Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.), Franklin University, 2023, Business Administration

This qualitative study examined the relationship between organizational systems' components within the foster care system and the financial independence of former foster youth. The research explored the perspectives of former foster youth to gain insights into the effectiveness of organizational components in promoting financial literacy and advocating for financial independence. The study focused on the foster care system in Ohio. Data collection involved interviewing former foster youth to understand their experiences and gather narratives related to financial independence. The study employed a qualitative methodology to explore the experiences of foster care alumni within the Ohio foster care system. The researcher aimed to understand the participants' perspectives, meanings, attitudes, and beliefs regarding their time in foster care. The data collection instrument used in this study was a semi-structured interview protocol consisting of 27 researcher-developed open-ended interview questions. The study used convenience and snowball sampling methods to select participants. Data collected involved interviewing 13 voluntary participants that met specific criteria as Ohio foster care alumni. The researcher also collected demographic data through an anonymous online pre-interview survey to supplement the qualitative data. The findings highlighted four significant themes: Support from Organizational Systems' Components, Learning from Life Experiences, Self-Sufficiency, and Being Debt-Free. These themes underscored the role of foster parents, independent living programs, and social workers in providing financial literacy support. Participants' life experiences influenced their financial mindset and fostered their self-sufficiency. Some participants expressed the importance of being debt-free as a significant achievement.

Committee: Susan Campbell (Committee Chair); Gayle DeGennaro (Committee Member); Lori Salgado (Committee Member) Subjects: Banking; Education Finance; Finance; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy in Adult Development and Aging, Cleveland State University, 2018, College of Sciences and Health Professions

As age increases, there is evidence that people tend to pay less attention to negative information, pay more attention to positive information, or both. There are many theoretical accounts that attempt to explain this positivity bias. In the current study, I examined positivity effects across the adult lifespan by evaluating competing predictions of two theories: Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, which is based in motivation, and Dynamic Integration Theory, which is based in capacity. Computer mouse tracking was used to examine effects across levels of Valence (negative, neutral, and positive) and Arousal (low, medium, and high) in an emotional Stroop task. Participants were instructed to identify the ink color of each word, while ignoring word meaning. With increased age, participants responded faster and more efficiently to negative words relative to neutral words. Additionally, with increased age and EC (Emotional Complexity), participants' responses were slower and more deviated for low arousing positive words relative to neutral words, consistent with SST. Furthermore, as age and EC increased, participants had faster initiation times (ITs) for low arousing negative words relative to neutral words, consistent with SST. The results contribute to a better understanding of emotional cognitive biases across the adult lifespan.

Committee: Conor McLennan Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Eric Allard Ph.D. (Committee Member); Andrew Slifkin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennifer Stanley Ph.D. (Committee Member); Bryan Pesta Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2018, Educational Leadership

Contending with powerful economic, political, cultural, and financial pressures, American higher education faces an adaptive challenge of grand proportion. According to adaptive leadership theory (e.g., Heifetz, 1994), an adaptive challenge is one in which the problem is not clear-cut; instead, it is a complex web of interdependent challenges. The solution is also not clear-cut; the human system must resolve the challenge by generating a wholly original adaptation. Corporatization--which refers to the ways higher education is becoming more corporate-like and includes managerialism, privatization, and academic capitalism--has dominated higher education's response to the adaptive challenge. Yet, is corporatization the best possible adaptation? Great benefit could result from higher education leaders collectively examining this question. Adaptive leadership theory and the closely-related complexity leadership theory (e.g., Lichtenstein, 2014) would suggest a nontraditional approach to this examination. In these theories, leaders come from anywhere in an organization and do not plan or direct organizational change. Instead, leaders create conditions that enable the emergence of innovative new order, and three conditions are critical: engagement with the adaptive challenge, divergent thinking, and interaction among individuals. Higher education leaders might use the literature on corporatization to help foster these conditions, but the literature is limited: It describes causes, effects, and views of corporatization but is dominated by conceptual not empirical works and by faculty voices to the near exclusion of others. Therefore, the purposes of this study were two: increase knowledge about views of corporatization held by members of higher education and produce findings leaders could use to foster the three primary conditions for adaptation and emergence. The study used a qualitative approach to the research question: How do higher education leaders think about corpora (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carolyn Ridenour Ed.D. (Committee Chair); Molly Schaller Ph.D. (Committee Member); Treavor Bogard Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jill Lindsey Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Political Science

Great power declines are rare and highly varied events of world historical importance. Despite near universal agreement that understanding the causes and process of decline is of existential importance, there is nothing resembling a scholarly consensus on any theory of decline. The following three papers cover the extant literature and justify the need for new theoretical work, present a new theory of state decline, and test that theory on the most well-known case of decline in the modern period: the collapse of the Soviet Union. Paper One provides an in-depth review of the decline literature, a collection of work that goes back centuries. While rich with ideas, it is hallmarked by informal and ad-hoc theories with untestable assumptions and hypotheses, weak or absent empirical strategies, and social/political judgements disguised as unbiased historical analysis. To make progress in this field would require a novel approach to thinking about decline. Paper Two sets out a new multi-level systemic theory of decline, drawing from innovative work in Complexity Theory. I argue that great power decline is the result of states seeking greatness in the first place, a goal that requires sacrifices in other areas of resilience and stability. States' attempts to manage risk and reward to maximize power creates vulnerabilities and those vulnerabilities can lead to declines. The theory is iii formally tested through a computational simulation model that shows how the proposed mechanisms can lead to decline. Paper Three applies the theory to the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the most important political declines in modern history. Through in-depth case research, the case demonstrates the theoretical mechanisms and shows that the decline was the result of deliberate choices made by the state in the pursuit of power. The USSR accepted instability to break out of stagnation, making a rational risk calculation. But payoffs are never guaranteed: instead of increasing perfo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher Gelpi (Committee Chair); Bear Braumoeller (Advisor); Alexander Thompson (Committee Member); Randall Schweller (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations; Political Science

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Arts and Sciences: Psychology

Attention is a cognitive process that, when stable, allows the mind to focus on relevant information. While attention can shift and fluctuate nonlinearly, research shows that a two-factor model can be used to capture the stability of selective sustained attention. Nevertheless, nonlinear dynamics of attention remain elusive under this two-factor model of attention. Hence, a one-sided focus on attentional stability undermines ways to control the processes of focusing and ignoring. To shed light on non-linear shifting in attention, I applied ideas from complexity science, a framework that anticipates such nonlinear phenomena. Specifically, I sought to apply a cusp model of selective sustained attention to explore the extent to which complexity science could be a useful approach to attention. The following demonstrates how a cusp model anticipates the presence of two orthogonal factors that align with those already identified in extant research on selective sustained attention. I also found that the empirical findings of selective sustained attention are conducive of fitting data to a cusp model. This research provides the first step in establishing a consistent framework for taking a dynamical complexity approach to the study of attention that inherently changes.

Committee: Heidi Kloos Ph.D. (Committee Chair); John Holden Ph.D. (Committee Member); Anthony Chemero Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Therapy

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Leadership Studies

Researchers have identified an academic insufficiency in investigating leadership during in-extremis situations both by emphasis and through difficulty in researching real-time events. These situations can and do commonly occur in settings involving the military and domestic safety forces such as police, fire, and emergency medical teams (EMS). This research has defined in-extremis circumstances as when the participants, whether civilians caught up in the circumstances, first responders to emergency incidents, or military personnel involved in combat situations are vulnerable to incurring significant injuries up to and including death. In plainer words, when people's lives are on the line and the decisions and actions performed during the event could greatly impact the outcome. This research utilized a mixed-methods design gathering online quantitative data from 401 fire officers (grouped into Exemplars and General Fire Officers) and qualitative data from a Delphi panel of Exemplars only. A purpose of this mixed-methods study was to investigate how career fire officers who were identified by their fire departments as exemplars in field command reported they make critical decisions during in-extremis moments and to explore whether there are commonalities in their leadership approaches. This was attained through a Delphi panel composed of 14 Exemplar fire officers. Three rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted that attempted to reach consensus among the Delphi panel members. In addition, the Rational-Experiential Inventory-40 (REI-40) was offered online to 17 career fire department officers to help evaluate their tendencies towards rational/analytical and experiential/intuitive thinking. Results from the online REI-40 survey and findings from the Delphi interviews revealed that the Exemplars rely upon their experience and intuition to a greater extent and rely less upon written procedures than did their General Fire Officer counterparts. The Delphi p (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Paul Johnson Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Kristina LaVenia Ph.D. (Committee Member); Shirley Green Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sara Worley Ph.D. (Other); Judith Jackson May Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Educational Leadership; Management; Occupational Safety; Operations Research; Organization Theory

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2022, Leadership and Change

The purpose of this qualitative participatory action research was to explore how complexity is engaged and experienced in complex regulatory systems, and to understand how cannabis might be regulated in ways that lead to socially equitable conditions. This was accomplished by studying the lived experiences of governmental leaders charged with the responsibility of establishing regulatory frameworks for legalized cannabis where none previously existed. Using the learning history methodology, the study deeply explores the ways that complex systems coexist by capturing the lived experiences of research participants and enhance theoretical understanding of complex regulatory systems. Data collection occurred through reflective interviews, followed by distillation and thematic analysis. This resulted in the creation of a data table and a learning history artifact that were validated by distribution to research participants and used as both an actionable tool for participants and an analytical tool to distill and categorize research findings. The data table and the artifact established three main findings: complexity is both a property and characteristic of systems; complexity is not a behavior, characteristic or action of “leadership” or “leaders” in complex regulatory systems; and the interplay between social justice and social equity is complex and often oversimplified. Rather than directing, participants brought about change by building interactive trust through dialogue and relationship-building in interactive spaces across and between macro, meso, and micro systems levels. Complexity arose from these participatory human relationships when both the properties and characteristics of these systems were engaged, but the theoretical construct of complexity does not explain the presence of agency within this dynamic. By recognizing agency across all systems, structural barriers may be reduced, resulting in regulatory frameworks that may lead to more socially equitable con (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Donna Ladkin PhD (Committee Chair); Harriet Schwartz PhD (Committee Member); Dennis Tourish PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Epistemology; Philosophy; Public Administration; Public Policy; Social Research

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, Counselor Education (Education)

Although researchers have indicated that counselors' clinical experience positively predicts increased cognitive complexity, most research on the topic has not addressed how counselors' own experiences shape their cognitive complexity. Completed research on counselors' cognitive complexity has been primarily quantitative, included European American participants, and has not considered the multicultural context beyond Western countries. Utilizing an explanatory case study design, this research employs the Counselors Cognition Questionnaire (CCQ) to explore counseling students' cognitive complexity development, in-depth interviews to examine the educational experience and culture that shape their cognitive complexity, and document analysis to examine the supporting of existing regulations. Ten participants completed CCQ, and eight of them participated in interviews. Results showed that seven participants scored low, while the rest scored higher cognitive complexity. Participants perceived that laboratory practicum in counseling courses had helped them develop their cognitive skills. However, a series of courses and participants' social life are inseparable from their cognitive development. In addition, the existing regulations showed their support through the curriculum design. These findings revealed that the participants' cognitive complexity is influenced by personal, social, professional, and cultural factors. The philosophical values of national constitutions and the pillars of unity in diversity that underpin all existing rules are inextricably linked to the embodiment of these features. In the United States, research on cognitive complexity has primarily shown it as a result of professional development, whereas it is an expression of intersecting personal, social and professional identities with national philosophy in an Indonesian counselor education program.

Committee: Tamarine Foreman (Advisor) Subjects: Academic Guidance Counseling; Cognitive Psychology; Counseling Education; Counseling Psychology; Education

Doctor of Education, Miami University, 2021, Educational Leadership

Decades of research have elucidated the practices associated with effective professional development (PD) for educators, yet evidence suggests that school practices in the United States do not regularly meet these criteria, and even when they do, they may not have the desired effect on student outcomes (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Didion et al., 2020; Easton, 2008; Fullan, 2007). This qualitative case study aimed to develop a more complete understanding of a relatively new approach to PD that reframes professional development as professional learning and engages teachers as agents in defining, pursuing, and evaluating individual learning goals. Specifically, this study explored one school's approach to supporting a model of self-directed professional learning. In this model, teachers set and pursued personal professional learning goals while the school provided dedicated time and resources. Framed by complexity theory, this study's research questions examined how a school-supported model of self-directed professional learning impacted teachers' instructional practices and how school-based and individual teacher-level affordances served to support the professional learning model. Study results suggested that the school's model of self-directed professional learning had both direct and indirect impacts on teachers' instructional practices. In addition, multiple affordances supported professional learning that impacted teachers' instructional practices. At the school-level, relational affordances, structural affordances, and cultural affordances served to support teacher learning. At the individual teacher-level, affordances included teachers who were passionate, invested, persistent, reflective, and collaborative. Ultimately, the study indicated that school-supported models of self-directed professional learning are interdependent systems, balancing acts between individual and collective efforts, and require cultural and mindset shifts. These findings have multiple (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Joel Malin Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Lucian Szlizewski Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Aimin Wang Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Leadership; Teacher Education; Teaching

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Arts and Sciences: Philosophy

Understanding a normative concept like oppression requires attention to not only its harms but also the causes of those harms. In other words, a complete understanding of such a concept requires a proper causal explanation. This causal explanation can also inform and constrain our moral response to such harms. Therefore, the conceptual explanatory framework that we use to inform our moral diagnosis and our moral response becomes significant. The first goal of this dissertation is to propose complexity theory as the proper framework for not only explaining a social phenomenon like oppression but also understanding the proper sites for social change. The second goal of this dissertation is to answer three interrelated questions about how we should respond, morally, to a chronic and complex social problem like racial or gender inequality: (1) Why do the current interventions to address these problems fail? (2) Do social movements play any unique role in addressing these problems? (3) What is our individual responsibility to participate in social movements? In response, I argue that the explanatory frameworks that we choose to understand the cause(s) of social problems can be the source of the inadequacy of our intervention. I argue that a proper social and moral intervention needs to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the social world. I also show that changing the explanatory framework allows us to see the unique role social movements play in making effective and sustainable social change possible. Finally, I conclude supporting such movements is a moral imperative.

Committee: Vanessa Carbonell Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Anthony Chemero Ph.D. (Committee Member); Amy Lind Ph.D. (Committee Member); Angela Potochnik Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

BA, Oberlin College, 2020, Computer Science

Courcelle's Theorem states that any graph property expressible in monadic second order logic can be decidedin O(f(k)n) for graphs of treewidth k. This paper gives a broad overview of how this theorem is proved and outlines tools available to help express graph properties in monadic second order logic.

Committee: Robert Geitz (Advisor) Subjects: Computer Science; Logic; Mathematics

BA, Oberlin College, 2018, Mathematics

At its core, cryptography relies on problems that are simple to construct but difficult to solve unless certain information (the “key”) is known. Many of these problems come from number theory and group theory. One method of obtaining groups from which to build cryptosystems is to define algebraic curves over finite fields and then derive a group structure from the set of points on those curves. This thesis serves as an exposition of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), preceded by a discussion of some basic cryptographic concepts and followed by a glance into one generalization of ECC: cryptosystems based on hyperelliptic curves.

Committee: Benjamin Linowitz (Advisor) Subjects: Computer Science; Mathematics

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2017, Leadership and Change

This qualitative study is an in-depth exploration of the experiences of 20 executive-level leaders from American corporations, government agencies, hospitals, and universities. At the heart of this investigation are stories that reveal the challenge of leading change in complex systems from the leader perspective, creating an opportunity to explore sense-making and sense-giving as guided by individual values and organizational contexts. Complexity Science, the framework for this research, is the study of relationships within and among systems. The aim of approaching this research from a complexity perspective is to gain a more realistic view of the issues and challenges that leaders face during change, and how they make meaning and respond in today's richly interconnected and largely unpredictable information age. Results highlight the critical role an individual's beliefs and values—as shaped by experience and guided by context—have on leadership and the organization's approach to change implementation. This study identifies three leadership conceptual categories: (1) traditional (linear and hierarchical in nature); (2) complexity (non-linear, suited to densely interconnected and rapid-paced environments), and (3) complexity-plus (including change goals beyond the organization and its members). Though traditional and complexity styles are largely known in the literature, the complexity-plus style is a newly identified category. Drawing from Uhl-Bien, Marion, and McKelvey's (2007) Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) model, which delineates three leadership functions: (1) administrative (results orientation); (2) adaptive (learning orientation); and (3) enabling (support orientation), the key conclusions of this investigation are integrated with the CLT model to create the Leadership Values Framework. The results of this research contribute to our understanding of the influence of a leader's values, enhancing our ability as academics and practitioners to bette (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alan Guskin Ph.D (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Holloway Ph.D (Committee Member); Merryn Rutledge Ed.D (Committee Member); Peter Martin Dickens Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Psychology; Organizational Behavior; Social Psychology

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2014, Leadership and Change

The purpose of this study is to explore the way(s) in which the disproportionate return of ex-prisoners to socially and economically disadvantaged communities impact(s) specific community structural factors identified in the study. After three decades of withstanding the enduring effects of the mass incarceration, communities stand at the edge of a new era. Economic realities, and the failure of policies designed to deter crime through imprisonment are rapidly ushering in an era of mass prisoner reentry. The complexity of the challenges surrounding the successful integration of offenders to communities requires a new leadership paradigm for justice leaders. This study posits that communities are complex adaptive systems and examines the applicability of complexity leadership theory to the interactive impact of prisoner reentry. Existing academic literature is replete with research examining the ability of community institutions to ease the transition of citizens returning home from prison and contributing to their ability to achieve success within the community. Additional studies have identified the negative effects of mass incarceration on elements or structural factors often define the viability of a community. These include, but are not necessarily limited to: employment, crime, poverty, and family relationships. This study builds upon previous academic research in the area of prisoner reentry. It steps in a new direction that focuses on the impact the concentrated return of ex-prisoners exerts on elements that contribute to the collective efficacy of neighborhoods. In order to effectively examine the interactive or reciprocating impact of prisoner reentry, a mixed methodological approach using both qualitative and quantitative research, situated in a case study, is employed. The research design incorporates the constructed realities of those experiencing the interactive impact of reentry and provides a statistical analysis of the attitudes of a broad representa (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lize Booysen DBL (Committee Chair); Carol Baron PhD (Committee Member); Edward Rhine PhD (Committee Member); Morris Jenkins PhD (Other) Subjects: Criminology; Families and Family Life; Public Administration; Public Policy; Rehabilitation; Social Research; Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics

This dissertation contains three articles pertaining to the social science of obesity. All three chapters address the inherent dynamics of the obesity problem, which is surprisingly under-represented in the current literature. The first chapter uses microsimulation to recreate the incidence of obesity in the United States. The calibrated model is then subjected to tax and access policies in order to envisage possible outcomes from such policy intervention. Results show that the effect of taxation and increased access for the poorest individuals had little effect on average weight outcomes. Since the poorest individuals were shown to be the most obese, the results from this simulation imply that the most effective policy will be ones which aim to shift individual preferences toward healthful foods. While taxes did have a slight abatement effect, perhaps the most efficacious use of tax revenue could be used to fund programs that promote healthy eating. The second chapter utilizes panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey to conduct a dynamic estimation of the occurrence of obesity in China. The results show that income has a positive effect on weight, while education was negatively associated with weight gain. Upon estimating food consumption behavior, there is evidence that shows that as individuals become richer they substitute away from carbohydrate rich foods toward proteins and fat. This behavior maybe attributable to differing perceptions of weight relative to Western societies. Countries like China, with a relatively recent history of food scarcity may perceive weight gain as a sign of health and prosperity. Therefore, consumption of calorie dense foods like meat and fat maybe thought of as health-seeking behavior. Finally, the third chapter is a dynamic estimation of obesity in the United States. Using pseudo-panel techniques, a dynamic model is constructed at the cohort-level using repeated cross-sectional data from the National Health and N (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Abdoul Sam (Advisor); Anand Desai (Committee Member); Brian Roe (Committee Member) Subjects: Agricultural Economics; Economics; Health

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

This project explores how disciplinary habits of mind are circulated through forms of representation to instantiate English Studies disciplines, institutions which then shape scholars' practices for producing knowledge. Using a critical discourse analysis on scholarship, semi-structured interviews, and a talk-aloud protocol, I find that scholars' thinking and writing rely heavily on mental models. Scholars employ small-scale working representations of dynamic systems to help them reason through disciplinary problem spaces, including research questions and composing issues. Unlike the sciences, English Studies fields have not fully exploited mental models in research and teaching; nor have they been considered fully in writing studies' research on cognition and writing. In order to understand the role of mental models in writing and disciplinarity, I employ ecology theory to link the representational nature of mind to external media. I find that as scholars write, they produce complex mental models of disciplinary content that are comprised of objects of study, relationality between these objects, and discipline-specific forms of dynamism applied to "run" the models. Mental models are multimodal compositions that employ representational modalities afforded by "mind," such as force, image, and affect; their design reveals scholars' tacit values and assumptions. My research suggests that reflecting on mental models can enable scholars to extend their reasoning and critically evaluate their assumptions. During writing and revision, scholars model a generic reader's mind "unfolding" as it encounters the writing in order to anticipate eventual readers' "situation models." Scholars also model hypothetical exchanges with familiars with whom they have previously written in order to predict critiques and feedback. Mental models have a significant role in enculturating new members and constructing and maintaining disciplinarity. I propose that a facility with mental models is (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lee Nickoson Dr. (Committee Chair); Kristine L. Blair Dr. (Committee Member); Jorge Chavez Dr. (Committee Member); Sue Carter Wood Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Communication; Composition; Ecology; Educational Theory; Epistemology; Higher Education; Language; Literacy; Multimedia Communications; Organizational Behavior; Rhetoric; Social Research; Teacher Education; Technology

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2014, Electrical Engineering

Cooperative relaying is a promising technique to enhance the reliability and data-rate of wireless networks. Among different cooperative relaying schemes, the half-duplex non-orthogonal amplify-and-forward (NAF) protocol is popular due to its low implementation complexity and performance advantages. This thesis investigates precoder design for a cooperative half-duplex single-relay NAF system from an information theoretic point of view using a novel mutual information-based design criterion. The first part of the thesis considers the design of a 2x2 precoder for the NAF half duplex single relay network in the presence of the direct link using mutual information (MI) as the main performance metric. Different from precoder design methods using pairwise error probability (PEP) analysis, which are valid only at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), the proposed precoder design can apply to any SNR region, which is of more interest from both information-theoretic and practical points of view. A MI-based criterion is developed for a cooperative frame length of 2, which corresponds to the case of using a 2x2 precoder. The design criterion is established in a closed-form, which can be helpful in finding an optimal precoder. Then it is analytically shown that a good precoder should have all entries that are equal in magnitude, which is different from the optimal precoders obtained thus far using the conventional PEP criterion. Simulation results indicate that the proposed class of precoders outperform the existing precoders in terms of the mutual information performance. The second part of the thesis extends the precoder design to an arbitrary block length of 2T. In general, for this case, a precoder of size 2Tx2T needs to be considered to optimize the MI performance. Similar to the 2 × 2 precoder design, a MI-based design criterion is first established. While the criterion can be expressed in closed form, the design of optimal precoders in this case is not possible, (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Nghi H Tran Dr. (Advisor); Alexis De Abreu Garcia Dr. (Committee Member); Arjuna Madanayake Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Engineering; Design; Electrical Engineering; Engineering; Literature; Systems Design; Systems Science; Theoretical Mathematics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Industrial and Systems Engineering

Products, users, cultures, and designers all interact in complex, non-linear ways, as designers, users, and organizations each attempt to meet their own unique goals. The design and performance of today's products are influenced by technological change, mechanical design, design for manufacture, human factors, psychology, anthropology, legal concerns, regulations, and market pressures. As a result, product design is inherently multidisciplinary, and there is a need to balance a complex set of factors that characterizes the product's performance. Additionally, in a truly complex environment, designs are not static. Trade-offs, uncertainty, and change typify most physical products, as designs shift and grow alongside users, patterns of use, and contexts. In ways strongly reminiscent of coevolution, artifacts shape stakeholders' understandings, tasks, and goals, just as those things shape future designs. This is central to what makes design challenging to do, and to study. This work serves as an introduction to complex systems, and explains in detail the principles, patterns, and phenomenon that underlie the design and performance of physical artifacts. It attempts to help designers of all types to navigate complexity within the design process, and to manage its effects on artifacts themselves. This was accomplished in three primary ways: an overview of existing complexity literature, the introduction of a constraint framework, and the development of a constraint management tool. This work present a solid theoretical background grounded in engineering design theory, as well as elements of complex adaptive systems, design constraints, product architecture, and design evolution. It situates products and contemporary product design in the larger field of complex adaptive systems, and shows how CAS theory can be usefully applied to better understand the behavior of products in rapidly changing markets. Based upon this understanding, a method for rigorously structuring (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Blaine Lilly (Advisor); Carolyn Sommerich (Committee Member); Elizabeth Sanders (Committee Member); Carolina Gill (Committee Member) Subjects: Design; Industrial Engineering

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2012, Biomedical Engineering

The Multiple-Attribute Task Battery (MATB) is composed of four simultaneously running components to which a human operator responds. A prior report has quantified information content as a machine input baud rate using the Hick-Hyman and Fitt's Laws for three of the four components and defines a strategy function. This report covers methods to quantify information content of the fourth component, creating a single metric which describes overall task complexity and evaluates human performance and strategy. Six MATB task-scenarios (combinations of two, three, or all four MATB components) each at two input baud rates are evaluated. Subjects were also provided with a chart that shows information weighting of each MATB component. Results show a change in strategy paradigm between medium input baud rate and high input baud rate for the six task-scenarios collectively. This likely occurs because subjects only refer to the component weighting chart for strategy formulation when performing more challenging task-scenarios. Advancements made with this thesis give a better understanding of how humans process information during multitasking, provide a simpler and more effective metric for analyzing MATB human performance, and create a foundation for further model development.

Committee: Chandler Phillips MD (Advisor); David Reynolds PhD (Committee Member); Richard A. McKinley PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Systems

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2010, Arts and Sciences: Psychology

A common belief is that cognition and action are joined as a discrete, feedforward system. Mental processes send discrete commands to the motor system, which ballistically enact responses. Acceptance of this belief is evident from the fact that cognitive psychology almost exclusively measures response outcomes, typically as response durations or accuracies (Rosenbaum, 2005). Given this belief, the implication is that response outcomes are independent of the act of responding and transparent to underlying mental processes. For instance, results such as longer response latencies to judgments about ambiguous or incongruent situations compared to unambiguous situations are taken at face value to mean that inconsistencies take time to mentally resolve before responding ensues. Such findings are common in the psycholinguistic literature, and robust across contexts (e.g., Van Orden, 1987; Dale, Kehoe, & Spivey, 2007; Westbury, 2006). Hollis (2009) performed a modified version of Van Orden (1987), Experiment 3, where participants had to respond by selecting a response with a mouse cursor instead of pressing a button. This modification was added so the unfolding of a response could be more readily measured. Participants were shown a category and a word and asked to respond yes or no if the word belonged to the category (e.g., tulip :: type of flower). In some cases, the word to respond to was an ambiguous homophone of an actual category member (e.g., rows :: type of flower). It was found that ambiguous homophones took longer to correctly reject than similarly spelled control words. This is in line with the general finding that ambiguity takes time to mentally resolve. Hollis notes that participants' responses either moved towards a response, and then to the other before making a selection, or did not. Within either mode of response, there were no differences in response times for homophones and spelling controls. However, response distributions to the two classes of words we (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Guy Van Orden PhD (Committee Chair); John Holden PhD (Committee Member); Adelheid Kloos PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Experiments