Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
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Item Information related competencies for Montana Extension Service professionals(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1994) Kawasaki, Jodee Lynn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Van ShelhamerThe purpose of the study was to determine the information-related competencies and training needed by Montana Extension Service professionals to acquire and disseminate information to clients electronically. A descriptive study was planned based on a design described by Borg and Gall (1989). The intention was to perform a needs assessment that describes the current situation and to determine differences that answer the objectives of the study. The population was stratified by Montana Extension professionals and consisted of administrators, specialists, and agents. An email survey, prepared in part using the Total Design Method (Dillman, 1978), was used as the data collection instrument. Thirty seven competencies were identified and set up as a needs assessment model (Borich, 1980). A pilot study was used to validate and test the instrument. Assurance of the needed sample size was provided through two follow-up email messages to non-respondents. The double dip technique was employed to assure non-respondents were no different than respondents. Responses to questions were analyzed by a personal computer statistical package. T-tests or analysis of variances were run on the data at the 0.05 level of significance. The analyses of the data were used to determine any differences among selected demographic features and to rank order the competencies based upon the respondents perceived level of importance and knowledge. The study's results were also used to determine learning and training preferences related to information technologies. The data from this study reveal several factors which are impacting the use of information technologies by agents and specialists. Competencies with a positive weighted discrepancy score need to be taught. Selected demographic factors and other characteristics showed no influence on the competencies because both of the stratums need further education in information-related competencies. Different training sessions need to be developed for each stratum because of the reported difference in the ranked competencies, preferred instructional method, and training preferences. A lack of equipment, the cost of long distance telephone calls, or the secretary given the responsibility to do email limits the efforts of MES professionals in using electronic information technologies.Item The grid overlay system model(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2009) Junkert, Levi Daniel; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Rockford J. Ross; Rafal A. Angryk (co-chair)The grid overlay system model is a new technique for forming a grid computing model for research computing. In this method we construct a grid that is dynamically allocated from a set of resources in a unique and progressive manner. This new system model allows for construction of virtual environments for execution of applications on many diverse shared resources. The system can dynamically scale to create a range of resources from a single machine to a virtual cluster of machines. This model provides a virtual container that can run legacy and customized software in an emulated environment or directly on the host's hardware through virtualization. Using this model on current consumer hardware allows for a unique blend of software containment with dynamic resource allocation. Our model, in combination with commercial off the shelf (COTS) hardware and software, is able to create a large grid system with multiple combinations of hardware and software environments. In our model we propose a unique set of abstraction layers for systems. The combination of our model with current consumer hardware and software provides a unique design principle for addressing grid implementation, hardware reusability, operating system deployment and implementation, virtualization in the grid, and user control techniques. This provides a robust and simple framework that allows for the construction of computational research solutions in which performance can be traded for flexibility, and vice versa. Our model can be applied to computational research grids, service oriented grids, and even scales to collections of mobile or embedded system grids.Item Fiber optic vines on the third wall : cultivating natural media in the digital age(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2009) Bendick, Eric Louis; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ronald Tobias.Twenty-thousand years ago, the earliest known depictions of natural forms were inscribed by primitive man onto the surface of the "third wall" . . . be it cave, grotto, overhang, or alcove. Today the myriad representations of our natural world, along with the expanding cosmic narratives of 'natural history' that animate and describe such characters within an ornate epistemological framework (part-science: evolution, thermodynamics, ecology, and part-social criticism: environmental justice, sustainability, conservation) proliferate in ever-increasing mobile permutations; not only in our textbooks and living rooms, but also in our cars, on billboards, Jumbotrons, laptops, cell phones, and portable media players. Throughout history, changes in representational 'mode' (across and through new technical mediums) have ushered in significant narrative metamorphoses, formal innovations, and accompanied revolutionary transitions in symbolic language. The focus of this paper is to assess the implications of recent technological shifts, especially those characterized by the widespread contemporary adoption of digital technologies and the emergence of vast, interconnected networks of computing power, on the representation, production, and distribution of 'natural world' (both science and social) new media content. Through a detailed survey of popular case-studies, analytical research, and data trends, this paper will analyze new media models both from within and without as they relate to digital publishing, non-linear content creation, social networking, and the increasingly permeable interface between consumer and producer in our contemporary mediascape. Finally, this paper applies formative research to prescribe a more general use of 'best practices' in new technology which may facilitate a more progressive and participatory moment in post-industrial 'natural world' media-making, in concert with peers and fans, corporations and collectives, and open to interpretation, cross-pollination, and synergistic hybridity. It is no exaggeration to remark that this technological transformation will forever change the way we learn, evaluate, and participate in a global dialogue whose subject is none other than the globe itself. As our ancestors surely harnessed the power of the 'third wall' to communicate in both personal and broad strokes, so this essay seeks to re-imagine the 'digital third wall' as a place of increasing ubiquity, intimacy, contention, and epistemological power throughout the evolving realms of scientific and social natural representation.