Digital Commons Network^™

Sensing With Integrity: Responsible Sensor Systems In An Era Of Ai, David Eisenberg

Dissertations

Deep and machine learning now offer immense benefits for consumer choice, decision-making, medicine, mental health and education, smart cities, and intelligent transportation and driver safety. However, as communication and Internet technology further advances, these benefits have the potential to be outweighed by compromises to privacy, personal freedom, consumer trust, and discrimination. While ethical consequences for personal freedom and equity rise from these technological advances, the issue may not be the technology itself but a lack of regulation and policy that allow abuses to occur. A first study examines how emerging sensor-based technologies, limited to only accelerometer and gyroscope data from …

Models And Algorithms For Promoting Diverse And Fair Query Results, Md Mouinul Islam

Dissertations

Ensuring fairness and diversity in search results are two key concerns in compelling search and recommendation applications. This work explicitly studies these two aspects given multiple users' preferences as inputs, in an effort to create a single ranking or top-k result set that satisfies different fairness and diversity criteria. From group fairness standpoint, it adapts demographic parity like group fairness criteria and proposes new models that are suitable for ranking or producing top-k set of results. This dissertation also studies equitable exposure of individual search results in long tail data, a concept related to individual fairness. First, the dissertation focuses …

Diversification And Fairness In Top-K Ranking Algorithms, Mahsa Asadi

Dissertations

Given a user query, the typical user interfaces, such as search engines and recommender systems, only allow a small number of results to be returned to the user. Hence, figuring out what would be the top-k results is an important task in information retrieval, as it helps to ensure that the most relevant results are presented to the user. There exists an extensive body of research that studies how to score the records and return top-k to the user. Moreover, there exists an extensive set of criteria that researchers identify to present the user with top-k results, and result diversification …

Photonic Monitoring Of Atmospheric Fauna, Adrien P. Genoud

Dissertations

Insects play a quintessential role in the Earth’s ecosystems and their recent decline in abundance and diversity is alarming. Monitoring their population is paramount to understand the causes of their decline, as well as to guide and evaluate the efficiency of conservation policies. Monitoring populations of flying insects is generally done using physical traps, but this method requires long and expensive laboratory analysis where each insect must be identified by qualified personnel. Lack of reliable data on insect populations is now considered a significant issue in the field of entomology, often referred to as a “data crisis” in the field. …

Understanding The Voluntary Moderation Practices In Live Streaming Communities, Jie Cai

Dissertations

Harmful content, such as hate speech, online abuses, harassment, and cyberbullying, proliferates across various online communities. Live streaming as a novel online community provides ways for thousands of users (viewers) to entertain and engage with a broadcaster (streamer) in real-time in the chatroom. While the streamer has the camera on and the screen shared, tens of thousands of viewers are watching and messaging in real-time, resulting in concerns about harassment and cyberbullying. To regulate harmful content—toxic messages in the chatroom, streamers rely on a combination of automated tools and volunteer human moderators (mods) to block users or remove content, which …

Entrepreneurship And Heterogeneity Among Firms' Strategies: Three Essays, Xi Zhang

Dissertations

The first essay of this dissertation focuses on the entrepreneurship survival in the early stage, during which time an entrepreneur plays the game at the "edge of chaos" and improvises in real-time to learn the strategic playing field. It examines the social networks of entrepreneurs and the impact on new venture survival. Specifically, it explores how the entrepreneurs' social connections with other entrepreneurs and their types of employment differentially affect survival during the different stages of the entrepreneurial journey in the United States and India. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) dataset, this study documents not only how the social …

Optimization Opportunities In Human In The Loop Computational Paradigm, Dong Wei

Dissertations

An emerging trend is to leverage human capabilities in the computational loop at different capacities, ranging from tapping knowledge from a richly heterogeneous pool of knowledge resident in the general population to soliciting expert opinions. These practices are, in general, termed human-in-the-loop (HITL) computations.

A HITL process requires holistic treatment and optimization from multiple standpoints considering all stakeholders: a. applications, b. platforms, c. humans. In application-centric optimization, the factors of interest usually are latency (how long it takes for a set of tasks to finish), cost (the monetary or computational expenses incurred in the process), and quality of the completed …

Crash Injury Severity Prediction With Artificial Neural Networks, Rima Abisaad

Dissertations

Motor vehicle crashes are one of our nation's most serious social, economic and health issues. They are the leading cause of death among children and young adults, killing approximately 1.35 million people each year. Providing a safe and efficient transportation system is the primary goal of transportation engineering and planning. To help reduce traffic fatalities and injuries on roadways, crash prediction models are used to forecast the injury severity of potential crashes and apply precautionary countermeasures accordingly. Most of these models are reactive as they use historical crash data to categorize crash-related factors. Recently, advancements have been made in developing …

Parameter Estimation And Inference Of Spatial Autoregressive Model By Stochastic Gradient Descent, Gan Luan

Dissertations

Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a popular iterative method for model parameter estimation in large-scale data and online learning settings since it goes through the data in only one pass. While SGD has been well studied for independent data, its application to spatially-correlated data largely remains unexplored. This dissertation develops SGD-based parameter estimation and statistical inference algorithms for the spatial autoregressive (SAR) model, a common model for spatial lattice data.

This research contains three parts. (I) The first part concerns SGD estimation and inference for the SAR mean regression model. A new SGD algorithm based on maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) …

Exploring, Understanding, Then Designing: Twitter Users’ Sharing Behavior For Minor Safety Incidents, Mashael Yousef Almoqbel

Dissertations

Social media has become an integral part of human lives. Social media users resort to these platforms for various reasons. Users of these platforms spend a lot of time creating, reading, and sharing content, therefore, providing a wealth of available information for everyone to use. The research community has taken advantage of this and produced many publications that allow us to better understand human behavior. An important subject that is sometimes discussed and shared on social media is public safety. In the past, Twitter users have used the platform to share incidents, share information about incidents, victims and perpetrators, and …

Participatory Learning: Measuring Learning And Educational Technology Acceptance, Erick Sanchez Suasnabar

Dissertations

Participatory Learning (PL) integrates several learning approaches, engaging students throughout the entire assignment process for both online and face-to-face courses. Beyond simply providing a solution, students also craft a problem (problem-based learning), grade each other (peer assessment and feedback), evaluate themselves (self-assessment), and can view others’ work (learning by example). This dissertation research explores the resulting learning effects. Contributions to both educational and Information Systems research include extending an early PL model and experiments that applied the PL approach to examinations, by validating and testing new constructs based on user activity and critical thinking. In addition, the study explores a …

Exploring Fused Deposition Modeling (Fdm) Three-Dimensional Printing Tablet Design Options For Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms, Guluzar Gorkem Buyukgoz

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the use of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) based three-dimensional (3D) printing approach for developing patient-specific dosage forms and addressing related technical challenges in such drug delivery systems. The first main objective is to explore pharmaceutical tablet design options using novel FDM 3D printing technology as the drug delivery platform such that drug form and tablet properties are tailored by considering patient age-specific formulations and dissolution control. Of the five different design options, two proposed options meet the main objective of providing similar drug release, whereas the popular option of fixed drug concentration but differing tablet size could …

Alcohol As A Catalyst For Hiv-Associated Neuroinflammation And Tbi-Induced Iron Toxicity, Agnieszka Agas

Dissertations

Alcohol has long been considered an exacerbator of diseases, disorders, and injuries as well as many of the accompanying symptoms. As an alternative approach, this dissertation explores alcohol as a catalyst for two different human disease conditions, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated neuroinflammation and traumatic brain injury (TBI)-induced iron toxicity. In HIV-1 infection, this dissertation presents a novel anti-viral drug, called Drug-S, for a possible inhibition and treatment of HIV-1 disease progression.

The first aim explores the influence of alcohol with HIV-associated neuroinflammation on macrophage migration across an in vitro model of the blood brain barrier. There is a gap in …

Recovering Untold Stories: Everyday Lives Of Women In Republican Istanbul, 1930-1960, Zehra Betul Atasoy

Dissertations

This research explores the everyday lives of urban women from various social strata in Istanbul between 1930 and 1960. It designates the implications of the Republican reforms in urban spaces and concentrates on untold stories of women who belonged to varying social settings and professions. The everyday life of the city became more complex with the increase in participation of women during these decades. This research examines the myriad ways in which women asserted themselves in the urban fabric, following three threads. First, women's leisure and economic activities in the newly built public squares are investigated. Then, industrial workers and …

Supporting User Interaction And Social Relationship Formation In A Collaborative Online Shopping Context, Yu Xu

Dissertations

The combination of online shopping and social media allow people with similar shopping interests and experiences to share, comment, and discuss about shopping from anywhere and at any time, which also leads to the emergence of online shopping communities. Today, more people turn to online platforms to share their opinions about products, solicit various opinions from their friends, family members, and other customers, and have fun through interactions with others with similar interests. This dissertation explores how collaborative online shopping presents itself as a context and platform for users' interpersonal interactions and social relationship formation through a series of studies. …

In Partnership? Pedestrian Plazas In New York City, Topal Vardi Topal

Dissertations

Traditional public spaces —such as public parks, streets, and public squares—have long been part of the urban landscape. In today’s congested cities, however, creating such public spaces is difficult because they require capital investment, vacant land, and ongoing maintenance. Possibly in response to these obstacles, new types of urban public spaces have emerged.

Pedestrian plazas, one of these new types, is the topic of this research, with a focus on the New York City Plaza Program, which was the first such program in the U.S. For this research, the design, management, and use characteristics of five completed pedestrian plazas were …

Investigating The Combined Effects Of Whole Body Vibration And Vestibular Stimulation On Spasticity And Dystonia In Cerebral Palsy, Peter A. Michael

Dissertations

This study identifies and addresses three voids and potential shortcomings associated with the classification, assessment and management of Cerebral Palsy (CP). These concerns should not undermine the significant advancement that has been made in this specific branch of rehabilitation, but addressing them is necessary. Cerebral Palsy is a group of motor impairments due to hypoxic-ischemic brain damage around the time of birth and very commonly manifests as excessive muscle tone and poor motor control. There are classifications within CP including spasticity and dystonia.

First, a level of discrepancy is present in the classification of CP between the clinical and research …

Identification Of Neurobiological Mechanisms Associated With Attention Deficits In Adults Post Traumatic Brain Injury, Ziyan Wu

Dissertations

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is one of the major public health concerns with approximately 70 million new cases occurring worldwide per year. It is often caused by a forceful bump, blow, or jolt to the head, resulting in brain tissue damage and normal brain functions disruption. All grades of TBI, ranging from mild to severe, can cause wide-ranging and long-term effects on affected individuals, resulting in physical impairments, and neurocognitive consequences that permanently affect their abilities to perform daily activities. Attention deficits are the most common persisting neurocognitive consequences following TBI, which significantly contribute to poor academic and social functioning, …

Neurobiological Markers For Remission And Persistence Of Childhood Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Yuyang Luo

Dissertations

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Symptoms of childhood ADHD persist into adulthood in around 65% of patients, which elevates the risk for a number of adverse outcomes, resulting in substantial individual and societal burden. A neurodevelopmental double dissociation model is proposed based on existing studies in which the early onset of childhood ADHD is suggested to associate with dysfunctional subcortical structures that remain static throughout the lifetime; while diminution of symptoms over development could link to optimal development of prefrontal cortex. Current existing studies only assess basic measures including regional brain activation …

Cancer Risk Prediction With Whole Exome Sequencing And Machine Learning, Abdulrhman Fahad M Aljouie

Dissertations

Accurate cancer risk and survival time prediction are important problems in personalized medicine, where disease diagnosis and prognosis are tuned to individuals based on their genetic material. Cancer risk prediction provides an informed decision about making regular screening that helps to detect disease at the early stage and therefore increases the probability of successful treatments. Cancer risk prediction is a challenging problem. Lifestyle, environment, family history, and genetic predisposition are some factors that influence the disease onset. Cancer risk prediction based on predisposing genetic variants has been studied extensively. Most studies have examined the predictive ability of variants in known …

Developmental And Sex Modulated Neurological Alterations In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Azeezat Azeez

Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was first described in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kranner in a case study published in The Nervous Child. It is a neurodevelopment disorder, with a range of clinical symptoms. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), used by clinicians to diagnose mental disorders, a child needs to have persistent social deficits, language impairments, and repetitive behaviors, that cannot be explained by neurological damage or intellectual disability. It is known that children diagnosed with ASD are often are developmentally delayed therefore alterations in the typical developmental trajectory should be a major factor in …

Applied Deep Learning In Intelligent Transportation Systems And Embedding Exploration, Xiaoyuan Liang

Dissertations

Deep learning techniques have achieved tremendous success in many real applications in recent years and show their great potential in many areas including transportation. Even though transportation becomes increasingly indispensable in people’s daily life, its related problems, such as traffic congestion and energy waste, have not been completely solved, yet some problems have become even more critical. This dissertation focuses on solving the following fundamental problems: (1) passenger demand prediction, (2) transportation mode detection, (3) traffic light control, in the transportation field using deep learning. The dissertation also extends the application of deep learning to an embedding system for visualization …

A Multimodal Approach To Investigate Brain Reorganization After Spinal Cord Injury Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging And Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, Keerthana Deepti Karunakaran

Dissertations

Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) results in structural and functional neurological changes at both the brain and the level of the spinal cord. Anatomical studies indicate decreased grey matter volume in sensorimotor and non-sensorimotor regions of the cortex following SCI; whereas, neurophysiological findings mostly report altered functional activity in the sensorimotor nodes of the cortex, subcortex, and cerebellum. Therefore, it is currently unknown whether tissue atrophy observed in non-motor related areas has any concomitant functional consequences. Furthermore, the neural underpinnings of adaptive neuroplasticity after SCI is not well-defined in the current literature. Hence, this dissertation is a pioneer study investigating …

Interventions Of Waterjet Technology In Skin Incisions, Nadi Atalla

Dissertations

This research explores the use of waterjet (WJ) technology in performing skin incisions. The study defines the analytical relationships between the skin properties and the operating parameters of the WJ which include the skin thickness, its elastic modulus, the WJ pressure, the nozzle’s orifice diameter, its stand-off distance and the traverse speed of the WJ as well as the duration of applying the WJ pressure. An analytical model is developed to measure the depth incision of the skin, the water pressure and the water velocity, while using a WJ. Systemization and optimization models that determine the optimal operating parameters levels …

Crafting An Empire: The Hereke Factory Campus (1842-1914), Didem Yavuz

Dissertations

One of the starkest examples of the Ottoman Empire's new modernity was the fabrics and carpet model factory founded at Hereke in 1842. This dissertation focuses on the evolving conditions and social developments that took place over seventy-two years of production at Hereke, and discuss that the factory represented a microcosm of the Empire's wider industrial labor history. Hereke was used as a lens through which to explore a range of themes that, taken together, highlight the lifestyles of the early Ottoman workforce and its industrial relations: labor management, industrial action, child labor, class, gender, housing, education, clothing fashion, the …

Novel Image Descriptors And Learning Methods For Image Classification Applications, Ajit Puthenputhussery

Dissertations

Image classification is an active and rapidly expanding research area in computer vision and machine learning due to its broad applications. With the advent of big data, the need for robust image descriptors and learning methods to process a large number of images for different kinds of visual applications has greatly increased. Towards that end, this dissertation focuses on exploring new image descriptors and learning methods by incorporating important visual aspects and enhancing the feature representation in the discriminative space for advancing image classification.

First, an innovative sparse representation model using the complete marginal Fisher analysis (CMFA-SR) framework is proposed …

On Distributed Mobile Edge Computing, Xiang Sun

Dissertations

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) has been proposed to offload the workloads of mobile applications from mobile devices to the cloud in order to not only reduce energy consumption of mobile devices but also accelerate the execution of mobile applications. Owing to the long End-to-End (E2E) delay between mobile devices and the cloud, offloading the workloads of many interactive mobile applications to the cloud may not be suitable. That is, these mobile applications require a huge amount of computing resources to process their workloads as well as a low E2E delay between mobile devices and computing resources, which cannot be satisfied …

Submandibular Mechanical Stimulation Of Upper Airway Muscles To Treat Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Ferhat Erdogan

Dissertations

The extrinsic tongue muscles are activated in coordination with pharyngeal muscles to keep a patent airway during respiration in wakefulness and sleep. The activity of genioglossus, the primary tongue-protruding muscle playing an important role in this coordination, is known to be modulated by several reflex pathways mediated through the mechanoreceptors of the upper airways. The main objective is to investigate the effectiveness of activating these reflex pathways with mechanical stimulations, for the long-term goal of improving the upper airway patency during disordered breathing in sleep. The genioglossus response is examined during mandibular and sub-mandibular mechanical stimulations in healthy subjects during …

Public Perceptions Of The Functions Of Natural And Engineered Infrastructure In Coastal Hazards Mitigation: The Cases Of Two Communities In The Raritan Bayshore, New Jersey, Jaime D. Ewalt Gray

Dissertations

Emerging United States (U.S.) federal policies call for more comprehensive integration of both engineered and natural infrastructure in mitigating coastal hazards. For such policies to be effectively implemented, the mitigation functions of and relationship between natural infrastructure and engineered infrastructure must be understood and their integrated use accepted by affected actors, especially residents living in at-risk coastal communities. Little is known about public perceptions of the functions of engineered and natural infrastructure in coastal hazard mitigation and the interactions between these two types of infrastructure. This study analyzes perceptions based on semi-structured interviews of 14 residents in Laurence Harbor, Middlesex …

A Conversation Centric Approach To Understanding And Supporting The Coordination Of Social Group-Activities, Richard P. Schuler

Dissertations

Despite the widespread and large variety of communication tools available to us such as, text messaging, Skype, email, twitter, Facebook, instant messaging, GroupMe, WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc., many people still routinely find coordinating activities with our friends to be a very frustrating experience. Everyone, has at least once, encountered the difficulties involved with deciding what to do as a group. Some friends may be busy, others may have already seen the movie that the others want to see, and some do not like Mexican food. It is a challenge everyone has faced and continue to face. This is a result of …