Business Commons^™

Sentiment Strength And Topic Recognition In Sentiment Analysis, Esi A.R. Adeborna

Masters Theses

"Current sentiment analysis methods focus on determining the sentiment polarities (negative, neutral or positive) in users’ sentiments. However, in order to correctly classify users’ sentiments into their right polarities, the strengths of these sentiments must be considered. In addition to classifying users’ sentiments into their correct polarities, it is important to determine the sources and topics under which users’ sentiments fall. Sentiment strength helps as to understand the levels of customer satisfaction toward products and services. Sentiment topics on the other hand, helps to determine the specific product/service areas associated with user sentiments. This paper proposes two sentiment analysis approaches. …

Smart Living With Artificial Intelligence -- Potential Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Mental Well-Being, Weiyu Wang

Masters Theses

"Artificial Intelligence (AI) will result in job replacement and job elimination. Some AI technologies, such as self-driving vehicles, have the potential to disrupt existing industries. Self-driving trucks may replace the 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. Scholars at Oxford University estimated that no less than 47% of American jobs and 54% of those in Europe are at a high risk of being taken over by machines. Routine, repetitive, and predictable jobs are expected to be automated (Siau, 2018). Although new jobs will be created, the unemployment rate may go up in the short term and the emergence of a …

Values Of Artificial Intelligence In Marketing, Yingrui Xi

Masters Theses

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is causing radical changes in marketing and emerging as a competent assistant supporting all areas of the marketing field. The influences and impacts AI has created in various marketing segments have aroused much interest among marketing professionals and academic scholars. Comprehensive and systematic studies on the values of AI in marketing, however, are still lacking and the existing literature fragmented. This research provides a comprehensive review of the existing literature in the relevant fields as well as a series of systematic interviews using the Value-Focused Thinking approach to understand the values of AI in marketing. This research …

Rhetorical Analysis Of Statements Of Purpose (Sps) For Admission To Graduate School: A Shared-Understanding Perspective Of The Sp Genre, Priyanka Ganguly

Masters Theses

"In this study, I analyzed twenty-four statements of purpose (SPs) submitted to the Department of English and Technical Communication at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) by current and former students. My goal was to determine the applicants' shared understanding of the SP genre. I analyzed the SPs from three dimensions: rhetorical moves, rhetorical appeals (pisteis), and rhetorical style (elocutio).

To understand the rhetorical moves used by the applicants, I analyzed the content of their SPs according to the categories (moves) and codes (steps) validated in my pilot study. To understand the arguments used by the …

The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Higher Education, Yizhi Ma

Masters Theses

"A perfect storm is hitting higher education. Decreased funding from traditional funding sources, such as State Governments, and transformative changes caused by artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize higher education. Higher education needs to change and evolve quickly and continuously to prepare students for the upheavals in the job market caused by AI, machine learning, and automation.

As AI continues to make inroads into our world and our lives, its impact and effects can no longer be ignored. What kinds of organizational changes in higher education are necessary? How can higher education continue to prepare students for the AI evolution and …

Impact Of Framing And Base Size Of Computer Security Risk Information On User Behavior, Xinhui Zhan

Masters Theses

"This research examines the impact of framing and base size of computer security risk information on users' risk perceptions and behavior (i.e., download intention and download decision). It also examines individual differences (i.e., demographic factors, computer security awareness, Internet structural assurance, self-efficacy, and general risk-taking tendencies) associated with users' computer security risk perceptions. This research draws on Prospect Theory, which is a theory in behavioral economics that addresses risky decision-making, to generate hypotheses related to users' decision-making in the computer security context. A 2 x 3 mixed factorial experimental design (N = 178) was conducted to assess the effect of …

Student Perceptions And Attitudes Towards A Technical Writing Service Course At Missouri S&T, Hannah Claire Coffman

Masters Theses

"In order to learn how STEM students perceive Missouri S&T's English 3560 Technical Writing class, I designed a research study to investigate how a sample population of 90 students viewed the class. Due to the nature of qualitative research, the results of this study cannot be generalized to a larger population. However, the results can and do provide insight into the situation of these Missouri S&T students in English 3560 classes and contribute to our collective understanding of the technical writing service course at Missouri S&T and other US universities. The study investigated whether the sample population of students who …

Predictive Modeling Of Webpage Aesthetics, Ang Chen

Masters Theses

"Aesthetics plays a key role in web design. However, most websites have been developed based on designers' inspirations or preferences. While perceptions of aesthetics are intuitive abilities of humankind, the underlying principles for assessing aesthetics are not well understood. In recent years, machine learning methods have shown promising results in image aesthetic assessment. In this research, we used machine learning methods to study and explore the underlying principles of webpage aesthetics"--Abstract, page iii.

Classification Of Eeg Signals Of User States In Gaming Using Machine Learning, Chandana Mallapragada

Masters Theses

"In this research, brain activity of user states was analyzed using machine learning algorithms. When a user interacts with a computer-based system including playing computer games like Tetris, he or she may experience user states such as boredom, flow, and anxiety. The purpose of this research is to apply machine learning models to Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals of three user states -- boredom, flow and anxiety -- to identify and classify the EEG correlates for these user states. We focus on three research questions: (i) How well do machine learning models like support vector machine, random forests, multinomial logistic regression, and …

Neural Correlates Of Flow, Boredom, And Anxiety In Gaming: An Electroencephalogram Study, Tejaswini Yelamanchili

Masters Theses

"Games are engaging and captivating from a human-computer interaction (HCI) perspective as they can facilitate a highly immersive experience. This research examines the neural correlates of flow, boredom, and anxiety during video gaming. A within-subject experimental study (N = 44) was carried out with the use of electroencephalogram (EEG) to assess the brain activity associated with three states of user experience - flow, boredom, and anxiety - in a controlled gaming environment. A video game, Tetris, was used to induce flow, boredom, and anxiety. A 64 channel EEG headset was used to track changes in activation patterns in the frontal, …

Impact Of Probable And Guaranteed Monetary Value On Cybersecurity Behavior Of Users, Santhosh Kumar Ravindran

Masters Theses

"This research examines the impact of probable and guaranteed monetary gains and losses on users' cybersecurity behavior. It also examines perceptual outcomes such as threat severity, trust, and fear that are associated with users' cybersecurity behavior. Drawing on Prospect Theory in the behavioral economics and decision-making literature, hypotheses were generated for the research. The hypotheses state that: (i) users are more willing to engage in risky computer security behavior to avoid a loss than to receive a gain, (ii) users exhibit a higher tipping point of expected monetary value to receive a gain than to avoid a loss for engaging …

Extending Time Series Forecasting Methods Using Functional Principal Components Analysis, Isaac Michael Wagner-Muns

Masters Theses

"Traffic volume forecasts are used by many transportation analysis and management systems to better characterize and react to fluctuating traffic patterns. Most current forecasting methods do not take advantage of the underlying functional characteristics of the time series to make predictions. This paper presents a methodology that uses Functional Principal Components Analysis (FPCA) to create smooth and differentiable daily traffic forecasts. The methodology is validated with a data set of 1,813 days of 15 minute aggregated traffic volume time series. Both the FPCA based forecasts and the associated prediction intervals outperform traditional Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) based methods"--Abstract, …

Impact Of Framing And Priming On Users' Behavior In Cybersecurity, Kavya Sharma

Masters Theses

"This research examines the impact of framing and priming on users' behavior (i.e., action) in a cybersecurity setting. It also examines perceptual outcomes (i.e., confidence, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, trust, and fear) associated with the users' cybersecurity action. The research draws on prospect theory in the behavioral economics literature and instance-based learning theory in the education literature to generate the hypotheses for the research. A between-subject experimental design (N=129) was used. The results suggest that priming users to cybersecurity risks reduces their risk-taking behavior associated with cybersecurity whereas negative framing of messages associated with cybersecurity has no significant effect on …

Sentiment Analytics: Lexicons Construction And Analysis, Bo Yuan

Masters Theses

"With the increasing amount of text data, sentiment analysis (SA) is becoming more and more important. An automated approach is needed to parse the online reviews and comments, and analyze their sentiments. Since lexicon is the most important component in SA, enhancing the quality of lexicons will improve the efficiency and accuracy of sentiment analysis. In this research, the effect of coupling a general lexicon with a specialized lexicon (for a specific domain) and its impact on sentiment analysis was presented. Two special domains and one general domain were studied. The two special domains are the petroleum domain and the …

Leveraging Knowledge At Startups, Amruta Anil Ranade

Masters Theses

"Startups contribute to the economy and job creation in the United States. One of the primary assets of startups is tacit knowledge of the employees of the startup. Technical communicators can help startups capture, share, and leverage the tacit knowledge at startups. Technical communicators could benefit from learning how knowledge management initiatives at startups work. The current study is an ethnographic case-study that was conducted at a fast-growing startup in California.

The data for the study was collected through observations, informal and semi-structured formal interviews with participants, and feedback from customers of the startup. The collected data was analyzed based …

Using Eye-Tracking To Understand User Behavior In Deception Detection System Interaction, Prashanth Kumar Lakkapragada

Masters Theses

"This research presents the analysis of data collected using eye-tracking devices on user interaction with a deception detection system. The differences between two groups of subjects, namely Innocent and Guilty, were compared, where Innocent subjects did not carry any explosive and hence, had nothing to hide in declaring objects that they were carrying whereas Guilty subjects had to lie to deceive the system. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in pupil dilation between the Innocent and Guilty subjects. However, the amount of fixations on the empty spaces of slides containing an explosive image can be used to …

Understanding User Experience In Gaming, Sri Chaitanya Sanaboina

Masters Theses

"This research examines the effect of virtual reality gaming versus desktop based gaming on spatial presence, social presence, and intention to play. It draws on cognitive theory of presence, social presence theory, and theory of reasoned action to generate the research hypotheses and explain the observed phenomenon. A within-subject experimental design (N=53) was used to evaluate the effects of virtual reality versus desktop based gaming. The results suggest that both spatial presence and social presence were significantly enhanced in the virtual reality gaming environment while intention to play was significantly greater in the desktop based gaming environment"--Abstract, page iii.

Bridging The Gap Between Supply Chain And Consumer Experience, Cui Zou

Masters Theses

Many researchers agree that supply chain management is at the root of addressing customer values and increasing customer satisfaction. However, in reality the route to accomplishing these goals is not so clearly defined. The studies herein attempt to shed some insight on a special perspective to bridge the gap between supply chain and customer experience. The ideas behind these studies explore the notion that customer experience can be impacted by a vast spectrum of factors from suppliers to even the specific mobile commerce (m-commerce) tools they use.

To gain insight into the supplier dimension of the supply chain, a survey …

Factors Influencing The Adoption Of Smart Wearable Devices, Apurva Adapa

Masters Theses

"This study aims to examine the factors and issues in adoption of smart wearable devices. Wearable devices have many functions to offer which make them very useful in our daily lives. However, factors influencing the adoption of these devices are not well understood. This research explores the inhibiting and contributing factors influencing the adoption of wearable devices by employing the laddering approach. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews using the laddering technique in order to understand these factors. Wearable devices that were examined include the Smart Glass (Google Glass) and the Smart Watch (Sony Smart Watch 3). After the …

Yik Yak Posts: A Discourse Analysis, Snehal Ravindra Shirke

Masters Theses

"Anonymity and geolocation create a unique environment for users to communicate with each other. Discourse analysis was conducted to study the posts made on Yik Yak, an anonymous social networking mobile application to understand the communication patterns on an anonymous platform and the posts about taboo topics. The posts were analyzed specifically for patterns on taboo topics and how students interact on the anonymous platform on a particular campus (Missouri S&T campus). Student research assistants coded the collected posts into the pre-defined taboo categories namely sexual activity, non-sexual bodily functions, sexual orientation, mental/emotional health, and "other" taboo topics. I found …

Effect Of Cooperation On Players' Immersion And Enjoyment, Lakshmi Sushma Daggubati

Masters Theses

"This research examines the effect of cooperative versus non-cooperative game play on immersion and enjoyment in online games. It draws on the self-determination theory to generate the research hypotheses and explain the observed phenomenon. A within-subject experimental design (N=38) was used to evaluate the effects of cooperative versus non-cooperative game play on enjoyment and immersion by having participants play in a manipulated game mode in a controlled gaming environment. The participants' subjective responses were assessed to understand their user experience in cooperative and non-cooperative gaming environments. The results suggest that both immersion and enjoyment were significantly enhanced in cooperative game …

Effect Of Timing And Source Of Online Product Recommendations: An Eye-Tracking Study, Qing Zeng

Masters Theses

"Online retail business has become an emerging market for almost all business owners. Online recommender systems provide better services to the consumers as well as assist consumers with their decision making processes. In this study, a controlled lab experiment was conducted to assess the effect of recommendation timing (early, mid, and late) and recommendation source (expert reviews vs. consumer reviews) on e-commerce users' interest and attention. Eye-tracking data was extracted from the experiment and analyzed. The results suggest that users show more interest in recommendation based on consumer reviews than recommendation based on expert reviews. Earlier recommendations do not receive …

Women Authors Of Technical Writing Textbooks From 1923 To 1973, Melissa Nicole Wampler

Masters Theses

"The published histories of technical writing textbooks do not usually include many women-authored textbooks. To find out why women-authored textbooks have been marginalized in these pedagogical histories, I selected seven women-authored textbooks and four men-authored textbooks published from 1923 to 1973, investigated the backgrounds of the authors and key features of their textbooks, and used the collected data to compare the women-authored textbooks to the men-authored textbooks. I was not able to find any reason why the women-authored textbooks have been or should be marginalized in histories of technical writing textbooks; however, my study had several limitations. My thesis begins …

Lexis In Chemical Engineering Discourse: Analyzing Style In Chemical Engineering Research Articles Through A Rhetorical Lens, David Lamar Young

Masters Theses

"This study examines the style of chemical engineering research articles to discover stylistic trends that may be applicable to authors looking to publish their own research. Rhetorical stylistic analysis was used as a research method to allow for thorough analysis of all articles in the sample. Ten research articles from the two prominent chemical engineering journals were chosen using specific criteria to constitute a sample of articles that could most accurately represent the population of chemical engineering research articles. Each article was then analyzed line by line to identify markers of chemical engineering research article style, including the following: ▬Use …

How Should Plastic-Packaging Companies Apply Artificial Proofs And Topics Of Invention To Communicate Sustainability? : A Heuristic Developed On The Basis Of Rhetorical Analysis, Shristy Bashyal

Masters Theses

"This study examines how the ten plastic-packaging companies use artificial proofs and topics of invention to communicate sustainability-related information. The objective of this study was to answer the following research questions:

(i) Do plastic-packaging companies define sustainability on their website?

(ii) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments in these companies' sustainability-related communications?

(iii) What invention strategies should technical marketing communicators use to communicate company's sustainable practices?

To answer these questions, I analyzed the sustainability-related documents available on the websites of the ten companies. On the basis of this analysis, I developed an invention heuristic that can be …

The History Of Technical Communication Instruction At Missouri University Of Science And Technology: The Evolution Of A Curriculum, Elizabeth Marie Roberson

Masters Theses

"This thesis provides a written record of the history of technical communication instruction at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). Beginning with the school's inception in 1871 as the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (MSM) through to the year 2005, I have examined course catalogs and department files and conducted interviews to provide an overview of the evolution of technical communication instruction at this institution. To better understand this evolution, I have also provided a framework for the development of the English department from a single course in 1871 to the current Department of English and Technical …

Scholarship In International Technical Communication, 1950-1989: A Historical Study, Xiaoyan Huang

Masters Theses

"This thesis is a study of the published scholarship in international technical communication from 1950 to 1989. It provides insight into the four decades' worth of scholarship as well as a resource for the development of present and future scholarship in international technical communication. It attempts to answer the following research questions: What did scholars of international technical communication study in each decade? What are the similarities and differences among the four decades in terms of scholarship in international technical communication? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the relevant scholarship in the four decades? What can we learn from …

Satellite Photography: Instrumental, Rhetorical, Affective?, Irangi Kaushalya Egodapitiya

Masters Theses

"This study examines how tsunami satellite images operate and could provoke various interpretations. The goal of this research project is to study whether the interpretation of tsunami satellite images could extend beyond scientific features to affective messages. Primarily based on the satellite images of Sri Lanka taken before and during the 2004 tsunami, this study analyses: How could mechanical satellite images, taken automatically by a machine in orbit, become an object of profound emotional meaning?; How do viewer's experiences, knowledge, and discourse affect their interpretations of mechanical artifacts?; How are tsunami satellite images connected to affective responses by viewers?; How …