Accuracy And Racial Biases Of Recidivism Prediction Instruments, Julia J. Dressel

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

Algorithms have recently become prevalent in the criminal justice system. Tools known as recidivism prediction instruments (RPIs) are being used all over the country to assess the likelihood that a criminal defendant will reoffend at some point in the future. In June of 2016, researchers at ProPublica published an analysis claiming an RPI called COMPAS was biased against black defendants. This claim sparked a nation-wide debate as to how fairness of an algorithm should be measured, and exposed the many ways that algorithms are not necessarily fair. Algorithms are used in the criminal justice system because they are regarded as …

Human Services Management (Hsm) Certificate Program Expansion To Western Massachusetts Feasibility Study, Paul Campbell, Patrick Deschenes, Maria Pacheco, Bradley Paul, Elizabeth Vittum, Jing Zhang

School of Professional Studies

One of the most popular cost-savings programs that the Providers’ Council currently offers its members is a Certificate in Nonprofit Human Service Management (HSM) provided in partnership with Clark University and Suffolk University. As human services providers are struggling to hire and retain qualified staff, the need to provide professional development opportunities to help grow and expand a skilled health and human services workforce is a critical issue facing nonprofit organizations and communities in Massachusetts. This feasibility study examines the viability of Providers’ Council and Clark University expanding its HSM Certificate Program to organizations and staff located in western Massachusetts. …

Strain Release At The Trench During Shallow Slow Slip: The Example Of Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, Yan Jiang, Zhen Liu, Earl E. Davis, Susan Y. Schwartz, Timothy H. Dixon, Nicholas K. Voss, Rocco Malservisi, Marino Protti

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The near‐trench behavior of subduction megathrust faults is critical for understanding earthquake hazard and tsunami generation. The shallow subduction interface is typically located in unconsolidated sediments that are considered too weak to accumulate elastic strain. However, the spectrum of shallow fault slip behavior is still elusive, due in large part to the lack of near‐field observations. Here we combine measurements from seafloor pressure sensors near the trench and an onshore GPS network in a time‐dependent inversion to image the initiation and migration of a well‐documented slow slip event (SSE) in 2007 at the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. Our results show …

Inventory, Assessment And Preliminary Management Planning For Utah's Sovereign Land Along The Bear River, Matthew Coombs

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

ABSTRACT

Inventory, Assessment and Preliminary Management Planning for

Utah’s Sovereign Land along the Bear River

by

Matthew S. Coombs

Master of Science in Bioregional Planning

Utah State University, 2017

Major Professor: Richard E. Toth

Department: Environment and Society

The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands (FFSL) is responsible for the management of state-owned sovereign land in Utah, which includes the bed and banks of the Bear River in Cache and Box Elder Counties. The purpose of this project is to provide relevant background information and data to support the future development of a comprehensive management plan for the …

The Global Positioning System, Brendon Baker

Physics Capstone Projects

This research study explores the Global Positioning System (GPS), its history, and the process of discovery needed to create the most accurate GPS possible, as well as the contemporary applications of GPS technology. Starting with the first satellite in space, GPS has been a work in progress. Originally pursued by the military for improvements to military tactics, GPS has become integrated into the everyday lives of millions of people around the world. How GPS determines location is a dichotomy, with simplistic theory and complex application. Many factors go into GPS to provide a consistent, accurate location. The orbital planes the …

Semantic Description Of Activities In Videos, Fillipe Dias Moreira De Souza

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Description of human activities in videos results not only in detection of actions and objects but also in identification of their active semantic relationships in the scene. Towards this broader goal, we present a combinatorial approach that assumes availability of algorithms for detecting and labeling objects and actions, albeit with some errors. Given these uncertain labels and detected objects, we link them into interpretative structures using domain knowledge encoded with concepts of Grenander’s general pattern theory. Here a semantic video description is built using basic units, termed generators, that represent labels of objects or actions. These generators have multiple out-bonds, …

Impact Of Road Salts (Nacl) On Winter Water Quality In Mill Brook, Westbrook, Maine, Devin Page

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

Mill Brook is approximately 5 miles long and is an important migration route for Alewife during the spawning season. Mill Brook stretches from Highland Lake, Westbrook, Maine to the Presumpscot River in Portland, Maine and is surrounded by relatively well-protected forest land. However, chloride concentrations still rise from the upper end of the brook to the end: preliminary data, collected in the winter of 2017, showed an increase in mean chloride concentration from 37.28mg/L +/- 25.61mg/L at the start of Mill Brook to 51.25mg/L +/- 11.63 mg/L at the end of the brook. Chloride concentrations increase in the winter due …

Modeling Channel Response To Dam Removal In Lansing, Michigan, Using Swat, Ryan Filbin

Masters Theses

The removal of dams has increased in recent decades in the United States, largely resulting from decaying infrastructure and greater efforts to restore rivers to a more natural, free-flowing state. Dam removal presents the opportunity for increased public safety, improved environmental prosperity, and improved economic prosperity in conjunction with riverfront revitalization projects. The City of Lansing, Michigan, contains two moderate-to high-risk dams along the Grand River that pose a significant risk to the surrounding area in the event of structural failure.

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is applied to model the impacts of the Moores Park Dam and …

Vulnerabilities, Attacks, And Countermeasures In Balise-Based Train Control Systems, Yongdong Wu, Jian Weng, Zhe Tang, Xin Li, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In modern rail transport systems, balises are widely used to exchange track-train information via air-gap interface. In this paper, we first present the vulnerabilities on the standard balise air-gap interface, and then conduct vulnerability simulations using the system parameters that were specified in the European Train Control System. The simulation results show that the vulnerabilities can be exploited to launch effective and practical attacks, which could lead to catastrophic consequences, such as train derailment or collision. To mitigate the vulnerabilities and attacks, we propose to implement a challenge-response authentication process in the air-gap interface in the existing transport infrastructure.

An Indoor Navigation System Using A Sensor Fusion Scheme On Android Platform, Jiayi Xin

Master's Theses (2009 -)

With the development of wireless communication networks, smart phones have become a necessity for people’s daily lives, and they meet not only the needs of basic functions for users such as sending a message or making a phone call, but also the users’ demands for entertainment, surfing the Internet and socializing. Navigation functions have been commonly utilized, however the navigation function is often based on GPS (Global Positioning System) in outdoor environments, whereas a number of applications need to navigate indoors. This paper presents a system to achieve high accurate indoor navigation based on Android platform. To do this, we …

How Lessons From A Past Disaster Can Influence Resilience And Climate Adaptation In Broward County, Florida, Hannah Rose Torres

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the face of future uncertainties, many places are struggling with decisions about how to prepare for and adapt to climate change. The purpose of this research is to shed light on the concept of resilience, and uncover lessons for resilience-building exposed by a past disaster, Hurricane Wilma.

The dissertation begins with an introduction (Chapter 1) detailing the research problem, key terms and overall research design. The study was conducted in three distinct phases. The first phase (Chapter 2), explored the concept of resilience to understand how it was defined in three South Florida communities. Content analyses of city and …

1st Analytics Without Borders Conference Program, Bentley University

Analytics Without Borders

No abstract provided.

Drop (Drone Open Source Parser) Your Drone: Forensic Analysis Of The Dji Phantom Iii, Devon R. Clark, Christopher S. Meffert, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The DJI Phantom III drone has already been used for malicious activities (to drop bombs, remote surveillance and plane watching) in 2016 and 2017. At the time of writing, DJI was the drone manufacturer with the largest market share. Our work presents the primary thorough forensic analysis of the DJI Phantom III drone, and the primary account for proprietary file structures stored by the examined drone. It also presents the forensically sound open source tool DRone Open source Parser (DROP) that parses proprietary DAT files extracted from the drone's nonvolatile internal storage. These DAT files are encrypted and encoded. The …

Comparing Cmaq Forecasts With A Neural Network Forecast Model For Pm2.5 In New York, Samuel D. Lightstone, Fred Moshary, Barry Gross

Publications and Research

Human health is strongly affected by the concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The need to forecast unhealthy conditions has driven the development of Chemical Transport Models such as Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ). These models attempt to simulate the complex dynamics of chemical transport by combined meteorology, emission inventories (EI’s), and gas/particle chemistry and dynamics. Ultimately, the goal is to establish useful forecasts that could provide vulnerable members of the population with warnings. In the simplest utilization, any forecast should focus on next day pollution levels, and should be provided by the end of the business day (5 p.m. …

Droughtscape, Winter 2017, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

NDMC partners with Sioux tribes to build climate resiliency

Drought intensifies in some regions of U.S. in fall

Fire danger and sequoia deaths in third quarter

2016: Year in review

MENA region forums elicit

feedback from stakeholders

Tech pass-off in Tunisia

Midwest DEWS meetings build collaboration, relationships

Workshop links drought, socioeconomic impacts/p>

Drought center helps ranchers prepare for drought

Drought tourney in Nebraska goes low tech

Fire Management Provisions In Federal Wilderness Law, Erik D. Alnes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Horizontal Directional Drilling Pilot Bore Simulation, Paulius Tervydis, Ruta Jankuniene

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Various underground communications (water or gas supply systems, sewage, power lines) have been installed in recent years using trenchless technologies, i.e. horizontal directional drilling (HDD). This technique by its nature does not disturb the traffic and is environmentally friendly. One must be aware that, with HDD, pipeline building time is shortened. With respect to the above, HDD is especially effective in highly populated or industrial areas. However, it is necessary to ensure that HDD works, in order to prevent damage to installed underground facilities. The aim of this work is to propose a user-friendly and inexpensive simulation tool with required …

Taking A Byte Out Of Corruption: A Data Analytic Framework For Cities To Fight Fraud, Cut Costs, And Promote Integrity, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

In recent years, the emerging science of data analytics has equipped law enforcement agencies and urban policymakers with game-changing tools. Many leaders and thinkers in the public integrity community believe such innovations could prove equally transformational for the fight against public corruption. However, corruption control presents unique challenges that must be addressed before city watchdog agencies can harness the power of big data. City governments need to improve data collection and management practices and develop new models to leverage available data to better monitor corruption risks.

To bridge this gap and pave the way for a potential data breakthrough in …

From The National Cyber Maturity To The Cyber Resilience: The Lessons Learnt From The Efforts Of Turkey, Bilge Karabacak, Unal Tatar

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In this paper, the details of critical infrastructure protection program of United States of America are shared by taking the cyber resilience into account. The academic and institutional studies on the concepts of cyber maturity, critical infrastructure protection program and cyber resilience are explained in detail. By the help of these studies and national efforts, the relations among these concepts are proposed. The key components of a cyber security strategy and action plan for a cyber resilient society is proposed by taking these three concepts into account. As the final step, the recent cyber security efforts of Turkey is shared …

University Of Nebraska At Omaha 2017-2018 Course Catalog, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

Graduate Catalogs

The University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) is a premier metropolitan university that combines the resources of a doctoral research institution with a thriving community in the heart of Omaha.

With a global reach and vision, UNO is large enough to provide opportunities students seek, yet personal enough to include the mentorship they need to achieve academic excellence, creativity, and engaged learningat competitive tuition rates.

UNO is committed to and engaged with the city surrounding it, allowing students unique hands-on opportunities, internships, service learning,applied research, and other collaborative activities that enhance time in the classroom.

This is the ”O” we want …

Dam Removal In The Usa: Effects On River Water Quality, Michael A. Kruge

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Dam removal decisions should ideally be made after a thorough cost-benefit analysis. If dam obsolescence, structural safety, harm to fisheries, maintenance costs, and reservoir eutrophication are among the primary concerns, decommissioning would likely be favored. On the other hand, dams provide considerable benefits including water storage for agricultural and urban consumption, renewable electricity generation, support of navigational canal systems, flood control, and lakes for recreation. Because of these competing factors and interests, dam removal decision-making in the United States is often a slow process fraught with controversy, as in the case of the Klamath River.

Dams provided mechanical water power …

Artificial Intelligence And Its Potential Adverse Impacts On The Philippine Economy, Krista Danielle Yu, Caesar Cororaton, Joel P. Ilao, Charibeth K. Cheng, Kathleen Aviso, Christina D. Cayamanda, Michael Angelo B. Promentilla, Ringgold P. Atienza, Roman Julio B. Infante, Raymond R. Tan

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning techniques are expected to reshape the nature of the working environment in many economic sectors through the automation of many white collar jobs. This technological breakthrough poses threats of job obsolescence in several industries, particularly for a labor abundant country such as the Philippines. With human capital as one of its largest resources, the services sector is a major contributor to the country’s economy, contributing around 60% of the total gross domestic product and employing about 22.8 million workers (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2017).

Assessing Resilient Post-Disaster Recovery Of A Flash-Flood-Prone Area: A Study Of The City Of Jeddah, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Abdurazag Tammar

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract

The increased incidence of natural disasters over recent decades has been accompanied by a corresponding dramatic proliferation of human casualties, economic damage and recovery costs. Post-disaster processes are therefore increasingly becoming the paramount focus of disaster-management stakeholders. Current research has noted the importance of improving community resilience with respect to household capacity, organizational capacity, and social capital, as the three main assessment dimensions to enable communities to recover effectively and efficiently from future disaster events. Community resilience involves proactive preparedness and mitigation initiatives. In the context of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the lack of either precedent research or …

Low-Frequency Exposure Analysis Using Electric And Magnetic Field Measurements And Predictions In The Proximity Of Power Transmission Lines In Urban Areas, Hamza Feza Carlak, Şükrü Özen, Süleyman Bi̇lgi̇n

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In recent years, increasing energy demand has resulted in more loading in power transmission lines and correspondingly more electric and magnetic field occurrence. In this paper, electric and magnetic field levels around high voltage power transmission lines are measured and then calculated analytically by simulating the realistic case. Moreover, the field levels around these power lines have been predicted using multilayer perceptron artificial neural network (ANN) and generalized regression neural network models. Typical 154 kV power transmission line facilities of Turkey have been studied. Electric and magnetic field levels in the proximity of power transmission lines have been predicted with …

Climate Change Adaptation For Southern California Groundwater Managers: A Case Study Of The Six Basins Aquifer, Frank Lyles

Pomona Senior Theses

Groundwater has been very important to the economic development of Southern California, and will continue to be a crucial resource in the 21st century. However, Climate Change threatens to disrupt many of the physical and economic processes that control the flow of water in and out of aquifers. One groundwater manager, the Six Basins Watermaster in eastern Los Angeles and western San Bernardino Counties, has developed a long-term planning document called the Strategic Plan that mostly fails to address the implications of Climate Change, especially for local water supplies. This thesis presents an in-depth analysis of the Six Basin Watermaster’s …

Mesonets: Meso-Scale Weather And Climate Observations For The U.S., Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Planning For Off-Road Vehicle Use, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky, Katie Freeman, Alexi Lamm, Leah Missik, Scott Salmon

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Off-road vehicles (hereafter, ORVs) rank high among public-land management challenges because they are popular, often impair environmental conditions, and may cause conflicts with other recreational users. Unit-level planning for federal lands increasingly translates broad, system-wide objectives, such as maintenance of ecological integrity, into place-based limitations on ORV use to minimize and mitigate adverse impacts on wildlife. We reviewed 176 planning documents covering 313 National Wildlife Refuges (hereafter, Refuges) to understand how planning supports or undermines ORV recreation management. These plans offer an important perspective on ORV management because the Refuges are a large, diverse system of conservation lands where recreation …

Using Gis To Predict Cetacean Strandings Related To Harmful Algal Blooms, Jessica L. Boyd

HCNSO Student Capstones

Exposure to harmful algal bloom (HAB) toxins, such as Karenia brevis, has been linked to cetacean strandings and mortalities. Biological and environmental data from a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Unusual Mortality Event (UME) in 2004 are compared to those from pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) mass stranding events in 2013-2014 in western Florida. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) maps have been created by overlaying stranding locations and select K. brevis presence data in order to identify common spatial and temporal trends. Preliminary results indicate that elevated K. brevis levels (>10,000 cells/L) in Sarasota Bay during January-February and November may …

Space Traffic Management Concepts Leveraging Existing Frameworks, Stephen K. Hunter

Space Traffic Management Conference

Leveraging existing U.S. regulatory frameworks, as well as international organizations, will dramatically shorten the time needed to develop an effective Space Traffic Management concept. Both the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation have been working with the U.S. Congress to define and develop a Space Traffic Management concept that will allow the Office of Commercial Space Launch to begin a new mission that will help to ensure the safety and resilience of the space domain. Outside observers can easily see forward progress toward this, still, undeveloped concept. This paper explores potential final U.S. Space Traffic Management concepts that …

Wrack Lines Fall/Winter 2016, Peg Vanpatten

Wrack Lines

This is the entire Fall/Winter 2016 issue of Wrack Lines magazine. Topics include fisheries, Atlantic sturgeon, resilient gardening, healthy ecosystems, salt marshes and salinity, and Rachel Carson's rising seas.