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Village In The City: Collective Efficacy And Neighborhood Stability On Chicago’S Far Southwest Side, Joy L. Kadowaki Aug 2018

Village In The City: Collective Efficacy And Neighborhood Stability On Chicago’S Far Southwest Side, Joy L. Kadowaki

Open Access Dissertations

The theory of collective efficacy highlights the importance of community members’ shared expectations for social control and their trust and cohesion with one another for predicting neighborhood variation in crime and other social outcomes. Researchers have found that neighborhood collective efficacy is largely stable over time and predicts future variation in crime and other social outcomes, independently of neighborhood social composition. An expansive body of quantitative research has made a very compelling case for the durability of collective efficacy as an important neighborhood process, but a number of questions remain regarding the social mechanisms by which it operates. This dissertation …

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Towards Predictor Adaptive Robust Control And Inference Of Cyber-Physical Systems With Applications To Aerospace Systems, Jayaprakash “Suraj” Nandiganahalli Aug 2018

Towards Predictor Adaptive Robust Control And Inference Of Cyber-Physical Systems With Applications To Aerospace Systems, Jayaprakash “Suraj” Nandiganahalli

Open Access Dissertations

The simultaneous presence of factors such as uncertain plant parameters (e.g., inertia variations, change of damping coefficient), time-varying disturbances (e.g., imprecise mathematical models, uncertain nonlinearities), input delay (e.g., due to transport phenomenon, computation latencies, communication lags), and inaccessibility of the plant states of an nth− order dynamical system present a challenge to the formal control design and to its closed loop stability and performance guarantees. It is well-known that input delays can cause negative phase shifts, limiting the control bandwidth which when coupled with system uncertainties can potentially shift the system into an unstable region of operation. This is especially …

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A Model And Measure Of Parental Vaccine Hesitancy: A Basis For The Development Of Future Health Campaigns, Jessica Hample Aug 2018

A Model And Measure Of Parental Vaccine Hesitancy: A Basis For The Development Of Future Health Campaigns, Jessica Hample

Open Access Dissertations

The “anti-vaccination,” or vaccine hesitancy, phenomenon has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. A significant amount of research has focused on identifying, categorizing, and measuring the beliefs common to vaccine-hesitant individuals. However, prior attempts to identify these beliefs have suffered from potential biases that call into question both the validity and comprehensiveness of our existing understanding of vaccine hesitancy. This dissertation project attempts to improve our understanding of vaccine hesitancy by systematically collecting beliefs held by vaccine-hesitant parents in the USA and using those beliefs to create a measure and model of vaccine hesitancy. Exploratory and confirmatory …

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Incorporating Multicultural Education Into A Church Small Group Bible Study, Shalyse Iseminger Aug 2018

Incorporating Multicultural Education Into A Church Small Group Bible Study, Shalyse Iseminger

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation research was to understand how a group of Evangelical Christians made meaning of their experiences in a small group Bible study that employed a multicultural education curriculum focused on race and ethnicity. In this research, I used a case study as the methodology for data collection. Over the course of twelve weeks, I explored the experiences of the participants through interviews, observations, and document analysis. After analyzing the data through the lenses of Critical Whiteness studies and Critical Race Theory, I found that although participants acknowledged racism and the existence of White privilege and recognized …

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Divide And Recombine For Large And Complex Data: Model Likelihood Functions Using Mcmc And Trmm Big Data Analysis, Qi Liu Aug 2018

Divide And Recombine For Large And Complex Data: Model Likelihood Functions Using Mcmc And Trmm Big Data Analysis, Qi Liu

Open Access Dissertations

Divide & Recombine (D&R) is a powerful and practical statistical framework for the analysis of large and complex data. In D&R, big data are divided into subsets, each analytic method is applied to subsets with no communication among subsets, and the outputs are recombined to form a result of the analytic method for the entire data. This enables deep analysis and practical computational performance. The aim of this thesis is to provide an innovative D&R procedure to model likelihood of the generalized linear model for large data sets using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods and to present an analysis …

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Changes In Audiovisual Word Perception During Mid-Childhood: An Erp Study, Elizabeth Ancel Aug 2018

Changes In Audiovisual Word Perception During Mid-Childhood: An Erp Study, Elizabeth Ancel

Open Access Theses

Throughout school-age years, speech perception is an important skill that often relies on the child’s ability to combine both auditory and visual information from the speaker. In order to better understand the development of multisensory speech perception during mid-childhood, we analyzed audiovisual word perception in three groups of participants: 8-9-year olds, 11-12-year olds, and adults. Participants matched visually-perceived articulatory movements with corresponding auditory words. In “congruent” trials, the auditory word matched the subsequently presented silent visual articulation. In “incongruent” trials, the words presented differed on the initial phoneme. From this task, we evaluated specific neural components —the N400 and the …

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Mr-Compatible Electrophysiology Recording System For Multimodal Imaging, Nishant B. Barbaria Aug 2018

Mr-Compatible Electrophysiology Recording System For Multimodal Imaging, Nishant B. Barbaria

Open Access Theses

Simultaneous acquisition of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrophysiological recordings is an emerging multimodal neuroimaging strategy for studying brain functions. However, the strong magnetic field generated during fMRI greatly degrades the electrophysiological signal quality during simultaneous acquisition. Here, I developed a low powered, miniaturized, system – “ECHO” which delivers a hardware and software solution to overcome the challenges presented by multimodal imaging. The device monitors fluctuations in electromagnetic field during fMRI and synchronizes amplification and sampling of electrophysiological signals to minimize effects of gradient and RF artifacts (electromagnetic artifacts). Furthermore, I introduced a concept of wirelessly transmitting recorded data …

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Effects Of A Mobile Tablet Device And An Augmentative And Alternative Communication (Aac) Application On Individuals With An Acquired Communication Disorder: Influence On Communication Abilities And Quality Of Life, Yamini Balasubramanian Aug 2018

Effects Of A Mobile Tablet Device And An Augmentative And Alternative Communication (Aac) Application On Individuals With An Acquired Communication Disorder: Influence On Communication Abilities And Quality Of Life, Yamini Balasubramanian

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a mobile tablet device and an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) application on the communicative abilities and quality of life of individuals with acquired communication disorders. A preexperimental single subject research design was replicated across one client with progressive dysarthria, and two clients with non-fuent aphasia to investigate effects of specifc communicative abilities (message intelligibility for the client with dysarthria and correct information units for the clients with aphasia) in addition to quality of life. Results suggest that improvements were noted in percent message intelligibility and correct information units …

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Evaluating The Effects Of Education On Student Knowledge, Attitudes, And Behavior Regarding Food Waste, Rebecca Busse Aug 2018

Evaluating The Effects Of Education On Student Knowledge, Attitudes, And Behavior Regarding Food Waste, Rebecca Busse

Open Access Theses

Food waste is a growing global environmental, economic, and social issue. One proposed method for reducing food waste is to increase awareness through education. This study is the first to evaluate the effects of environmentally focused lesson plans on student knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding food waste. The study was conducted with second and fifth grade classrooms in two Indiana elementary schools. Student responses were assessed using pre/post surveys and interviews, and by measuring student plate waste. Teacher interviews were also conducted to determine existing perceptions and uses of food waste education in the classroom, and to assess reactions to …

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Care Givers: Motivating And Enhancing Non-Profit Caregivers’ Experiences, Mingchu Cong Aug 2018

Care Givers: Motivating And Enhancing Non-Profit Caregivers’ Experiences, Mingchu Cong

Open Access Theses

The challenges of the aging world population continue to become more and more serious. Caregivers play a very important role in the caregiving system. There are different types of caregivers: family caregivers, who are typically a patient's family member; and professional caregivers, who are trained and paid to care for their assigned patients. Another group yet are volunteer caregivers, the primary targeted user group of this research. Volunteer caregivers are both dramatically overlooked and making significant contributions to society. People who work as volunteer caregivers are mostly motivated by their kindness. Volunteer caregiving is typically a part-time job provided by …

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Biodynamic Imaging System: A Novel, Noninvasive Method For Assessing Embryo Viability., Natalie Ehmke Aug 2018

Biodynamic Imaging System: A Novel, Noninvasive Method For Assessing Embryo Viability., Natalie Ehmke

Open Access Theses

In vitro embryo production is the foundation of most assisted reproductive technologies, yet efficiency of these technologies is relatively low due to the lack of a reliable method for measuring embryo viability. Current methods to evaluate the viability of in vitro derived embryos are invasive or expensive to perform. In order to create a reliable system to assess the developmental potential of the embryo, a novel optical approach known as BioDynamic Imaging (BDI) has been proposed for application. BDI is able to measure dynamic processes inside an embryo encompassing a broad range of motions that relate directly to functional developmental …

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Parental Restrictive Feeding With Latino Adolescents: Examining The Role Of Adolescent Self-Regulation In Associations With Body Mass Index, Carly Danae Evich Aug 2018

Parental Restrictive Feeding With Latino Adolescents: Examining The Role Of Adolescent Self-Regulation In Associations With Body Mass Index, Carly Danae Evich

Open Access Theses

Latino adolescents in the U.S. are disproportionately affected by obesity compared to adolescents of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Previous studies have suggested that parental restrictive feeding may serve as a modifiable risk factor. However, given that obesity in youth often develops as a function of a child’s susceptibility for weight gain interacting with their environment, the suggested negative effects of parental restrictive feeding may not generalize across all Latino adolescents. One marker of susceptibility for weight gain in youth is poor self-regulation, which can lead to reliance on others to help regulate eating behavior. However, the potential for self-regulation …

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Who Are We Now? Examining Internal Organizational Communication During Crisis, Elizabeth England Aug 2018

Who Are We Now? Examining Internal Organizational Communication During Crisis, Elizabeth England

Open Access Theses

Organizational Communication scholars have thoroughly researched communicative processes and phenomena during times of organizational crisis. However, little research aims to understand the extremely important employee perspective during such hardships. In this study, through in-depth qualitative interviews, I investigated employees’ reports of their roles in renegotiating organizational identity, preferred sensemaking tactics, and dissemination of communication during their company’s private financial crisis. I found employees generally failed to recognize their roles in renegotiating organizational identity, instead viewing organizational identity maintenance as a responsibility of leadership. Employees also reported engaging in a number of sensemaking tactics to understand their crisis situation, such as …

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Activity Markers And Horse Riding In Mongolia: Entheseal Changes Among Bronze And Iron Age Human Skeletal Remains, Matthew R. Fuka Aug 2018

Activity Markers And Horse Riding In Mongolia: Entheseal Changes Among Bronze And Iron Age Human Skeletal Remains, Matthew R. Fuka

Open Access Theses

The emergence of horse riding in Mongolia has recently gained attention in archaeological research (e.g. Houle 2016; Makarewicz et al 2018; Taylor and Tuvshinjargel 2018). Most of this research consists of zooarchaeological studies examining evidence of riding through osteological analyses of horse skeletal remains. This thesis represents an exploratory study on entheseal changes in human skeletal remains from the Bronze and Iron Age of Mongolia (c. 2500 BCE – c. 200 CE) to investigate patterns of repetitive physical activity that may be suggestive of horse riding. Entheseal changes refer to morphological alterations to bone caused by repetitive physical activity that …

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"The Effects Of Oxidative Stress On Exosome Release In Human Skeletal Muscle Satellite Cells", Zachary R. Hettinger Aug 2018

"The Effects Of Oxidative Stress On Exosome Release In Human Skeletal Muscle Satellite Cells", Zachary R. Hettinger

Open Access Theses

In aging, cellular senescence contributes to the impaired capacity of progenitor cells to repair tissue. Decreased regenerative capabilities in skeletal muscle increase with age, where senescence is postulated to contribute to this phenotype. Activation of senescence is accompanied by a secretory network termed the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) that propagates tissue remodeling and senescent signaling. In skeletal muscle, there are currently no reports of secretory activity following activation of senescence. We hypothesized that by isolating satellite cells from human skeletal muscle and activating senescence in vitro, we could measure the secretory activity of skeletal muscle satellite cells (SkMSCs). Specifically, we …

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The Female Threat: Reactions To Increased Representation Of Women In Traditionally Male-Dominated Domains, Laura Hildebrand Aug 2018

The Female Threat: Reactions To Increased Representation Of Women In Traditionally Male-Dominated Domains, Laura Hildebrand

Open Access Theses

A burgeoning literature indicates that people experience threat when presented with information about increasing diversity. Yet, most of this literature has focused on increasing racial diversity. In the present research, we examine how people respond to increased representation of women in traditionally male-dominated domains, including (a) what type of threat is elicited and (b) who is most likely to experience this threat. Men and women participants completed several sexism measures and read that the number of women was increasing (versus a neutral condition) in politics (Study 1) and engineering (Study 2). Then participants completed measures of realistic, group status, prototypicality, …

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Understanding The Collaboration Difficulties Between Ux Designers And Developers In Agile Environments, Yun-Han Huang Aug 2018

Understanding The Collaboration Difficulties Between Ux Designers And Developers In Agile Environments, Yun-Han Huang

Open Access Theses

With the growing number of UX designers in tech companies in the U.S., the collaboration between UX designers and developers in Agile environments has become a new challenge in the industry. This research study aims to understand the collaboration difficulties between UX designers and developers in Agile environments and further provides insights from the results. The research method was semi-structured interview. A total of five professional UX designers and five professional developers in the industry were interviewed about topics surrounding their collaboration difficulties. The results indicated that UX designers integrating in Agile environments and factors related of organizational context are …

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Co-Designing With Refugees: Addressing Challenges To Healthcare Access, Liz Irk Aug 2018

Co-Designing With Refugees: Addressing Challenges To Healthcare Access, Liz Irk

Open Access Theses

This master’s research study aims to contribute to the general body of HCI research focused on resettled refugees. No study in this field has been conducted with resettled refugees from Indianapolis, Indiana. There are many challenges and barriers that resettled refugees face before, during and after resettlement. This qualitative study explores the challenges that refugees in Indianapolis face after resettlement when they seek healthcare resources and services, and how technology and design can be used to help address those challenges by conducting co-design workshops. This research compares the perceptions of service providers with the perceptions of resettled refugees to discover …

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Mitigating Multi-Stage Attacks In Software Defined Network-Based Distributed Systems, Subramaniyam Kannan Aug 2018

Mitigating Multi-Stage Attacks In Software Defined Network-Based Distributed Systems, Subramaniyam Kannan

Open Access Theses

Multi-layer distributed systems, such as those found in enterprise networks, are often the target of multi-stage attacks (MSA). In MSA, an attacker compromises external-facing services and then penetrates progressively into deeper services in a stepping-stone manner, by using elevated privileges at each system component, until finally the attacker gains access to the crown jewel of the system (such as, some protected data). Under such attacks, it is difficult to identify the upstream attacker’s identity from a downstream victim machine because of the mixing of multiple network flows. This thesis presents TOPHAT, a system that solves such attribution problems for multi-stage …

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A Core Calculus For Data Refinement, Paul M. Krogmeier Aug 2018

A Core Calculus For Data Refinement, Paul M. Krogmeier

Open Access Theses

A hallmark of modern programming languages is the strict isolation guarantees they provide to clients and creators of data abstractions, guarantees which are backed by decades-old foundational proofs of representation independence. Recent program synthesis frameworks have exploited these guarantees to ensure that clients are protected from any algorithmic and data structure choices made when producing an implementation from a high-level specification. By their nature, such specifications admit a large number of behaviors, introducing a formal gap between the functional correctness guarantees provided by the synthesis engine and the data abstraction guarantees provided by the programming language. To bridge the gap, …

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Controlled Drainage: Assessment Of Yield Impacts And Education Effectiveness, Amanda Locker Aug 2018

Controlled Drainage: Assessment Of Yield Impacts And Education Effectiveness, Amanda Locker

Open Access Theses

Controlled drainage is the practice of using a water control structure to hold water in agricultural fields during periods when drainage is unnecessary. The use of this practice may increase crop yields compared to subsurface drainage because during the growing season controlled drainage can capture water from precipitation, and raise the water table for crop use. Results from published studies of controlled drainage impacts on crop yields have been mixed, and the effects of field characteristics and annual weather variation on these impacts are not well understood. For widespread adoption of controlled drainage, more information on how controlled drainage impacts …

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Shared Decision Making, Patient Satisfaction And Medication Use Behavior Among Patients With Diabetes, Gediwon Negash Milky Aug 2018

Shared Decision Making, Patient Satisfaction And Medication Use Behavior Among Patients With Diabetes, Gediwon Negash Milky

Open Access Theses

The objectives for this study were to assess association between demographic variables and clinical variables with shared decision making, to assess association between shared decision-making and patient satisfaction with care, and to assess association between shared decision-making and adherence to anti-diabetic medication among patients with diabetes. An observational retrospective cohort study design was employed to achieve the objectives using data from the 2011 to 2014 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). To be included in the sample, MEPS respondents had to have a diagnosis for diabetes, be 18 years old or older, have identified a usual source of care, and made …

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Digital Forensic Acquisition Of Virtual Private Servers Hosted In Cloud Providers That Use Kvm As A Hypervisor, Adolfo A. Montironi Aug 2018

Digital Forensic Acquisition Of Virtual Private Servers Hosted In Cloud Providers That Use Kvm As A Hypervisor, Adolfo A. Montironi

Open Access Theses

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is one of the most popular hypervisors used by cloud providers to offer virtual private servers (VPSs) to their customers. A VPS is just a virtual machine (VM) hired and controlled by a customer but hosted in the cloud provider infrastructure. In spite of the fact that the usage of VPS is popular and will continue to grow in the future, it is rare to fnd technical publications in the digital forensic feld related to the acquisition process of a VPS involved in a crime. For this research, four VMs were created in a KVM virtualization …

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Towards Highly Sensitive Multi-Analyte Micro-Biosensor Arrays For In Vitro Sensing, James K. Nolan Aug 2018

Towards Highly Sensitive Multi-Analyte Micro-Biosensor Arrays For In Vitro Sensing, James K. Nolan

Open Access Theses

Cells and tissues produce many micron-scale extracellular chemical gradients and fluxes due to metabolism and for communication [1, 2]. These gradients and fluxes have an important role in physiology and pathology. Highly sensitive multi-analyte micro-biosensor arrays would be useful tools for simultaneously measuring the gradients and fluxes of many molecules from cells cultures in vitro. To this end, we have investigated (1) a practical means to functionalize MEAs with two or more enzymes, (2) maximizing the effective surface area of Pt-black-modified biosensor, comparing it to other nanomaterials, (3) the nature of electron transfer between glucose oxidase and single-walled carbon nanotubes, …

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Improving Fret Relay Mechanism For Redox Dynamics In Live Cells, Jake Norley Aug 2018

Improving Fret Relay Mechanism For Redox Dynamics In Live Cells, Jake Norley

Open Access Theses

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have an important role with regards to intracellular signaling throughout the body. Levels of ROS fluctuate dynamically with differing sources of ROS as well as antioxidant mechanisms to regulate oxidative stress, cell to cell signaling, and cellular metabolism. In many cases, localized redox dynamics have not been elucidated due to a lack of tools available to study oxidative fluctuations localized to different compartments of ROS generation within cells. Previously, our lab reported the development of a new family of genetically encoded fluorescent protein redox biosensors. They utilize the ratiometric properties of roGFP2 and extend its fluorescence …

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Low-Cost Grain Moisture Meter System Networked To Smartphones, Marisol Pantoja Otero Aug 2018

Low-Cost Grain Moisture Meter System Networked To Smartphones, Marisol Pantoja Otero

Open Access Theses

Accurate moisture content measurement is one of the key quality factors listed in grain trade. It is important in determining whether a crop has been dried properly for safe storage and marketing, and it is used by buyers and sellers of grain to estimate the value of the commodity. Unfortunately, many farmers and grain originators in developing countries cannot afford to buy moisture meters and utilize them to routinely determine whether their crops are dried for safe storage, and thus incur huge losses along the value chain. Additionally, farmers are at a disadvantage in trading to high-ended markets, which have …

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Genetic Analysis Of Carotenoid Content In Expired Plant Variety Protected Maize (Zea Mays L.) Inbreds, Samuel T. Prather Aug 2018

Genetic Analysis Of Carotenoid Content In Expired Plant Variety Protected Maize (Zea Mays L.) Inbreds, Samuel T. Prather

Open Access Theses

Lutein and zeaxanthin are the only carotenoids preferentially accumulated in the macular region of the eye. Studies have associated reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration with accumulation of lutein and zeaxanthin. Both lutein and zeaxanthin carotenoids can not be synthesized de-novo by humans and must be obtained from dietary sources. In adults over the age of 65 within the developed world, age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness. Given the prevalence of age-related macular degeneration in developed regions of the world such as the United States, and the expected increase in the human population over 65 years of …

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Faster Cnn-Based Object Detection With Adaptive Network Selection On Embedded System, Fengjian Pan Aug 2018

Faster Cnn-Based Object Detection With Adaptive Network Selection On Embedded System, Fengjian Pan

Open Access Theses

Due to the dramatic growth of the amount of video data on the Internet, a need arises for processing the data at cameras and reducing network traffic. Cameras may be deployed in many energy-constrained systems, such as drones, mobile phones, surveillance cameras using renewable energy. These systems have limited computational capability for running state-of-the-art computer vision applications using the convolutional neural network (CNN) for object detection. Such methods divide the input images into equal-size cells and predict bounding boxes by regression on each cell. They also provide the trade-off between accuracy and speed by varying the input image sizes. When …

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Disney Minority Heroines: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Race, Gender, And American Politics, Brooklyn Russell Aug 2018

Disney Minority Heroines: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Race, Gender, And American Politics, Brooklyn Russell

Open Access Theses

The Walt Disney Corporation has provided family-centered entertainment, for decades, in the form of animated films, beginning with the adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Since then, and succeeding the death of its patriarch in 1966, the Disney Corporation has upheld the legacy of producing films that continue to captivate children through historical, cultural, and rhetorical approaches. However, as generations have passed, Disney heroines have changed and so has their strategies for accomplishing their goals. For decades, Disney has produced similar plot stories using the same character profiles as well: a girl, more often than not living …

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Exploring The Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities Of Data Science Professionals, Corey S. Seliger Aug 2018

Exploring The Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities Of Data Science Professionals, Corey S. Seliger

Open Access Theses

The feld of data science is growing at break-neck speeds. More industries are looking towards data science professionals to fnd, compile, explore, and model data from numerous areas of interest. Currently, there are over 130,000 data science positions open. Professional training and institutions of higher education are unable to train enough individuals to place into these positions. Initial research in this space has started reviewing some of the data in this space, including determining the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) employers seek in data science candidates and what institutions are providing in the means of preparation in this space. With …

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