to their personal background? The research is designed as a case study and focuses on adjunct faculty members teaching introductory and developmental English at one community college. / Educational Administration

The electric power grid is operated with exceptionally high levels of reliability, yet recent large-scale outages have highlighted areas for improvement in operation, control, and planning of power systems.  Synchrophasor technology may be able to address these concerns, and Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) are actively being deployed across the Western Interconnection and North America.  Initiatives such as the Western Interconnection Synchrophasor Program (WISP) are making significant investments PMUs with the expectation that wide-area, synchronized, high-resolution measurements will improve operator situational awareness, enable advanced control strategies, and aid in planning the grid. This research is multifaceted in that it focuses on improved operator awareness and alarming as well as innovative remedial controls utilizing synchrophasors.  It integrates existing tools, controls, and infrastructure with new technology to propose applications and schemes that can be implemented for any utility.  This work presents solutions to problems relevant to the industry today, emphasizing utility design and implementation.  The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) transmission systems are used as the testing environment, and the work performed here is being explored for implementation at BPA.  However, this work is general in nature such that it can be implemented in myriad networks and control centers. A Phase Angle Alarming methodology is proposed for improving operator situational awareness.  The methodology is used for setting phase angle limits for a two-tiered angle alarming application.  PMUs are clustered using an adapted disturbance-based probabilistic rms-coherency analysis.  While the lower tier angle limits are determined using static security assessment between the PMU clusters, the higher tier limits are based on pre-contingency operating conditions that signify poorly damped post-contingency oscillation ringdown.  Data mining tools, specifically decision trees, are employed to determine critical indicators and their respective thresholds.  An application is presented as a prototype; however, the methodology may be implemented in online tools as well as offline studies. System response to disturbances is not only dependent on pre-contingency conditions but also highly dependent on post-contingency controls.  Pre-defined controls such as Special Protection Schemes (SPSs) or Remedial Action Schemes (RAS) have a substantial impact on the stability of the system.  However, existing RAS controls are generally event-driven, meaning they respond to predetermined events on the system.  This research expands an existing event-driven voltage stability RAS to a response-based scheme using synchrophasor measurements.  A rate-of-change algorithm is used to detect substantial events that may put the WECC system at risk of instability.  Pickup of this algorithm triggers a RAS that provides high-speed wide-area reactive support in the BPA area.  The controls have proved effective for varying system conditions and topologies, and maintain stability for low probability, high consequence contingencies generally dismissed in today's deterministic planning studies. With investments being made in synchrophasor technology, the path of innovation has been laid; it's a matter of where it goes.  The goal of this research is to present simple, yet highly effective solutions to problems.  Doing so, the momentum behind synchrophasors can continue to build upon itself as it matures industry-wide. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of a teaching technique which involves grouping of students on their ability in reading for the improvement of reading in the school.

This thesis describes the creation of RECOVERY-RD, a numerical model capable of representing the biotransformation processes associated with Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) compounds in contaminated sediments for a variety of aquatic environments, including rivers and marine systems. RECOVERY-RD is intended as a screening tool for evaluating the impact of engineered sediment caps on contaminant remediation. The two key components that provided the framework for RECOVERY-RD are RECOVERY, a model for contaminant transport in stratified sediment, and SEAM3D, a numerical transport model for contaminated groundwater systems. The predictions made by RECOVERY-RD are verified using a series of test cases organized to test each phase of the modification process individually. The results show that the processes simulated by RECOVERY-RD are reasonably represented when compared to alternative calculation methods that have been previously verified. A hypothetical application of the initial version of the model provides evidence of the usefulness as a screening-level tool for the assessment of remedial efficacy. / Master of Science

No description available.

Thirty-six randomly selected and assigned, ninth grade, high school students participated in this study which was designed to examine the Impact of a summarization strategy on the comprehension performance of average readers under varied text pattern conditions. The strategy consisted of two phases. Phase I, called BACCA, included the processing steps of brainstorming, accuracy check and arrangement, completing, correcting, and adding. Phase II, DIGC, included the rules of deletion, invention, generalization, and combining to construct the summary. While the treatment group received Instruction with the summarization strategy, a control group received Instruction in question answering but no direct Instruction in summary writing. Results from a two-way analysis of variance conducted on comprehension performance indicated that a significant difference existed between the two treatment groups with regard to total comprehension scores. Differential performance was revealed for the selected text patterns. Performances on chronological and compare contrast passages were not significantly different between the treatment and control, while on the cause-effect passage, a significant difference was revealed In favor of the summarization group. For the naturally occurring text there was a significant interaction effect for treatment by time. Qualitative analysis revealed a difference in the quality of written summaries with regard to the number of main ideas, details produced, accuracy in reporting the content of the passage, and completeness of the writings favoring the treatment group. Finally, an attitude survey reflected positive opinions by the participants toward both conditions. / Ed. D.