Digital Commons Network^™

2019 June - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Vehicles And The Ethical Tension Between Occupant And Non-Occupant Safety, Jason Borenstein, Joseph Herkert, Keith W. Miller

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Autonomous vehicle manufacturers, people inside an autonomous vehicle (occupants), and people outside the vehicle (non-occupants) are among the distinct stakeholders when addressing ethical issues inherent in systems that include autonomous vehicles. As responses to recent tragic cases illustrate, advocates for autonomous vehicles tend to focus on occupant safety, sometimes to the exclusion of non-occupant safety. Thus, we aim to examine ethical issues associated with non-occupant safety, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and riders of motorized scooters. We also explore the ethical implications of technical and policy ideas that some might propose to improve non-occupant safety. In addition, if safety (writ large) …

Crumpled And Abraded Encryption: Implementation And Provably Secure Construction, Scott Sherlock Griffy

Dissertations and Theses

Abraded and crumpled encryption allows communication software such as messaging platforms to ensure privacy for their users while still allowing for some investigation by law enforcement. Crumpled encryption ensures that each decryption is costly and prevents law enforcement from performing mass decryption of messages. Abrasion ensures that only large organizations like law enforcement are able to access any messages. The current abrasion construction uses public key parameters such as prime numbers which makes the abrasion scheme difficult to analyze and allows possible backdoors. In this thesis, we introduce a new abrasion construction which uses hash functions to avoid the problems …

Cybersecurity For Critical Infrastructure: Addressing Threats And Vulnerabilities In Canada, Samuel A. Cohen

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to assess the unique technical and policy-based cybersecurity challenges facing Canada’s critical infrastructure environment and to analyze how current government and industry practices are not equipped to remediate or offset associated strategic risks to the country. Further, the thesis also provides cases and evidence demonstrating that Canada’s critical infrastructure has been specifically targeted by foreign and domestic cyber threat actors to pressure the country’s economic, safety and national security interests. Essential services that Canadians and Canadian businesses rely on daily are intricately linked to the availability and integrity of vital infrastructure sectors, such as …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2019, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Leveraging Natural Language Processing Applications And Microblogging Platform For Increased Transparency In Crisis Areas, Ernesto Carrera-Ruvalcaba, Johnson Ekedum, Austin Hancock, Ben Brock

SMU Data Science Review

Through microblogging applications, such as Twitter, people actively document their lives even in times of natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes. While first responders and crisis-teams are able to help people who call 911, or arrive at a designated shelter, there are vast amounts of information being exchanged online via Twitter that provide real-time, location-based alerts that are going unnoticed. To effectively use this information, the Tweets must be verified for authenticity and categorized to ensure that the proper authorities can be alerted. In this paper, we create a Crisis Message Corpus from geotagged Tweets occurring during 7 hurricanes …

Changing The Current Perception Of Affordable Housing In Worcester, Simone Mcguinness, William Roberts, Vaske Gjino, Tong Zhou, Mengxin Ma, Sarawadee Sonpuak

School of Professional Studies

One of Worcester Interfaith’s goals is to eradicate the stigma of affordable housing in Worcester. Currently, the perception of affordable housing is of an image of unkept and old residences filled with destitute citizens who cannot afford basic needs to live in a city, let alone housing. This image is perpetuated by media, stigma, and a lack of education of the true reality of affordable housing and who its recipients are. Affordable housing-qualified citizens represent a range of educations, professions, age, race, and income levels. Affordable housing units, too, represent a variety of homes, many of which are extremely well-kept …

Determining The Interference Of Lactate And Lactate Dehydrogenase In An Ethanol Enzyme Assay, Julia Liebl

Master's Theses

Enzymatic ethanol assays are widely used to determine blood alcohol content for individuals admitted to a hospital. In some instances, this hospital data is later used as evidence in a court of law, most commonly in DUI cases. As the enzymatic assay targets, but does not exclusively measure ethanol, it is theoretically possible that interference could occur and produce a falsely elevated result, leading to wrongful convictions or other consequences. This project examined the potential of clinically relevant levels of one potential interferant, lactate and the hepatic enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) to cause significant and falsely elevated results. Threshold levels …

River Hydrology, Morphology, And Dynamics In An Intensively Managed, Transient Landscape, Sara Ann Kelly

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Rivers create beautiful patterns and provide drinking water to millions. However an alarming number of rivers in the US and globally are threatened by excess sediment and nutrients. Agricultural rivers draining erodible soils are particularly vulnerable. Rivers of southern Minnesota provide a unique opportunity to study water and sediment dynamics in a naturally vulnerable system. Sediment reduction strategies are needed to ensure biological integrity and adequate water quality. Here, I address the questions: 1) have climate, land use practices, or both affected streamflows in Midwest agricultural rivers?, 2) which streamflows set the rate of river bluff erosion?, and 3) how …

Federal, State And Local Law Enforcement Agency Interoperability Capabilities And Cyber Vulnerabilities, Tyrone Trapnell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The National Data Exchange (N-DEx) System is the central informational hub located at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Its purpose is to provide network subscriptions to all Federal, state and local level law enforcement agencies while increasing information collaboration across all domains. The National Data Exchange users must satisfy the Advanced Permission Requirements, confirming the terms of N-DEx information use, and the Verification Requirement (verifying the completeness, timeliness, accuracy, and relevancy of N-DEx information) through coordination with the record-owning agency (Management, 2018). A network infection model is proposed to simulate the spread impact of various cyber-attacks within Federal, state …

Raman And Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy For Forensic Analysis: Case Studies On The Identification Of Illicit Substances And Artist Pigments, Abed Haddad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Raman spectroscopy is an effective tool for detecting trace amounts of material by fingerprint-like vibrational spectra. At times, the weak intensity of Raman scattering can make it difficult to distinguish trace materials. This shortcoming is addressed by surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which produces strong signal enhancements when target compounds are near metal nanoparticles. For the first part of this thesis, the identification of fentanyl and carfentanil, main culprits in the opioid epidemic, was done using normal Raman and the SERS spectroscopy. As an aid in the assignment of the spectral lines, a computational model was built using Density Functional Theory …

A Systematic Assessment Of Socio-Economic Impacts Of Prolonged Episodic Volcano Crises, Justin Peers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Uncertainty surrounding volcanic activity can lead to socio-economic crises with or without an eruption as demonstrated by the post-1978 response to unrest of Long Valley Caldera (LVC), CA. Extensive research in physical sciences provides a foundation on which to assess direct impacts of hazards, but fewer resources have been dedicated towards understanding human responses to volcanic risk. To evaluate natural hazard risk issues at LVC, a multi-hazard, mail-based, household survey was conducted to compare perceptions of volcanic, seismic, and wildfire hazards. Impacts of volcanic activity on housing prices and businesses were examined at the county-level for three volcanoes with a …

Reimagining Future Sustainable, Climate-Resilient Urban Design For Apia, Samoa: Developing Plans For A Developing Nation, Alyssa Kaewwilai

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Small island developing states are arguably the most vulnerable, exposed nations on a global scale to the harmful effects of climate change. Particularly in Samoa, an abundance of environmental, economic, and social impacts have severe impacts on both the country as a whole as well as on an individual level. This study analyzes future mitigation strategies of land use and urban design to recreate Samoa’s capital of Apia as a more climate-resilient city to encourage economic growth and to ensure the well-being of all inhabitants. This planning is based upon current challenges of Samoa driven by climate change such as …

A Framework For Test & Evaluation Of Autonomous Systems Along The Virtuality-Reality Spectrum, Nathan D. Gonda

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Test & Evaluation of autonomous vehicles presents a challenge as the vehicles may have emergent behavior and it is frequently difficult to ascertain the reason for software decisions. Current Test & Evaluation approaches for autonomous systems place the vehicles in various operating scenarios to observe their behavior. However, this introduces dependencies between design and development lifecycle of the autonomous software and physical vehicle hardware. Simulation-based testing can alleviate the necessity to have physical hardware; however, it can be costly when transitioning the autonomous software to and from a simulation testing environment. The objective of this thesis is to develop a …

A Framework To Reveal Clandestine Organ Trafficking In The Dark Web And Beyond, Michael P. Heinl, Bo Yu, Duminda Wijesekera

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Due to the scarcity of transplantable organs, patients have to wait on long lists for many years to get a matching kidney. This scarcity has created an illicit market place for wealthy recipients to avoid long waiting times. Brokers arrange such organ transplants and collect most of the payment that is sometimes channeled to fund other illicit activities. In order to collect and disburse payments, they often resort to money laundering-like schemes of money transfers. As the low-cost Internet arrives in some of the affected countries, social media and the dark web are used to illegally trade human organs. This …

Source Term Estimation Of Atmospheric Pollutants Using An Ensemble Of Hysplit Concentration Simulations, Casey L. Zoellick

Theses and Dissertations

In support of Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) monitoring and nuclear event detection, this study works toward source term estimation (STE) of dispersive pollutants using a novel method|an ensemble of forward trajectory concentration simulations using a meteorology-coupled dispersion model. Traditionally a mathematically and physically rigorous problem, STE of a plume of atmospheric pollutants can be solved in a variety of ways depending on what is known regarding the emission, but little has been studied on the sensitivity between the horizontal resolution of the meteorology data in relation to the dispersion model and the results derived from known concentrations at multiple locations. …

Comparing Dual-Polarization Radar Lightning Forecast Methods Across Southwest Utah, Daniel O. Katuzienski

Theses and Dissertations

Lightning poses a significant hazard to space launch operations to include ground processing, launch window forecasts, and rocket-triggered lightning events. Two lightning initiation forecast methods using weather radar developed in Gremillion and Orville (1999) and Travis (2015) for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) and Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida are tested in a new geographical region. This is accomplished by applying the highest-performing radar parameters from Gremillion and Orville (1999): reectivity (Z) ≥ 40 dBZ for two consecutive volume scans at the -10°C thermal height and Travis (2015): Z ≥ 36.5 dBZ with differential reflectivity (ZDR) ≥ 0.31 dB …

Water Scarcity In The Face Of Hurricanes: Improving The Resilience Of Potable Water Supplies In Selected Florida Counties, Fautemeh Sajadi Bami

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Severe storms can threaten the reliability and accessibility of drinking water supplies. The state of Florida is frequently impacted by hurricanes and is often struck more than once a year. An example of this can be found in 2017 when hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria caused much damage. Compromised utilities, well contamination, and shortages in bottled water and ice are just some of the problems that may threaten peoples’ drinking water.

Faced with these issues, preparation and response efforts must be effective in order to promote human health. Recent events like Hurricane Irma caused shortages in potable water which suggest …

North Dakota's Energy Future!, University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center

EERC Brochures and Fact Sheets

The Energy & Environmental Research Center’s (EERC’s) goals with North Dakota’s natural resources and energy production for the future. Includes information on resource sustainability, improving pipeline leaks, creating safe carbon capture methods and the EERC’s involvement with outreach and education with the University of North Dakota. [This item is an outdated or superseded version and retained for historical purposes only. It may no longer reflect current information, policies, or practices.]

Pedestrian Safety -- Fundamental To A Walkable City, Joshua Herrera, Patrick Mcdevitt, Preeti Swaminathan, Raghuram Srinivas

SMU Data Science Review

In this paper, we present a method to identify urban areas with a higher likelihood of pedestrian safety related events. Pedestrian safety related events are pedestrian-vehicle interactions that result in fatalities, injuries, accidents without injury, or near--misses between pedestrians and vehicles. To develop a solution to this problem of identifying likely event locations, we assemble data, primarily from the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, that include safety reports from a five year period, geographic information for these events, citizen survey of pedestrian reported concerns, non-emergency requests for service for any cause in the city, property values and public transportation …

2011 - Economic Contributions Of Monterey County Agriculture

Miscellaneous Monterey and San Luis Obispo County Documents and Reports

This report analyzed Monterey County agriculture’s total contribution to the local economy. The findings offered the fullest picture yet of agriculture’s economic role. This report should be of interest to policymakers, the public, and anyone who values a vibrant local economy.

The calculations were drawn from local and national sources. Local sources include annual Crop Reports and industry experts. Local experts included local economists, agriculture industry organizations, and the 13-person Agricultural Advisory Committee for Monterey County that provided input into the research. National data sources included federal government statistics and a widely used economic modeling program called IMPLAN. Except where …

Cell-Devs Social Interaction Modeling And Simulation For Emergency Evacuation Systems, Yanhong Wang, Wang Xia, Shaowei Wang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: This paper aims to present a Cell-DEVS model for emergency evacuation systems, which behave uncertainty and are intricately driven by the social factors. The model introduces social interaction factors such as familiarity degrees, individual vision, communication and conduction, and velocity zones as the state variables, describing the relationship between the evacuees and environment, as well as the interactions with each other. The algorithm optimization enhances reality of simulation. The RESTful CD++ is applied as middleware to execute remote simulation. The results confirm the existence of social interaction. This work benefits to the architecture design, evacuation planning and …

The Rapid Deployments To Wildfires Experiment (Radfire): Observations From The Fire Zone, Craig Clements, Neil Lareau, David Kingsmill, Carrie Bowers, Christopher Camacho, Richard Bagley, Braniff Davis

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

The Rapid Deployments to Wildfires Experiment (RaDFIRE) was a meteorological field campaign aimed at observing fire–atmosphere interactions during active wildfires. Using a rapidly deployable scanning Doppler lidar, airborne Doppler radar, and a suite of other instruments, the field campaign sampled 21 wildfires from 2013 to 2016 in the western United States. Observations include rotating convective plumes, plume interactions with stable layers and multilayered smoke detrainment, convective plume entrainment processes, smoke-induced density currents, and aircraft in situ observations of developing pyrocumulus. Collectively, these RaDFIRE observations highlight the range of meteorological phenomena associated with wildfires, especially plume dynamics, and will provide a …

Scenario Computing For Analysis Of Deep Uncertainty Systems, Liu Yi, Gangqiao Wang, Zhipeng Wu, Zhenqiang Fan, Yongqiang Chen

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: A method of scenario computing is developed for modeling systems with deep uncertainty. The method consists three complementary parts: hybrid modelling, diverse computing, and interactive validation. Hybrid modelling is to dynamically develop models with merging historical knowledges and observed information. Diversity computation is to simulate multiple plausible scenarios about system future. Interactive validation helps scenario computing process being on the right way instead of deviating. Two cases are provided in this paper applying scenario computing, one is earthquake and the other is driving and transportation. The results show good performance of scenario computing method in modeling uncertainty systems.

Study On Evacuation Modeling Of Airport Based On Social Force Model, Shaobo Zhong, Zhichen Yu, Yongsheng Yang, Sun Chao, Quanyi Huang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Public safety events frequently occurred in China and caused great casualty and property loss. Inefficient evacuation is one of the major causes of casualties in emergencies. Taking the T3-E of the Beijing Capital International Airport as a study area, the influence of four factors of evacuation guidance, customs barriers, the airport seats, and construction columns studies is studied through social force model-based simulation. The results show that: four factors have local effects on evacuation respectively. Evacuation guidance has the most significant positive effect while others have a little significant negative effect. Moreover, the relationships between the maximal and optimal …

Think Of The Dynamic Data Driven Application Systems In Simulation: From Physics Domain To Social Domain, Bin Chen, Yiping Wang, Xiaogang Qiu, Liu Liang, Ma Liang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Dynamic data driven application systems (DDDAS) is an important part in the intelligent ACP based experimental approach. With the development of information technologies such as big data, intelligent learning, game play theory, the modes of application of DDDAS in simulation cases have changed a lot. In order to meet the requirements of the researches in both physics domain and social domain, the applications of DDDAS in classical cases are summarized. The data assimilation in the two physics cases is illustrated in detail. Then the cases in social domain which is focused by safety science are also discussed. The …

1997 - Water Resources Data Report, Water Year 1994-1995

Monterey County Water Resources Agency Water Reports

California State legislation outlines the objectives and purposes of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA) and states that the MCWRA is to “carry on technical and other necessary investigations, make measurements, collect data, make analyses, studies and inspections pertaining to water supply, water rights, control of flood and storm waters and use of water both within and outside of the agency ...” The MCWRA is responsible for the managing, planning and engineering of the water resources of the Salinas Valley. This report was prepared in part to fulfill that responsibility.

A Machine Learning Recommender Model For Ride Sharing Based On Rider Characteristics And User Threshold Time, Govind Pramod Yatnalkar

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In the present age, human life is prospering incredibly due to the 4^th Industrial Revolution or The Age of Digitization and Computing. The ubiquitous availability of the Internet and advanced computing systems have resulted in the rapid development of smart cities. From connected devices to live vehicle tracking, technology is taking the field of transportation to a new level. An essential part of the transportation domain in smart cities is Ride Sharing. It is an excellent solution to issues like pollution, traffic, and the rapid consumption of fuel. Even though Ride Sharing has several benefits, the current usage is …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 61 Number 1, Winter 2019, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

14 - IN THE BEGINNING An interview with Santa Clara University President Kevin O’Brien, S.J. on what's next and noticing what we swim in. Matt Morgan

22 - ADAM, EVE, AND THE APPLE If making—and appreciating—art makes us human, what happens when we get help making a masterpiece from something unhuman? Lauren Loftus.

28 - BEDROCK When faced with tough decisions, Santa Clara values stand as good guides, says Leon Panetta ’60, J.D. ’63. Leslie Griffy.

A Systematic Review Of Blockchain Research And Applications In Business, Prinsa Roka

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Blockchain, well-known as the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) behind cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, has attracted plenty of attention from both practitioners and academics and has begun to revolutionize the way businesses handle their day-to-day operations. DLT leads to many interesting new research topics in different business fields. In this study, we applied the systematic mapping method to review existing articles related to blockchain applications and research in different business areas (accounting, finance and banking, information systems, marketing and supply chain). Our goal is to understand the current applications and research status related to blockchain, so that we can identify research …