Digital Commons Network^™

Marijuana Arrests In Toronto Canada: A Look Into The Canadian Criminal Justice System, Steven Tully

Symposium of Student Scholars

Marijuana related drug offenses made up fifty-eight percent of all Controlled Drugs and Substances Act offenses in Canada in 2016. On October 17, 2018, Canada legalized marijuana. As part of the efforts to legalize marijuana, descriptive statistics of single variables, like the age of the arrestees and the number of people arrested per year, were reported by the Toronto Star newspaper. The dataset analyzed in this research predates the legalization of marijuana and was collected from 1997 to 2002 on 5,226 individuals arrested in Toronto, Canada for simple possession of small quantities of marijuana. When an offender was arrested for …

Who Is Next? Evaluating Factors That May Contribute To Heart Failure, Davon Broadwater

Symposium of Student Scholars

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one causes of death globally, and for African Americans those risks are even higher. As an African American university student studying Biology, I am passionate about researching the diseases that affect my race. Current research states that behavioral factors such as obesity, tobacco use, unhealthy diet, and harmful use of alcohol should be avoided. I have chosen to research predictors of what helps patients survive if they already have heart failure. Heart failure develops gradually, where the heart becomes weaker over time and has trouble pumping blood to nourish the cells in the body. Data …

Eradicating Zebra Mussels: What Works?, Elijah Davies

Symposium of Student Scholars

The invasion of U.S lakes and rivers by the invasive species of zebra mussels called Dreissena polymorpha has caused catastrophic harm to the local ecosystem by reproducing and outcompeting native mussel species as well as harm to pipes leading into water sources by binding to surfaces and reproducing to the point that the mussels clog pipes. In addition, recreation areas must be closed due to the sharp shells making areas unusable. In the past, research has focused on individual molluscicides and their eradication of zebra mussels, as well as their effect on native flora and fauna. My research will contrast …

Bias In Police Shootings: Is It Just An Opinion?, Phuong Ho

Symposium of Student Scholars

The claims of racism have drawn public attention toward police brutality and its impact on minorities. Is this just an opinion or is there any statistical evidence? Recent studies from The Atlantic have investigated the average age and ethnicity of victims from police killings in 2015-2016. As an Asian-American, I am motivated to examine the issue of police killings among races and other demographics to find any bias that is present. Using the dataset of 2,204 victims of police killings (2015-2016) collected by The Guardian, I will examine the following variables for bias: age, cause of death, armed/unarmed, race/ethnicity, and …

Do Environmental Toxins Predict Violent Crimes?, Tyler Stahl

Symposium of Student Scholars

Do chemical pollutants that persistent in the environment and bioaccumulate in the body affect human health and behavior? Could these Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) chemicals play a role in the cause of violent crimes due to deterioration of mental and cognitive functions? In the past, Mercury, a PBT chemical, has been shown in salmon to be associated with aggression. Could similar aggression occur in humans exposed to mercury through a toxic spill? Two sources of data are utilized in this analysis. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Annual Toxic Release Inventory publishes data on toxic releases into the environment and …

Soil Bacteria: Metabolic Diversity In A Wildlife Management Area, Nicholas Green

Symposium of Student Scholars

This research is part of a larger study linking the soil microbiome and processes to the aboveground plant community.

Soil samples were collected from six plots under closed canopy in the Sheffield Wildlife management area in the Piedmont ecoregion of Georgia in Paulding County. Two of the plots were located in the longleaf pine savanna where restoration of longleaf pine has been in place since 2010. Samples were collected in sterile plastic tubes at the center of each plot and 10 meters above and below the center. For each sample, soil pH and the concentration of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), …

Community Level Physiological Profiling Of The Longleaf Pine Savannah Microbiome, Gavin Treadaway

Symposium of Student Scholars

Soil microorganisms secrete chemicals into their surroundings, which the root system will uptake and in return release root exudates, which usually consist of low-molecular-weight organic compounds. These root exudates behave as signaling molecules and substrates for microorganisms to recruit beneficial soil bacteria to the plant root system, which will provide the plants with immunity to foliar diseases and pathogen infection. Studies have shown that bacteria on the root surface can protect aerial sections of the plant by promoting induced systemic resistance, a mechanism of increasing physical or chemical barriers of the plant.

The longleaf pine is an endangered species of …

Posterior Propriety Of An Objective Prior For Generalized Hierarchical Normal Linear Models, Cong Lin, Dongchu Sun, Chengyuan Song

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Bayesian Hierarchical models has been widely used in modern statistical application. To deal with the data having complex structures, we propose a generalized hierarchical normal linear (GHNL) model which accommodates arbitrarily many levels, usual design matrices and ‘vanilla’ covariance matrices. Objective hyperpriors can be employed for the GHNL model to express ignorance or match frequentist properties, yet the common objective Bayesian approaches are infeasible or fraught with danger in hierarchical modelling. To tackle this issue, [Berger, J., Sun, D., & Song, C. (2020b). An objective prior for hyperparameters in normal hierarchical models. Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 178, 104606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmva.2020.104606] …

Novel Statistical Modeling Methods For Traffic Video Analysis, Hang Shi

Dissertations

Video analysis is an active and rapidly expanding research area in computer vision and artificial intelligence due to its broad applications in modern society. Many methods have been proposed to analyze the videos, but many challenging factors remain untackled. In this dissertation, four statistical modeling methods are proposed to address some challenging traffic video analysis problems under adverse illumination and weather conditions.

First, a new foreground detection method is presented to detect the foreground objects in videos. A novel Global Foreground Modeling (GFM) method, which estimates a global probability density function for the foreground and applies the Bayes decision rule …

Bayesian Sensitivity-Specificity And Roc Analysis For Finding Key Drivers, Stan Lipovetsky, Michael W. Conklin

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Finding key drivers in regression modeling via Bayesian Sensitivity-Specificity and Receiver Operating Characteristic is suggested, and clearly interpretable results are obtained. Numerical comparisons with other techniques show that this methodology can be useful in practical statistical modeling and analysis helping to researchers and managers in making meaningful decisions.

Accelerating The Provision Of Safe Water Supply In Urban And Rural Areas Of Indonesia, Sumengen Sutomo, Salord Sagala, Bebi Sutomo, Sri Winarti, Gelant Sanjaya

Kesmas

Over the past 100 years, the provision of a safe water supply to drink in Indonesia has been slowly progressed with low coverage. The majority of the population does not have access to safe water. Morbidity and mortality of water-related diseases, including diarrhea, are very high. The provision of safe water is not a technological issue but good water management that comprises content, institutional, and communication layer. This paper provided information for strategic and operational decisions to accelerate the provision of safe water services in urban and rural areas. Benchmarking good water management with the characteristics of the water supply …

Association Between Self-Reported Fatigue And Sarcopenia Measures Among Elderly In Selangor, Malaysia, Maria Justine, Aliff Latir, Nadhirah Noor, Angelbeth Joanny, Izzaty Iskandar, Maisarah Sakinah Amirul Faizi, Dzulhelmi Edinan

Kesmas

The association between fatigue and sarcopenia is not well understood, therefore, this study aimed to compare the sarcopenia measures among elderly with mild and severe fatigue and to determine whether fatigue severity is associated with sarcopenia measures. This was a cross-sectional study conducted on201 elderly (age = 68.45±6.30 years). The elderly was classified into either mild or severe fatigue based on the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), meanwhile, sarcopenia measures include SARC-F score, muscle mass (ASM/height2), calf circumference (CC), upper (handgrip) and lower limb muscle strength, as well as physical performance (gait speed). Data were analyzed using independent t-tests and logistic …

Supplementary Files For "Creating A Universal Depth-To-Load Conversion Technique For The Conterminous United States Using Random Forests", Jesse Wheeler, Brennan Bean, Marc Maguire

Browse all Datasets

As part of an ongoing effort to update the ground snow load maps in the United States, this paper presents an investigation into snow densities for the purpose of predicting ground snow loads for structural engineering design with ASCE 7. Despite their importance, direct measurements of snow load are sparse when compared to measurements of snow depth. As a result, it is often necessary to estimate snow load using snow depth and other readily accessible climate variables. Existing depth-to-load conversion methods, each of varying complexity, are well suited for snow load estimation for a particular region or station network, but …

A Randomized Controlled Trial To Determine Whether Beta-Hydroxy-Beta-Methylbutyrate And/Or Eicosapentaenoic Acid Improves Diaphragm And Quadriceps Strength In Critically Ill Mechanically Ventilated Patients, Gerald S. Supinski, Paul F. Netzel, Philip M. Westgate, Elizabeth A. Schroder, Lin Wang, Leigh Ann Callahan

Internal Medicine Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Intensive care unit acquired weakness is a serious problem, contributing to respiratory failure and reductions in ambulation. Currently, there is no pharmacological therapy for this condition. Studies indicate, however, that both beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) increase muscle function in patients with cancer and in older adults. The purpose of this study was to determine whether HMB and/or EPA administration would increase diaphragm and quadriceps strength in mechanically ventilated patients.

METHODS: Studies were performed on 83 mechanically ventilated patients who were recruited from the Medical Intensive Care Units at the University of Kentucky. Diaphragm strength was assessed as …

Sounding The Alarm: Down-Ballot Setback For The Democrats In 2020, Yaakov Huba

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

The 2020 general election turned out more American voters than any other election, its monumental stakes commanding the attention of the world. While the focus in the race’s aftermath has primarily been the top of the ticket, the rebuke of President Trump’s time in office, the equally important down-ballot races have been largely passed over. Many major political analysts like the Cook Political Report predicted that Democrats would expand their House majority by 5-10 seats. Yet, the Democratic Party ended up losing 10 seats1. During the certification of election results, I collected data on incumbents in the US House of …

Applications Of Bayesian Inference For Modelling Dynamic Instability In Neuronal Dendrite Morphogenesis, Daniel Fridman

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

Neurons are complex biological systems which develop intricate morphologies and whose dendrites are essential in receiving and integrating input signals from neighboring neurons. While much research has been done on the role of dendrites in neuronal development, a further understanding of dendrite dynamics can provide insight into neural development and the cellular basis of neurological diseases such as schizophrenia, Down’s syndrome, and autism. The Jonathon Howard lab hypothesizes that microtubules are a primary driving force in dendrite dynamics. Since it is known that microtubules display dynamic instability, rapidly transitioning between growth, paused, and shrinking states, the Howard lab proposes a …

Spatial Analysis Of Landscape Characteristics, Anthropogenic Factors, And Seasonality Effects On Water Quality In Portland, Oregon, Katherine Gelsey, Daniel Ramirez

REU Final Reports

Urban areas often struggle with deteriorated water quality as a result of complex interactions between landscape factors such as land cover, use, and management as well as climatic variables such as weather, precipitation, and atmospheric conditions. Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) has been introduced as a strategy to reintroduce pre-development hydrological conditions in cities, but questions remain as to how GSI interacts with other landscape factors to affect water quality. We conducted a statistical analysis of six relevant water quality indicators in 131 water quality stations in four watersheds around Portland, Oregon using data from 2015 to 2021. Indiscriminate of station …

Modeling Covid-19 Spread In Small Colleges, Riti Bahl, Nicole Eikmeier, Alexandra Fraser, Matthew Junge, Felicia Keesing, Kukai Nakahata, Lily Reeves

Publications and Research

We develop an agent-based model on a network meant to capture features unique to COVID-19 spread through a small residential college. We find that a safe reopening requires strong policy from administrators combined with cautious behavior from students. Strong policy includes weekly screening tests with quick turnaround and halving the campus population. Cautious behavior from students means wearing facemasks, socializing less, and showing up for COVID-19 testing. We also find that comprehensive testing and facemasks are the most effective single interventions, building closures can lead to infection spikes in other areas depending on student behavior, and faster return of test …

Performance Of The Beta-Binomial Model For Clustered Binary Responses: Comparison With Generalized Estimating Equations, Seongah Im

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

This study examined performance of the beta-binomial model in comparison with GEE using clustered binary responses resulting in non-normal outcomes. Monte Carlo simulations were performed under varying intracluster correlations and sample sizes. The results showed that the beta-binomial model performed better for small sample, while GEE performed well under large sample.

Utilizing Patient-Derived Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Tumor Organoids To Predict Carboplatin Resistance, Justin W. Gorski, Zhuwei Zhang, J. Robert Mccorkle, Jodi M. Dejohn, Chi Wang, Rachel W. Miller, Holly H. Gallion, Charles S. Dietrich Iii, Frederick R. Ueland, Jill M. Kolesar

Obstetrics and Gynecology Faculty Publications

The development of patient-derived tumor organoids (TOs) from an epithelial ovarian cancer tumor obtained at the time of primary or interval debulking surgery has the potential to play an important role in precision medicine. Here, we utilized TOs to test front-line chemotherapy sensitivity and to investigate genomic drivers of carboplatin resistance. We developed six high-grade, serous epithelial ovarian cancer tumor organoid lines from tissue obtained during debulking surgery (two neoadjuvant-carboplatin-exposed and four chemo-naïve). Each organoid line was screened for sensitivity to carboplatin at four different doses (100, 10, 1, and 0.1 µM). Cell viability curves and resultant EC₅₀ values …

Chagas Disease In Hiv-Infected Patients: It’S Time To Consider The Diagnosis, Melissa Nolan Ph.D., Mph, Natasha S. Hochberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effect Of An Antenatal Lifestyle Intervention On Dietary Inflammatory Index And Its Associations With Maternal And Fetal Outcomes: A Secondary Analysis Of The Pears Trial, Sarah Louise Killen, Catherine M. Phillips, Anna Delahunt, Cara A. Yelverton, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James Hébert Scd, Maria A. Kennelly, Martina Cronin, John Mehegan, Fionnuala M. Mcauliffe

Faculty Publications

We investigated the effect of an antenatal lifestyle intervention of a low-glycaemic index (GI) diet and physical activity on energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index (E-DIITM) and explored its relationship with maternal and child health in women with overweight and obesity. This was a secondary analysis of 434 mother−child pairs from the Pregnancy Exercise and Nutrition Study (PEARS) trial in Dublin, Ireland. E-DII^TM scores were calculated for early (10–16 weeks) and late (28 weeks) pregnancy. Outcomes included lipids, inflammation markers, insulin resistance, mode of delivery, infant size, pre-eclampsia, and gestational diabetes. T-tests were used to assess changes in E-DII^TM. …

Market Making In A Limit Order Book: Classical Optimal Control And Reinforcement Learning Approaches, Chuyi Yu

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Since the last decade, algorithmic trading has become one of the most significant developments in electronic security markets. Several types of problems and practices have been studied such as optimal execution, market making, statistical arbitrage, latency arbitrage, and so on. Among these, high-frequency market making plays a crucial role since it provides large liquidity to the market, which makes trading and investing cheaper for other market participants, and also creates sizable profits for high-frequency market makers (HFM) from the large quantity of round-trip executions involved in such practices. In this thesis, we discuss two approaches to solve the high-frequency market …

Urinary Bile Acid Indices As Prognostic Biomarkers For The Complications Of Liver Diseases, Wenkuan Li

Theses & Dissertations

Hepatobilary diseases cause the accumulation of toxic bile acids (BA) in the liver, blood, and other tissues, which may lead to an unfavorable prognosis. In this study, we compared the urinary BA profile in 257 patients with hepatobilary diseases during a 7-year follow-up period. We investigated the use of the urinary BA profile to develop logistic regression models to predict the prognosis of hepatobiliary diseases in terms of developing disease-related complications, especially for ascites. The urinary BA profile was characterized by calculating BA indices, which quantify the composition, metabolism, hydrophilicity, and toxicity of the BA profile. All patients had high …

From Mathematics To Medicine: A Practical Primer On Topological Data Analysis (Tda) And The Development Of Related Analytic Tools For The Functional Discovery Of Latent Structure In Fmri Data, Andrew Salch, Adam Regalski, Hassan Abdallah, Raviteja Suryadevara, Michael J. Catanzaro, Vaibhav A. Diwadkar

Mathematics Faculty Research Publications

fMRI is the preeminent method for collecting signals from the human brain in vivo, for using these signals in the service of functional discovery, and relating these discoveries to anatomical structure. Numerous computational and mathematical techniques have been deployed to extract information from the fMRI signal. Yet, the application of Topological Data Analyses (TDA) remain limited to certain sub-areas such as connectomics (that is, with summarized versions of fMRI data). While connectomics is a natural and important area of application of TDA, applications of TDA in the service of extracting structure from the (non-summarized) fMRI data itself are heretofore nonexistent. …

Empirical Fitting Of Periodically Repeating Environmental Data, Pavel Bělík, Andrew Hotchkiss, Brandon Perez, John Zobitz

Spora: A Journal of Biomathematics

We extend and generalize an approach to conduct fitting models of periodically repeating data. Our method first detrends the data from a baseline function and then fits the data to a periodic (trigonometric, polynomial, or piecewise linear) function. The polynomial and piecewise linear functions are developed from assumptions of continuity and differentiability across each time period. We apply this approach to different datasets in the environmental sciences in addition to a synthetic dataset. Overall the polynomial and piecewise linear approaches developed here performed as good (or better) compared to the trigonometric approach when evaluated using statistical measures (R^{2 …}

Modeling Reproduction Influencers Of An Endangered Oak, Camila Cortez

DePaul Discoveries

The endemic oak, Quercus brandegeei has been labeled as endangered by the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species due to its limited genetic diversity and lack of regeneration. The oak (Quercus) species is a keystone species in many parts of the world and has been facing various challenges to their survival (Westwood 2017) making efforts to support and protect endemic oaks all the more ecologically and socially imperative. There are challenges to identifying threats as there are many unknown characteristics of Q. brandegeei’s biology that are essential to carrying out conservation efforts. To develop a greater understanding of …

Effect Sizes And Intra-Cluster Correlation Coefficients Measured From The Green Dot High School Study For Guiding Sample Size Calculations When Designing Future Violence Prevention Cluster Randomized Trials In School Settings, Md. Tofial Azam, Heather M. Bush, Ann L. Coker, Philip M. Westgate

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

Purpose: Cluster randomized controlled trials (cRCTs) are popular in school-based research designs where schools are randomized to different trial arms. To help guide future study planning, we provide information on anticipated effect sizes and intra-cluster correlation coefficients (ICCs), as well as school sizes, for dating violence (DV) and interpersonal violence outcomes based on data from a cRCT which evaluated the bystander-based violence intervention ‘Green Dot’.

Methods: We utilized data from 25 schools from the Green Dot High School study. Effect size and ICC values corresponding to dating and interpersonal violence outcomes are obtained from linear mixed effect models. We …

Sparse Domination Of The Martingale Transform, Michael Scott Kutzler

Mathematics & Statistics ETDs

Linear operators are of huge importance in modern harmonic analysis. Many operators can be dominated by finitely many sparse operators. The main result in this thesis is showing a toy operator, namely the Martingale Transform is dominated by a single sparse operator. Sparse operators are based on a sparse family which is simply a subset of a dyadic grid. We also show the A2 conjecture for the Martingale Transform which follows from the sparse domination of the Martingale Transform and the A2 conjecture for sparse operators.

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An Introduction To Calling Bullshit: Learning To Think Outside The Black Box, Jevin D. West, Carl T. Bergstrom

Numeracy

Bergstrom, Carl T. and Jevin D. West. 2020. Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. (New York: Random House) 336 pp. ISBN 978-0525509202.

While statistical methods receive greater attention, the art of critically evaluating information in everyday life more commonly depends on thinking outside the black box of the algorithm. In this piece we introduce readers to our book and associated online teaching materials—for readers who want to more capably call “bullshit” or to teach their students to do the same.