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Arts And Sciences Newsletter, Volume 6, Issue 6, College Of Arts & Sciences

Arts and Sciences Newsletters

No abstract provided.

The Government As Litigant: Further Tests Of The Case Selection Model, Theodore Eisenberg, Henry Farber

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We develop a model of the plaintiff's decision to file a lawsuit that has implications for how differences between the federal government and private litigants translate into differences in trial rates and plaintiff win rates at trial. Our case selection model generates a set of predictions for relative trial rates and plaintiff win rates, depending on the type of case and whether the government is defendant or plaintiff. To test the model, we use data on about 474,000 cases filed in federal district court between 1979 and 1994 in the areas of personal injury and job discrimination, in which the …

Modeling The Decision Process Of A Joint Task Force Commander, John Anthony Sokolowski

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The U.S. military uses modeling and simulation as a tool to help meet its warfighting needs. A key element within military simulations is the ability to accurately represent human behavior. This is especially true in a simulation's ability to emulate realistic military decisions. However, current decision models fail to provide the variability and flexibility that human decision makers exhibit. Further, most decision models are focused on tactical decisions and ignore the decision process of senior military commanders at the operational level of warfare. In an effort to develop a better decision model that would mimic the decision process of a …

Measuring The Environmental Attitudes Of Children In Grade 4: A Study In Clark County, Amir Khawaja

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there is an increased positive effect on children's attitude when they are taught about the environment in an outdoor/hands-on setting versus an indoor traditional classroom setting. The study focused on grade four students in the Clark County School District. Half of the group was comprised of students that were taught about the environment using traditional classroom learning materials while the other half consisted of students that were taught using the outdoor/hands-on approach. In order to test the results, the students were given a survey. The questionnaire created by Malkus and Musser …

Trends. Science Is Apolitical As Political, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses the nature of science from a political psychological perspective.

Arts And Sciences Newsletter, Volume 6, Issue 5, College Of Arts & Sciences

Arts and Sciences Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Cio Lateral Influence Behaviors: Gaining Peers' Commitment To Strategic Information Systems, Harvey Enns, Sid L. Huff, Christopher A. Higgins

MIS/OM/DS Faculty Publications

In order to develop and bring to fruition strategic information systems (SIS) projects, chief information officers (CIOs) must be able to effectively influence their peers. This research examines the relationship between CIO influence behaviors and the successfulness of influence outcomes, utilizing a revised model initially developed by Yukl (1994). Focused interviews were first conducted with CIOs and their peers to gain insights into the phenomenon. A survey instrument was then developed and distributed to a sample of CIO and peer executive pairs to gather data with which to test a research model. A total of 69 pairs of surveys were …

Uml Assisted Visual Debugging For Distributed Systems, Benjamin R. Musial

Theses and Dissertations

The DOD is developing a Joint Battlespace Infosphere, linking a large number of data sources and user applications. To assist in this process, debugging and analysis tools are required. Software debugging is an extremely difficult cognitive process requiring comprehension of the overall application behavior, along with detailed understanding of specific application components. This is further complicated with distributed systems by the addition of other programs, their large size and synchronization issues. Typical debuggers provide inadequate support for this process, focusing primarily on the details accessible through source code. To overcome this deficiency, this research links the dynamic program execution state …

Antecedents And Outcomes Of End User Computing Competence, David A. Case

Theses and Dissertations

The tremendous proliferation of end user computing (EUC) in the workplace over the past few decades is cause for concern in public and private organizations. Computer use has moved from individuals working with "dumb" terminals in centralized networks to individuals operating personal computers, just as powerful as yesterday's mainframe. The end user has had to evolve and will continue evolving as well; from someone with low level technical skills to someone with a high level of technical knowledge and information managerial skills. Because EUC continues growing more sophisticated, end users must not only maintain a level of competence, but prepare …

The Generalizability Of Private Sector Research On Software Project Management In Two Usaf Organizations: An Exploratory Study, Michael R. Garman

Theses and Dissertations

Project managers typically set three success criteria for their projects: meet specifications, be on time, and be on budget. However, software projects frequently fail to meet these criteria. Software engineers, acquisition officers, and project managers have all studied this issue and made recommendations for achieving success. But most of this research in peer reviewed journals has focused on the private sector. Researchers have also identified software acquisitions as one of the major differences between the private sector and public sector MIS. This indicates that the elements for a successful software project in the public sector may be different from the …

The Effect Of Interactivity And Instructional Exposure On Learning Effectiveness And Knowledge Retention: A Comparative Study Of Two U.S. Air Force Computer-Based Training (Cbt) Courses For Network User Licensing, Matthew J. Imperial

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force (USAF) currently employs the use of computer-based training (CET) across a host of requirements. One such requirement is in the Information Assurance (IA) arena and involves the training/licensing of over one-million computer network end-users. USAF use of CETs has been shown to possess a potential for substantial fiscal savings. However, studies investigating the learning outcomes of learning effectiveness (initial learning) and knowledge retention (sustained learning) associated with USAF CETs are lacking.

Health Care Informatics, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The health care industry is currently experiencing a fundamental change. Health care organizations are reorganizing their processes to reduce costs, be more competitive, and provide better and more personalized customer care. This new business strategy requires health care organizations to implement new technologies, such as Internet applications, enterprise systems, and mobile technologies in order to achieve their desired business changes. This article offers a conceptual model for implementing new information systems, integrating internal data, and linking suppliers and patients.

Certain Pattern Recognition Tasks For Data Mining Problems., Pabitra Mitra Dr.

Doctoral Theses

Pattern recognition (PR) is an activity that we humans normally excel in. We do it almost all the time, and without conscious effort. We receive information via our various sensory organs, which is processed instantaneously by our brain so that, almost immediately, we are able to identify the source of the information, without having made any perceptible effort. What is even more impressive is the accuracy with which we can perform recognition tasks even under non-ideal conditions, for instance, when the information that needs to be processed is vague, imprecise or even incomplete. In fact, most of our day-to-day activities …

Asymptotic Optimality Of Likelihood Based Cross-Validation, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Sandrine Dudoit, Sunduz Keles

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Likelihood-based cross-validation is a statistical tool for selecting a density estimate based on n i.i.d. observations from the true density among a collection of candidate density estimators. General examples are the selection of a model indexing a maximum likelihood estimator, and the selection of a bandwidth indexing a nonparametric (e.g. kernel) density estimator. In this article, we establish asymptotic optimality of a general class of likelihood based cross-validation procedures (as indexed by the type of sample splitting used, e.g. V-fold cross-validation), in the sense that the cross-validation selector performs asymptotically as well (w.r.t. to the Kullback-Leibler distance to the true …

Stage Based Interventions For Low Fat Diet With Middle School Students, Marilyn Frenn, Shelly Malin, Naveen K. Bansal

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Preventing obesity and cardiovascular disease at early ages is important; however, few effective interventions for early adolescents have been reported. In this study, low-income, culturally diverse students from an urban middle school (n = 60) received four classroom interventions with the use of a combined Health Promotion/Transtheoretical Model to control fat in diet and increase physical activity. A control group (n = 57) received the usual classroom education. Pretest percentage fat in diet was regressed on demographics, access to low-fat foods, perceived self-efficacy, benefits/barriers, and stage of change with results as proposed by the model [F(9,64) …

Handgrip Pattern Recognition, Zong Chen

Dissertations

There are numerous tragic gun deaths each year. Making handguns safer by personalizing them could prevent most such tragedies. Personalized handguns, also called "smart" guns, are handguns that can only be fired by the authorized user. Handgrip pattern recognition holds great promise in the development of the smart gun.

Two algorithms, static analysis algorithm and dynamic analysis algorithm, were developed to find the patterns of a person about how to grasp a handgun. The static analysis algorithm measured 160 subjects' fingertip placements on the replica gun handle. The cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were applied to these fingertip placements, and …

Reconsidering Restoration, Brian Hoffner

Theses

What does the process of ecological restoration actually produce? For some restoring nature is a point of no contention. By replacing ecosystems that have been damaged by human interference, humans are taking proper responsibility for their actions. However, the environmental ethics community is all but in agreement over humans' obligations to damaged ecosystems. Some in the field claim that it is human's responsibility to perform "wild gardening", through restorations, to "our" environments. While other philosophers insist that these acts produce "faked nature".

This thesis offers a compromise vision of the meaning of restoration. The author uses the concept of Autonomous …

Selecting Differentially Expressed Genes From Microarray Experiments, Margaret S. Pepe, Gary M. Longton, Garnet L. Anderson, Michel Schummer

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

High throughput technologies, such as gene expression arrays and protein mass spectrometry, allow one to simultaneously evaluate thousands of potential biomarkers that distinguish different tissue types. Of particular interest here is cancer versus normal organ tissues. We consider statistical methods to rank genes (or proteins) in regards to differential expression between tissues. Various statistical measures are considered and we argue that two measures related to the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve are particularly suitable for this purpose. We also propose that sampling variability in the gene rankings be quantified and suggest using the “selection probability function”, the probability distribution of rankings …

Semiparametric Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis To Evaluate Biomarkers For Disease, Tianxi Cai, Margaret S. Pepe

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is a popular method for characterizing the accuracy of diagnostic tests when test results are not binary. Various methodologies for estimating and comparing ROC curves have been developed. One approach, due to Pepe, uses a parametric regression model with the baseline function specified up to a finite-dimensional parameter. In this article we extend the regression models by allowing arbitrary nonparametric baseline functions. We also provide asymptotic distribution theory and procedures for making statistical inference. We illustrate our approach with dataset from a prostate cancer biomarker study. Simulation studies suggest that the extra flexibility inherent …

Semi-Parametric Regression For The Area Under The Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve, Lori E. Dodd, Margaret S. Pepe

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Medical advances continue to provide new and potentially better means for detecting disease. Such is true in cancer, for example, where biomarkers are sought for early detection and where improvements in imaging methods may pick up the initial functional and molecular changes associated with cancer development. In other binary classification tasks, computational algorithms such as Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines and Evolutionary Algorithms have been applied to areas as diverse as credit scoring, object recognition, and peptide-binding prediction. Before a classifier becomes an accepted technology, it must undergo rigorous evaluation to determine its ability to discriminate between states. Characterization of …

Estimating Disease Prevalence In Two-Phase Studies, Todd A. Alonzo, Margaret S. Pepe

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Disease prevalence is ideally estimated using a “gold standard” to ascertain true disease status on all subjects in a population of interest. In practice, however, the gold standard may be too costly or invasive to be applied to all subjects, in which case a two-phase design is often employed. Phase 1 data consisting of inexpensive and non-invasive screening tests on all study subjects are used to determine the subjects that receive the gold standard in the second phase. Naïve estimates of prevalence in two-phase studies can be biased (verification bias). Imputation and re-weighting estimators are often used to avoid this …

Negotiating High Stakes Water Conflicts: Lessons Learned From Experienced Practitioners, Stephen E. Snyder, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Books, Reports, and Studies

36 p. ; 28 cm

The Window Least Mean Square Error Algorithm, Anna Semenovna Degtyarena

Theses Digitization Project

In order to improve the performance of LMS (least mean square) algorithm by decreasing the amount of calculations this research proposes to make an update on each step only for those elements from the input data set, that fall within a small window W near the separating hyperplane surface. This work aims to describe in detail the results that can be achieved by using the proposed LMS with window learning algorithm in information systems that employ the methodology of neural network for the purposes of classification.

Graduate School Of Computer And Information Sciences-Doctoral Degree Programs 2003-2005, Nova Southeastern University

College of Engineering and Computing Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Pain And Distress Associated With Polyclonal Antibody Production: Discussion And Recommendations, The Humane Society Of The United States

ANIMAL RESEARCH

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) held a workshop in August 2002 in order to develop recommendations for minimizing pain and distress associated with polyclonal antibody (Pab) production. A small group of experts in the fields of antibody production, animal welfare, in vitro alternatives, and/or regulatory compliance participated in the roundtable discussion. The workshop was a scientifically based meeting, and recommendations were based on the extensive experience of the workshop participants as well as published literature regarding the relevant issues.

Participants recognized that insufficient attention has been paid to animal welfare aspects of Pab production, in part because …

Editorial Board & Iowa Academy Of Science Officers And Directors

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 45 Number 3, Winter 2003, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

10 - ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE AT SCU By Paul Locatelli, S.J. ln an adaptation of his convocation address, SCU 's president describes the University's goal to educate "the whole person."

12 - 'BECKHAM' BOOSTS SCU SOCCER By Victoria Hendel De La O. References to SCU in the hit movie have brought international attention to the women's soccer program.

14 - SEEKING SOLUTIONS Experts vi sit campus to discuss the issue of clergy abuse and work on a book about the topic.

18 - UNEARTHING THE PAST By Connie Skipitares. SCU archaeologists, anthropologists, and students probe a site near campus to learn …

Arts And Sciences Newsletter, Volume 6, Issue 4, College Of Arts & Sciences

Arts and Sciences Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Ua56/1 Fact Book, Wku Institutional Research

WKU Administration Documents

Statistical and demographic profile of WKU.

A Christian Perspective On Mathematics – History Of Mathematics And Study Guides, Johan Deklerk

ACMS Journal 2004

This paper addresses two questions: (1) Will a study of the history of the subject serve any purpose in promoting a Christian perspective on mathematics? (2) Can the "science in context" approach be of further help in promoting such a perspective? The author answers both positively and provides specific examples of how he has done this in his own classes.