UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    The Impact of Thermal Imaging Camera Display Quality on Fire Fighter Task Performance
    (2008) Rowe, Justin Lawrence; Mowrer, Frederick W.; Fire Protection Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Thermal imaging cameras (TIC) have become a vital fire fighting tool for the first responder community but there are currently no standardized quality control regulations. The purpose of the study was to understand the impact of TIC display image quality on a fire fighter's ability to perform a hazard recognition task. Test subjects were asked to identify a fire hazard by observing infrared images. The image matrix considered the interactions of several image characteristics including contrast, brightness, spatial resolution, and noise. The results were used to create a model function to predict the effect of image quality on user performance. This model was recommended to be incorporated in image quality test methods in development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. These recommendations will also be provided to the National Fire Protection Association for use in an upcoming standard on fire fighting TIC.
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    An Exploration of Victim-Initiated Interventions and the Duration of Stalking
    (2006-12-11) Acevedo, Summer Anne; Dugan, Laura; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The concept of duration has been relatively unexplored in the stalking literature. This study examines the relationship between several victim-initiated interventions and the duration of stalking. The objective was to determine which, if any, interventions used by victims against their stalkers led to a decrease in the length of time they were stalked. Continuous survival analysis was used on a voluntary sample of victims that reported duration of their stalking in monthly intervals. Only a single intervention was associated with a significant reduction in the length of stalking cases. Duration was then recoded into years and compared to data from a national, random sample to determine if similar results occurred in a more generalizable sample. Discrete survival analysis produced inconsistent results between the two samples. These findings demonstrate the need for an updated national survey of stalking victims, as well as caution researchers against relying on small, geographically unique samples.