Doctor of Education, Miami University, 2023, Educational Leadership

In 2022, Ohio House Bill 436 went into effect. The law required Ohio reading teachers to shift their literacy instructional practices to be consistent with structured literacy based on The Science of Reading research. This large body of research may be in direct conflict with widely used instructional practices that are generally thought of as consistent with the Whole Language philosophy. Thus, helping teachers make the shift required by the Literacy Bill quickly became a problem of practice for educational leaders. The literature in the area of organizational change includes Weick's sensemaking theory which asserts that a lack of clarity could get in the way of policy implementation rather than a lack of compliance on the part of teachers. The Ohio Improvement Process provides a framework for leaders to support the sensemaking of new policy that includes a tool referred to as a practice profile. The practice profile, paired with components of a second framework referred to as The Lippitt-Knoster Model for Organizational Change are tools to support leaders as they help teachers make sense of policy and implement change in the classroom. A mixed-methods case study was conducted to determine the extent to which a practice profile and targeted professional development could support change in literacy instruction in kindergarten first grade, and second-grade classrooms in on suburban Ohio district. Semi-structured interviews with six teachers were conducted in an attempt to answer the research question. The study participants responded to a pre-and post-survey during the same weeks as their interviews in August and December. The survey questions were constructed with the goal of measuring the teachers' knowledge of key understandings from the Science of Reading before and after the study was completed. The survey and interview results revealed that it is unlikely that simply stating policy and providing materials will lead to meaningful change. Additiona (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lucian Szilizewski (Committee Co-Chair); Noltemeyer Amity (Other); Kathleen Knight-Abowitz (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Educational Leadership

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Higher Education Administration

Higher education institutions face a variety of external and internal forces compelling them to adjust academic and operational structures, processes, and technologies. To address these challenges, university leadership must effectively plan, implement, and manage change initiatives that transition from the current state to a future state of operations. Success depends on understanding university staff perceptions of change and whether they will accept or resist these efforts. This understanding can be achieved by examining the dimensions of climate, process, and readiness for change. However, there is a gap in the literature on how university staff perceive change within United States higher education institutions. This study aims to understand staff perceptions of climate, process, and readiness for change at public, four-year universities in Ohio and to determine if demographic characteristics influence these perceptions. The population for this study included classified and unclassified staff at five public, four-year institutions in Ohio, resulting in data collected from 1,342 participants. The findings focus on four main areas regarding university staff perceptions of organizational change. First, significant differences were found between employee classes, with unclassified staff holding more favorable perceptions of climate, process, and readiness for change than classified staff. Second, mixed results were observed for gender; women had more favorable perceptions of team climate than men, while perceptions of leadership climate, process, and readiness showed no gender differences. Third, age had a varied impact, with the youngest and oldest staff showing more favorable views on leadership climate and process but no significant impact on team climate or readiness for change. Finally, the climate of change and process of change together predicted 42.2% of the variance in readiness for change, with the process of change uniquely contributing 18.66%. I presen (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Julia Matuga Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Colleen Boff Ed.D. (Other); Jessica M. Turos Ph.D. (Committee Member); Amy French Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Higher Education; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2022, Nursing

Cardiovascular disease is a significant cause of death, disability, and financial expenditures. Research supports plant-based diets as an effective, practical, and cost-effective means to prevent and manage cardiovascular disease. Despite the evidence in favor of plant-based diets to prevent and manage heart disease, there is limited research that informs the social process of transitioning to a plant-based diet. The purpose of this study was to explore the social process that people with cardiovascular disease undergo to successfully transition to and maintain a plant-based diet. This constructivist grounded theory study was informed by symbolic interactionism, which served as an abstract framework to provide a way of knowing about the process and meaning of dietary change among individuals who made the transition to plant-based eating. Using a semi-structured interview guide, intensive interviews were conducted with 7 adults with cardiovascular disease who had transitioned to and maintained a plant-based diet for at least 1 year. The Plant-Based Diet Transition Model emerged from the data and centers on Being changed. The process begins with Having your eyes opened, then continues with the inter-related categories of Becoming self-informed, Finding what works, Seeing positive affirmations, Building conviction, and Leading by example. Experiencing cultural conflict encompasses the process. Within Experiencing cultural conflict, participants described a lack of information and support from health-care providers which led them to seek information and support from other sources, ultimately relying heavily on self-guided research and learning, along with trial and error. This demonstrates the importance of nurses and other healthcare providers becoming informed about plant-based diets and learning about how best to support people in this transition to promote positive cardiovascular health outcomes. Because evidence supports plant-based diets as an effective means to (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christine Graor (Committee Chair); Linda Shanks (Committee Member); Lori Kidd (Committee Member); Sheau-Huey Chiu (Committee Member); Rikki Patton (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Sciences; Nursing; Public Health; Social Research

Master of Technical and Scientific Communication, Miami University, 2003, Technical and Scientific Communication

This report discusses my internship experiences at Fig Leaf Software in Washington, DC, where I worked as a technical writer during the summer of 2001. In the report, I describe the young, rapid-development environment in which I worked, my major tasks and projects, and a significant project that I completed during my internship. During this project, I faced many challenges in developing the company's first client installation guide, including staying within the allotted hours and budget, gaining access to technical information, and establishing standards for a new document type. After discussing these challenges, I examine my role and value as an agent of change at Fig Leaf Software and present an expanded organizational role for technical communication practitioners.

Committee: Katherine Durack (Advisor) Subjects: Information Science

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Organizational Leadership , Franklin University, 2025, International Institute for Innovative Instruction

A curriculum includes standards, learning objectives, and content that form the foundation of an educational program. It outlines what students are expected to learn, how they will learn it, and how their learning will be assessed. A curriculum change could require a shift in teachers' pedagogical thinking, innovative and creative thinking, adjusting assessment practices, and continuous professional development. Administrators must also adapt their management and leadership style to create a safe learning environment for all teachers. This study will focus on how elementary school teachers and administrators describe their emotional intelligence during an English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum change. Emotional intelligence includes emotional and social skills that affect how people perceive, communicate, develop relationships, work through obstacles, and make decisions. This qualitative descriptive study used Daniel Goleman's framework on emotional intelligence to analyze individual one-on-one interviews through the lens of his five components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills.

Committee: Donis Toler (Committee Chair); Jennifer Nichols (Committee Member); Crissie Jameson (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Leadership; Teacher Education; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, Management

This dissertation synthesizes two studies at ambulatory clinics of an academic medical center to understand the transition from exclusive telemedicine use during the pandemic to a preference for in-person care and the varied telemedicine practices among clinical specialties and individual clinicians. I used a multi-method approach incorporating process and variance methods and multilevel analysis over time to examine telemedicine's evolution and impact on the sociotechnical (ST) system and work practices. ST systems are analyzed using a novel second-generation framework of ST fusion and punctuated change over time, combining three frameworks to emphasize their co-evolution going beyond a specific state of “fit” at a singular level. The first study utilizes a systems dynamics model to illustrate how clinical actions, accessibility, and digital options dynamically interact during aggressive telemedicine implementation, leading to different outcomes based on implementation decisions. Varying influences create feedback and feedforward loops, potentially pushing the system toward a state of constrained access and action due to the increasing shift to in-person visits post-pandemic, workflow burdens, divergent clinical actions, and the absence of necessary contextual information for care. The second study shows significant variability in telemedicine for the same diagnoses, with clinicians being the primary driver of this variability and clinicians' perceptions of telemedicine use contingent on its ability to improve access. Time-based visualizations indicate consistent trends in low telemedicine users and declining trends among medium, high users with distinct clinician typologies based on in-group characteristics: Traditionalists (low), Pragmatists (medium), and Empiricists (high). Traditionalists prefer in-person visits for their relational aspects and professionalism, pragmatists value flexible, patient-centered care with a utilitarian telemedicine approach, and emp (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Chair); Cati Brown-Johnson (Committee Member); David Aron (Committee Member); Kurt Stange (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Care Management; Information Systems; Management

Doctor of Ministry, Methodist Theological School in Ohio, 2023, Practical Studies

This thesis explores the question, "How can an established congregation engage with Bowen Family Systems Theory to reveal hidden emotional processes that impact missional adaptive change?" The research took place in the context of a mid-sized Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation founded in 1851.The project utilized a Participatory Action Research (PAR) model with elders from the congregation serving as a research team along with the congregation's pastor as lead researcher. Four rounds of PAR research identified 1) a missional adaptive challenge for the congregation, 2) features of the congregation's emotional system in times of change, 3) features of the elders' nuclear family emotional systems in times of change, and 4) a systems informed missional experiment called "Laundry Love Day." This experiment incorporated what was learned about the emotional systems of the congregation and elders in order to more successfully address the missional adaptive challenge. Research was adapted midway to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. The project successfully demonstrated the potential benefits and difficulties of incorporating Bowen Family Systems Theory in missional adaptive change efforts. This research opens the door to further studies exploring the confluence of Bowen theory and missiology.

Committee: Dr. Emlyn Ott (Advisor); Dr. Paul Kim (Advisor) Subjects: Organizational Behavior; Religion; Religious Congregations; Theology

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2022, Educational Leadership

A mutually-collaborative phenomenological action research study, rooted in the organizational values of the Catholic Marianist tradition, which engages empowerment concepts and positive organization theories to create a framework for the evaluation and iterative improvement of student-employing organizations. This study addresses a lack of intentional connectivity within student-employing organizations at the University of Dayton, which results in an organization's inability to capitalize on the successes of their peers. Student employees participated in a series of surveys, focus groups, and interviews, by which qualitative and quantitative data was gathered and reviewed. The results provided insights into the construction of empowering spaces for student employees. Through the student voice, these insights were distilled to create a series of best practices, which have been formatted into documents which will allow organizations to leverage University-wide high performing elements to construct policy and procedures that most fully empower student employees. These documents are customized to the needs of the organization in such a way that they will facilitate the planning and development of next steps, allowing for inherently flexible, iterative, process change.

Committee: Matthew Witenstein (Advisor); Peter Titlebaum (Committee Member); Corinne Daprano (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Educational Leadership; Higher Education Administration; Management; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Environmental Science

Climate change is threatening food security as it is generally perceived to have negative impacts on agricultural production. Understanding this impact is central to adaptations to reduce potential yield loss. However, yield responses to changes in climate are complicated and have not been well understood. This project aims to characterize yield responses to the changing climate by utilizing modeling approaches, which in turn will help develop decision-supporting tools to inform policy or adaptation strategies. In this dissertation, we address several questions in modeling the impact of climate change on crop yield. First, in Chapter 2, we reviewed and synthesized current progress and findings from studies in the last 21 years using data-driven approaches. We found that previous studies generally agree that warming will negatively affect crop yields. For example, maize, wheat, soybean, and rice yield could be reduced by 7.5 ± 5.3%, 6.0 ± 3.3%, 6.8 ± 5.9%, and 1.2 ± 5.2% with 1 °C warming. Climate change could account for 37% of yield variability across the world. We also identified challenges and issues in previous studies, and thus developed a Bayesian model framework in Chapter 3 to overcome part of these challenges. The proposed Bayesian model framework was used in Chapter 4 to characterize spatial variations in yield responses to changes in climate variables with response curves. These response curves could help us identify what threats crop yield of a county is facing or will face and inform adaptation strategies to deal with these threats. If without adaptions, projected climate conditions of more than 36 climate models under four Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) scenarios would benefit crops in some areas but could also cause severe yield loss in others. These yield changes are location- and scenario-specific. The Henry County in northern Ohio, for example, would have a yield increase of 1.2% and 0.7% under RCP 2.6 and 6.0 (both scenarios ar (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kaiguang Zhao Dr. (Advisor); Gil Bohrer Dr. (Committee Member); Jay Martin Dr. (Committee Member); Yanlan Liu Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Agricultural Engineering; Agriculture; Climate Change; Ecology; Environmental Science

Doctor of Education, Miami University, 2021, Educational Leadership

This dissertation sought to answer questions about the sensemaking processes of teacher leaders in a middle school that was part of a state-wide improvement process called the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP). The context of the research was a historically under-performing school that had been part of the OIP for 6 years at the time the research was conducted. This case was chosen in part due to significant growth in academic student outcome measures that were reflected in changes in the building's report card grade shared by the state. It was also chosen because this researcher was already an active participant in the systems such that access to ongoing conversations and authentic reflection could be possible. Data were gathered using semi-structured individual interviews, and they were supported by review of historical records from the leadership team's work over the past 3-4 years. These data were analyzed in part through the use of definitions of teacher leadership from Moller & Katzenmeyer (2009) and of sensemaking from Spillane (2005). This study largely tells a shared narrative, and the story itself is the primary "finding" of the research. This study also may suggest an overall theme that teacher leaders can be more effective when they are empowered to engage in sensemaking so much that they serve as the final interpreters of policy. This can allow them to become policy makers themselves, not just policy implementers.

Committee: Lucian Szlizewski Dr. (Committee Co-Chair); Joel Malin Dr. (Committee Co-Chair); Nathaniel Bryan Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Education Policy; Educational Evaluation; Educational Leadership; School Administration; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Chemical Engineering

Sustainability assessment has become one of the essential tools for process and supply chain design problems to ensure the well-being of future generations. Sustainability assessment methods such as life cycle assessment have been used to identify opportunities for improvement of technologies and help the decision-making process. However, environmental impacts may result in ecological overshoot and shift across space, time, flows, and disciplines. To avoid unintended outcomes due to burden shifting, sustainability assessment methods need to account for ecosystem services, multiple spatial scales, temporal dynamics, multiple flows, and cross-disciplinary effects. This dissertation contributes to advance the methods for sustainability assessment, sustainable process design, and sustainable supply chain design by considering market constraints, climate change effects, and the nexus of multiple flows. Decisions made by approaches that only consider the environmental domain could result in unexpected outcomes due to burden shifting to economic and social domains. For example, the conventional sustainability assessment approaches assume advanced technologies can be adopted by the market due to technological advances. However, the market does not always choose the "best" technology because of market effects, such as market demand and economic resource availability. These unintended consequences could occur through the entire supply chain at multiple spatial scales. In this dissertation, a novel multiscale technology choice modeling framework is introduced to take account of market constraints as a consequential approach for designing engineering processes and supply chain networks. The case study focuses on the installation of new green urea production systems in a watershed where there are limited supplies of resources, such as water and land. This multiscale consequential framework is useful for modeling the substitution effects of emerging technologies while conside (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor); Jeffrey Bielicki (Committee Member); Sami Khanal (Committee Member); James Rathman (Committee Member) Subjects: Chemical Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Psychology

Major depressive disorder is a major public health issue, but there is considerable debate regarding its current diagnostic and conceptual status. There has been renewed interest in the discrepancy between the historical emphasis on the disproportionality of depressive symptoms to life stress and the relative lack of emphasis on this concept in modern times (Horwitz, Wakefield, & Lorenzo-Luaces, 2017). Despite the DSM-5's acknowledgement that clinical judgment is required to distinguish depressive disorder from culturally-consistent responses to major losses or life stress (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), there is little guidance or evidence in the literature as to how clinicians may reliably make judgments of the disproportionality of symptoms to recent stressors. Prior efforts to characterize the clinical implications of conceptually-related depressive subtypes, such endogenous or melancholic forms of depression, have been largely unsuccessful. However, most of these approaches have prioritized distinctions based on the presence or absence of specific symptoms, rather than the proportionality of life stress to symptom severity per se. In this study, I aim to provide a preliminary investigation of the reliability and validity of two novel approaches to the assessment of disproportionality of depressive symptoms to life stress: the Proportionality of Depressive Reactions Interview (PDRI), a narrative rating life stress interview, and the Proportionality of Depressive Reactions-Self-Report (PDR-SR), a brief self-report questionnaire. Two disproportionality scores were constructed using the PDRI rating approach (i.e., disproportionality-interview) and the PDR-SR (i.e., disproportionality-self-report). These scores were used to examine the relation between proposed `complicated depression' (Wakefield, Horwitz, & Lorenzo-Luaces, 2016) criteria and disproportionality, the role of disproportionality as a moderator of process-outcome relations in CT for depress (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Strunk (Advisor); Jennifer Cheavens (Committee Member); Kentaro Fujita (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2015, Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology

The goal of my dissertation was to understand how phytoplankton, specifically cyanobacteria respond to the individual and interactive effects of land use change and climate change. Chapter 1: Climate and land use interactively affect lake phytoplankton nutrient limitation status. Climate change models predict more frequent and intense summer droughts and precipitation events, which could modify the rates and ratios at which nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) enter lakes. However, watershed land use also determines nutrient run off. I found that phytoplankton in lakes with forested watersheds were consistently N-limited. While, phytoplankton in lakes with agricultural watersheds were typically P-limited, they switched to N-limitation during drought. This interaction suggests that droughts would increase the incidence of N-limitation and likely impair valuable ecosystem services. Chapter 2: Increased light and gizzard shad excretion maintain high phytoplankton biomass in a eutrophic reservoir despite watershed management. Conservation tillage aims to control soil and fertilizer loss from agricultural fields with the added benefit of reducing nutrient run-off into nearby lakes. With a 20 year dataset I found that chlorophyll increased following conservation tillage as a result of decreased light limitation (less sediment) and increased internal nutrient cycling by a dominant detritivorous fish. Chapter 3: Phytoplankton community composition, reservoir morphometry, and nutrient concentrations predict microcystin concentrations. Cyanobacteria toxins are a primary concern of eutrophication management but efforts to predict toxin concentrations have implicated numerous physical and chemical variables. I found that shallow reservoirs with high internal nutrient cycling had elevated toxins, implicating lake morphometry as a driver of water quality. Chapter 4: Abundant nitrogen not nitrogen limitation promotes cyanobacteria and microcystin. The importance of nitroge (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vanni J (Advisor); Maria Gonzalez J (Committee Member); Thomas Crist O (Committee Member); Martin Stevens H (Committee Member); Rachael Morgan-Kiss M (Committee Member) Subjects: Aquatic Sciences; Biogeochemistry; Ecology; Limnology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2014, Psychology

While cognitive therapy (CT) for depression has considerable evidence for its efficacy, the mechanisms of symptom change remain unclear. Socratic questioning is a key therapeutic strategy in cognitive therapy (CT) for depression. Yet, little is known regarding its relation to outcome. Previous studies have sought to identify candidate mechanisms of symptom change by examining therapist adherence to three dimensions of CT (Cognitive Methods, Negotiating/Structuring, and Behavioral Methods/Homework) as predictors of session-to-session symptom change early in treatment, but the results were mixed across the two studies. The purpose of this study is to examine therapist use of Socratic questioning and therapist adherence to CT for depression as predictors of session-to-session symptom change (BDI-II) across sessions 1-3. Participants were 55 depressed adults who participated in a 16-week course of CT (see Adler, Strunk, & Fazio, 2014). Socratic questioning and therapist adherence were assessed through observer ratings of the first three sessions. We disaggregated each of these ratings into scores reflecting within-patient and between-patient variability for each variable, and examined the relation of within-patient variability in these scores to session-to-session symptom change. In a series of single predictor models, in which the within-patient components for each variable were entered into separate regression models, both therapist use of Socratic questioning and therapist adherence to Cognitive Methods significantly predicted subsequent session-to-session symptom change. We then conducted a multiple predictor model in which the within-patient scores for all 4 variables of interest were entered as predictors simultaneously. No variable remained significant in this model. Only Socratic questioning remained a predictor of subsequent symptom change at the level of a non-significant trend. We assessed two facets of the alliance (i.e., Relationship and Agreement a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Strunk Ph.D (Advisor); Jennifer Cheavens Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robert Cudeck Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

The purpose of this thesis is to expand the scale in which designers think about buildings to include longer time effects. Through studying a user process, particularly musicians, scripts and trends can be documented to help guide and organize the buildings function over time. Within these scripts it is important to understand that some spaces will perform better when the specifications of the space are narrowed, while others will perform better if the specifications are more open-ended, allowing for the “unscripted” event to occur. Because the specificity of program will greatly vary, it is important for the unplanned spaces to be considered just as pertinent as the specific spaces. For the building to respond to this fluid transfer of functions it should not be thought of as complete; but rather, an object that takes on a life of its own through its synergetic relationship of internal and external forces. The goal is to coalesce designer intent with user interaction to ultimately create a space that is self evolving and responsive.

Committee: Thomas Bible (Committee Chair); Jerry Larson (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

EdD, University of Cincinnati, 2002, Education : Curriculum and Instruction

This study was conducted to describe the selection and adoption of Carnegie Learning's Cognitive Tutor Algebra I, a computer assisted instructional program, with eighth grade students utilizing a continuous improvement plan mandated by the state of Ohio. Carnegie Learning provides technologically enriched solutions for Algebra I through the utilization of intelligent cognitive tutors and standards based curriculum (CarnegieLearning.com, 2000). Students discover the appropriate mathematics by solving real life/world problems, articulating their solutions, reasoning among multiple representations and making connections to prior knowledge. Students spend 60% of their time working cooperatively solving problems and 40% of their class time working with computer based intelligent tutors. This study describes the steps of a state mandated continuous improvement plan and one district's attempt to implement the steps. This study also describes attitudes of students regarding mathematics and teachers' perceptions regarding the process for selecting and implementing Cognitive Tutor Algebra I for eighth grade students.

Committee: Dr. Glenn Markle (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2006, Philosophy

The following pages explore the social reality of institutional lag. Since existence is processive, institutions founded on certain principles and circumstances must be subject to careful examination and subsequent adjustment when they no longer produce valued results. The social reality of institutional lag, however, has roots in a more personal reluctance to relinquish certitude and undergo change. Since growth is accomplished through such a process, the reluctance to address change and make adjustments must be addressed. Thus, this inquiry begins with the recognition and analysis of institutional lag, evolves into an analysis of the individual and, finally, discusses the complicated and interwoven nature of the problem and possible solutions.

Committee: James Campbell (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2001, Chemical Engineering

In an environment where most process maneuvers are automated, algorithms to detect and classify abnormal trends in process measurements are of critical importance. The petrochemical industry in the United States loses billions of dollars annually due to improper abnormal situation management, and a staggering one in 16 plant accidents results in a fatality. Hence, Statistical Process Control and Monitoring (SPC) has been an active area of research for many decades and a variety of statistical and machine learning-based methods have been developed. However, most existing methods for process monitoring learn the signal characteristics at a fixed scale, and are best for detecting changes at that single scale. In contrast, data from most industrial processes are inherently multiscale in nature due to events occurring with different localization in time, space, and frequency. Unfortunately, existing techniques are unable to adapt automatically to the scale of these features. Many existing methods also require the measurements to be uncorrelated, whereas, in practice, autocorrelated measurements are very common in industrial processes. In this work, we have investigated the use of multiscale techniques to improve upon these shortcomings of existing single-scale approaches. Because of fundamental functional relationships such as process chemistry, energy and mass balances, measurements in multivariate processes are correlated. Our approach learns these correlations and clustering behaviors in the wavelet space using machine learning methods such as Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART-2) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), resulting in higher detection accuracy coupled with noise reduction. The performance of our method, named Multi-Scale Statistical Process Control and Monitoring (MSSPC), is compared with existing methods based on the average detection delays for detecting shifts of different sizes. Our ART-2 based MSSPC detector is currently deployed in a large scale petro (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James Davis (Advisor) Subjects: Engineering, Chemical

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2010, Art

Material tests provide intimate pieces that feel like moments captured. My material tests often come from creating new ways of making; my working methods come from a variation on a conventional way a material is formed and used in a process, such as mold making. Traditional techniques are learned, then subverted. Within a process I watch how materials change over time. The entire course of transformation can be the most alive part. Some of my most important observations come from failure, both within process as well as within individual pieces. Observed failure is harnessed and used to my advantage in the next generation of my work. Through the material investigations and tests, through observation and learning, I make discoveries. I see a worthwhile moment or idea within an unexpected outcome and mine it, pick it apart until it often doesn't resemble the process of origin at all. There is a continuous dialogue between the object created and the action that created it. They inform one another, one could not exist without the other. Bind, hack, elongate, peel - verbs describing a material dissection, an investigation of character. Repetition is a returning - an expansion of time. Repetition is in the rhythm of labor; motion made continuously to complete a task, to reach an end result. The limits of our body, our personal thresholds, are found within our repetition. Touch is a physicality - it is personal and intimate, a drawing together of two spaces. This moment of touch forms a boundary where one thing ends and another begins. In this shift there is a sharing and acquisition of information. Material has its own physicality, and through touch informs our own bodies physicality. A membrane separates layers, shifts from one thing to another. It is in these shifts that a change happens, a place of transformation. Within that is a place of both gain and instability – an area of pure possibility. With possibility comes the potential for rupture. Just as a beginning is (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Rebecca Harvey MFA (Committee Chair); Alison Crocetta MFA (Committee Member); Suzanne Silver MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2005, Educational Administration (Education)

This study lies at the intersection of contemporary research on leadership and concerns for the performance of recent African leaders and theme of participation. It utilizes qualitative approaches to examine the issue of leadership and stakeholder participation in the role of Asante traditional leadership and the process of educational change in Ghana during the last quarter of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries and the representations that such participation holds for the rest of the country and Africa in the quest for relevant education systems, leadership functions and expectations of stakeholders. The call of the Asantehene (King of Asante), Otumfuo Osei Tutu II at his installation that improved and quality formal education should be a criterion of assessment for his reign; the subsequent establishment of the Otumfuo Education Fund and Offinsoman Education Trust Fund provided the background to formulate the study. Individual and focus group in-depth recorded interviews, life stories of participants, documents and text examination from primary official and secondary sources in the field constituted the mode for structuring the study. The results were revealing in the heights of expectation placed on Asante traditional leaders, the mobilization of external and local fiscal, manpower and material resources, networking possibilities and the reach of societal philosophies to catalyze the change agendas while reinventing their ages old legitimacies in a modern state. The involvement of Asante and other traditional leaders in the process of education change as role models, conflict mediators, gender advocators, agents of development, grantors of land, benefactors and providers of governance services in the schooling process from the local to the national levels were the norms of expectations and not the exceptions in these complementary but increasingly devise and important roles. The reality beyond perception of traditional leaders' interest (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Howard (Advisor) Subjects: Education, Administration