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Sjsu Erfa News, Summer 2020, San Jose State University, Emeritus And Retired Faculty Association

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA) Newsletter

Volume 33, Number 4

The Contribution Of Multiple Barriers To Reproduction Between Edaphically Divergent Lineages In The Amazonian Tree Protium Subserratum (Burseraceae), Tracy M. Misiewicz, Tracey S. Simmons, Paul V.A. Fine

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Disentangling the strength and importance of barriers to reproduction that arise between diverging lineages is central to our understanding of species origin and maintenance. To date, the vast majority of studies investigating the importance of different barriers to reproduction in plants have focused on short-lived temperate taxa while studies of reproductive isolation in trees and tropical taxa are rare. Here, we systematically examine multiple barriers to reproduction in an Amazonian tree, Protium subserratum (Burseraceae) with diverging lineages of soil specialist ecotypes. Using observational, molecular, distributional, and experimental data, we aimed to quantify the contributions of individual prezygotic and postzygotic barriers …

Congestion-Clearing Payments To Passengers, Paul Minett, John S. Niles, Richard W. Lee, Brittany Bogue

Mineta Transportation Institute

Peak period motor vehicle traffic volume congests roads all over the world. This project hypothesizes implementing congestion- clearing payments to passengers as a permanent congestion-management solution. Ongoing congestion-free travel would be achieved by removing existing congestion, and absorbing (re)generated demand, at costs that would be expected to increase as the total number of travelers increases over time. The project develops a comprehensive, step-by-step methodology to calculate the benefits and costs of paying for drivers to become passengers at a congestion-clearing level and to maintain this level over time. The method is derived from the literature, analysis by the project team, …

A Multimodal Approach For Monitoring Driving Behavior And Emotions, Arash Tavakoli, Vahid Balali, Arsalan Heydarian

Mineta Transportation Institute

Studies have indicated that emotions can significantly be influenced by environmental factors; these factors can also significantly influence drivers’ emotional state and, accordingly, their driving behavior. Furthermore, as the demand for autonomous vehicles is expected to significantly increase within the next decade, a proper understanding of drivers’/passengers’ emotions, behavior, and preferences will be needed in order to create an acceptable level of trust with humans. This paper proposes a novel semi-automated approach for understanding the effect of environmental factors on drivers’ emotions and behavioral changes through a naturalistic driving study. This setup includes a frontal road and facial camera, a …

Preservation Of Medical Information In Healthcare Facilities In Delta State, Nigeria: A Survey, Isaac E. Anyira

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study surveyed healthcare facilities in Delta State, Nigeria in order to discover the major threats to medical records, to examine the strategies and methods of preserving medical information , and to examine the challenges militating against effective preservation of medical records in Delta State. The concepts of medical records and preservation of records were reviewed in literature. The survey method was used for the study. Medical staff members who are involved in handling health records in selected health facilities in Delta State were the target for this study. The questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The instrument …

Identification Of The New Isotope 244Md, J. L. Pore, J. M. Gates, R. Orford, C. M. Campbell, R. M. Clark, H. L. Crawford, N. E. Esker, P. Fallon, J. A. Gooding, J. T. Kwarsick, A. O. Macchiavelli, C. Morse, D. Rudolph, A. Såmark-Roth, C. Santamaria, R. S. Shah, M. A. Stoyer

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In an experiment performed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 88-inch cyclotron, the isotope Md244 was produced in the Bi209(Ar40,5n) reaction. Decay properties of Md244 were measured at the focal plane of the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator, and the mass number assignment of A=244 was confirmed with the apparatus for the identification of nuclide A. The isotope Md244 is reported to have one, possibly two, α-decaying states with α energies of 8.66(2) and 8.31(2) MeV and half-lives of 0.4-0.1+0.4 and ∼6 s, respectively. Additionally, first evidence of the α decay of Bk236 was observed and is reported.

Determinants Of Quality Performance Of Library Staff Of Academic Libraries, Edward Asante, Patrick Baayel, Kenneth Wilson Adjei Budu

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study investigated the determinants of quality performance of library staff of selected academic libraries in Ghana. The study aimed at establishing the core determinants of quality performance and its sustainability in academic libraries. The study chooses a quantitative approach where the questionnaires were used as instruments to collect data on information on determinants of quality performance of library staff in selected academic libraries in Ghana. Out of 151 questionnaires administered, 146 were obtained representing 96.6%. Smart PLS3 software was used to analyse the quantitative data collected. The convergent, discriminant validity assessment were all acceptable and within the thresholds. The …

Customization Of Koha Online Public Access Catalogue: An Experimental Study, Dr. Anupam Chanda

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Purpose: An online public access catalogue (OPAC) is an online database of all the resources and materials available in a particular library. OPAC could potentially replace the old fashioned card catalogue as a means of helping library users to find the resources which they want. The purpose of the study is to explore various aspects of the customization of Koha OPAC.

Methodology: An experimental research method has been adopted for the study to customize the OPAC. HTML, Java and CSS coding has been used as a command to customize the front view of the OPAC.

Findings: Koha OPAC is distributed …

Towards Institutional Repository Sustainability: Lecturers Awareness, Patronage And Content Submission To The University Of Cape Coast Repository, Ebenezer Martin-Yeboah, Christopher Kwame Filson, Kwame Boohene

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Having been hardest hit by the crisis of inadequate funding for journal subscription, academic institutions, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa have embraced open access institutional repositories as alternative means of scholarly communication. Upon the embrace of this approach to knowledge sharing, the University of Cape Coast’s Institutional Repository, UCCSpace, like most academic repositories, has had to contend with the issues of sustainability in the area of content recruitment. The study thus assesses lecturers’ awareness and perception of institutional repositories in the context of content population and sustainability of IRs. Through the Descriptive Survey Design, the study engages 714 lecturers in a …

Research Productivity In Human Genetics During 2014 – 2018: A Scientometric Approach, Priya Saravanan, Natarajan Radhakrishnan, Abdoulaye Kaba

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

An attempt is made for bringing out the growth of literature on human genetics. Web of Science database has been used to retrieve the data of five years (2014-2018) by searching a keyword “Human Genetics" in the combined topics, abstract and keywords fields. The scientometric tools and techniques such as document type, year wise distributions, language, and country wise distribution are used for measuring the outputs. Findings of the study indicate that more than 1966 (20.51%) research articles were published in the year 2016. English was the dominant language with 9393 (97.9%) followed by German with 71(0.7%). For the contributing …

Assessment Of Research Output On Bamboo In India: A Bibliometric Study, Dr. Ashutosh Agrahari, C. P. Chaudhary, Prof. S. N. Singh, Malabika Acharjee

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study assessed the research output on Bamboo for a period of 29 years (1989-2018). The web of science database has been used to retrieve worldwide publication records on bamboo research. The records were analysed using the descriptive statistics. Based on the retrieved data, various aspect of literature on bamboo research analysed and interpreted. The performance of the most productivity countries, authors, journals, Institution wise, and Growth rate and doubling time have assessed. The articles were classified as Research, review and others and grouped under 22 subjects to identify the subject coverage of bamboo research. The study found a positive …

Citation Analysis Of Doctoral Theses Submitted To The Department Of Library And Information Science, Gauhati University (2011-2017), Banasri Deka, Jitu Das

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present study is done by collecting and analyzing the references from the thirty theses submitted to the Department of Library and Information Science, Gauhati University in between 2011 to 2017. The year-wise distribution of theses is tabulated. From the 30 theses, 3684 citations have been retrieved where journals are found to be the most preferable source material followed by books and conference proceedings. Among the top 40 highly cited journals, 18 journals are from the UK followed by 14 from India. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology is on top rank with 72 citations. The citation half-life of …

Southern California Regional Transit Training Consortium: Skills Gap & Needs Assessment, Tyler Reeb, Benjamin Olson

Mineta Transportation Institute

The transit sector grows and evolves quickly with the needs of growing, busy cities. With this growth comes a need for more transit workers and more training to ensure workers can best serve their diverse communities. This report contains a transit training needs assessment and gap analysis to identify the most pressing challenges of the evolving transit workforce served by the Southern California Regional Transit Training Consortium (SCRTTC). Most importantly, this report documents and determines SCRTTC priorities to ensure the incumbent and future transit workforce is equipped with the professional and technological skills required to address the transformational trends affecting …

What Do Americans Think About Federal Tax Options To Support Transportation? Results From Year Eleven Of A National Survey, Asha W. Agrawal, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report summarizes the results from the eleventh year of a national public opinion survey asking U.S. adults questions related to their views on federal transportation taxes. A nationally-representative sample of 2,515 respondents completed the online survey between February 14 and 28, 2020.

The questions test public opinions about raising the federal gas tax rate, replacing the federal gas tax with a new mileage fee, and imposing a mileage fee just on commercial travel. In addition to asking directly about support for these tax options, the survey collected data on respondents’ views on the quality of their local transportation system, …

Approximation Of Most Penetrating Particle Size For Fibrous Filters Considering Cunningham Slip Correction Factor, Chang Hoon Jung, Young Jun Yoon, Junshik Um, Seoung Soo Lee, Ji Yi Lee, Sen Chiao, Yong Pyo Kim

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In the estimation of the aerosol single fiber efficiency using fibrous filters, there is a size range, where the particles penetrate most effectively through the fibrous collectors, and corresponding minimum single fiber efficiency. For small particles in which the diffusion mechanism is dominant, the Cunningham slip correction factor (Cc) affects the single fiber efficiency and the most penetrating particle size (MPPS). Therefore, for accurate estimation, Cc is essential to be considered. However, many previous studies have neglected this factor because of its complexity and the associated difficulty in deriving the appropriate parameterization particularly for the MPPS. In this study, the …

Developing The Delta: Capturing Cultural Changes In Undergraduate Departments, Courtney Ngai, Mary E. Pilgrim, Daniel L. Reinholz, Joel C. Corbo, Gina M. Quan

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Departments are now recognized as an important locus for sustainable change on university campuses. Making sustainable changes typically requires a shift in culture, but culture is complex and difficult to measure. For this reason, cultural changes are often studied using qualitative methods that provide rich, detailed data. However, this imposes barriers to measuring culture and studying change at scale (i.e., across many departments). To address this issue, we introduce the Departmental Education and Leadership Transformation Assessment (DELTA), a new survey aimed at capturing cultural changes in undergraduate departments. We describe the survey’s development and validation and provide sugges-tions for its …

Empirical Prediction Of Short-Term Annual Global Temperature Variability, Patrick T. Brown, Ken Caldeira

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Global mean surface air temperature (T_global) variability on subdecadal timescales can be of substantial magnitude relative to the long-term global warming signal, and such variability has been associated with considerable environmental and societal impacts. Therefore, probabilistic foreknowledge of short-term T_global evolution may be of value for anticipating and mitigating some course-resolution climate-related risks. Here we present a simple, empirically based methodology that utilizes only global spatial patterns of annual mean surface air temperature anomalies to predict subsequent annual T_global anomalies via partial least squares regression. The method's skill is primarily achieved via information on the state …

Evolutionary And Plastic Changes In A Native Annual Plant After A Historic Drought, Susan C. Lambrecht, Anjum K. Gujral, Lani J. Renshaw, Lars T. Rosengreen

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Severe droughts are forecast to increase with global change. Approaches that enable the study of contemporary evolution, such as resurrection studies, are valuable for providing insights into the responses of populations to global change. In this study, we used a resurrection approach to study the evolution of the California native Leptosiphon bicolor (true babystars, Polemoniaceae) across populations differing in precipitation in response to the state's recent prolonged drought (2011–2017). In the Mediterranean climate region in which L. bicolor grows, this historic drought effectively shortened its growing season. We used seeds collected both before and after this drought from three populations …

A Trend Analysis Of The Doctoral Dissertations In Lis Research In West Bengal, India During 1979-2018, Kaustuv Chakrabarti, Dhiman Mondal, Arabinda Maity Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present analytical study demonstrates the present status and trend of doctoral research in Library and Information science (LIS) discipline in the Universities of West Bengal. For this purpose, the primary data have been collected from the Central Library and LIS Schools of the respective Universities. Total 230 Ph.D. theses have been awarded in LIS discipline from West Bengal for 40 years period from 1979 to 2018. The bibliographical details of the theses have been interpreted using different parameters like university, year, researcher’s gender, supervisor’s gender, supervision pattern, active supervisor, language and subject. A steady development has been observed till …

Current Trends Of Information Seeking Behaviour Of Fishermen Of Indian Coastal Area, Ketan Joshi, Shishirkumar Mandalia

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This present study observes the needs of information and searches for fishermen's behavior. This study was done as pilot study on the fisherman living in the coastal area of Ghogha located in the western part of India. The questionnaire was distributed to 100 fishermen. Out of that 80 set of questionnaires were returned with the required information and taken for analysis. This research was done using a survey methodology with structured set of questionnaire on information seeking behavior and data was collected. The results are accomplished based on questions asked to the fishermen of this area. The main aim of …

Librarians’ Perceptions And Knowledge Of The Use Of Whatsapp For The Enhancement Of Library Services In University Libraries In South- South, Nigeria, Gloria Ogheneghatowho Oyovwe-Tinuoye, Lucky Oji Akpojotor, Patrick Osaze Ijiekhuamhen

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study examined the librarians’ perceptions and knowledge of the use of WhatsApp for the enhancement of service in university libraries in South-South, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design and a questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Total enumeration (purposive sampling) technique was used to gather data from 169 librarians in 6 federal, 4 state and 3 private university libraries in South-South, Nigeria. This sample population size was considered appropriate because from the study the above mentioned institution uses WhatsApp in service delivery. However, only 141 librarians answered and returned the questionnaire at the specified time. …

Predicting Students’ Performance By Learning Analytics, Sandeep Subhash Madnaik

Master's Projects

The field of Learning Analytics (LA) has many applications in today’s technology and online driven education. Learning Analytics is a multidisciplinary topic for learn- ing purposes that uses machine learning, statistic, and visualization techniques [1]. We can harness academic performance data of various components in a course, along with the data background of each student (learner), and other features that might affect his/her academic performance. This collected data then can be fed to a sys- tem with the task to predict the final academic performance of the student, e.g., the final grade. Moreover, it allows students to monitor and self-assess …

Evidence-Based Detection Of Pancreatic Canc, Rajeshwari Deepak Chandratre

Master's Projects

This study is an effort to develop a tool for early detection of pancreatic cancer using evidential reasoning. An evidential reasoning model predicts the likelihood of an individual developing pancreatic cancer by processing the outputs of a Support Vector Classifier, and other input factors such as smoking history, drinking history, sequencing reads, biopsy location, family and personal health history. Certain features of the genomic data along with the mutated gene sequence of pancreatic cancer patients was obtained from the National Cancer Institute (NIH) Genomic Data Commons (GDC). This data was used to train the SVC. A prediction accuracy of ~85% …

Using Machine Learning To Optimize Predictive Models Used For Big Data Analytics In Various Sports Events, Akhil Kumar Gour

Master's Projects

In today’s world, data is growing in huge volume and type day by day. Historical data can hence be leveraged to predict the likelihood of the events which are to occur in the future. This process of using statistical or any other form of data to predict future outcomes is commonly termed as predictive modelling. Predictive modelling is becoming more and more important and is trending because of several reasons. But mainly, it enables businesses or individual users to gain accurate insights and allows to decide suitable actions for a profitable outcome.

Machine learning techniques are generally used in order …

Pattern Analysis And Prediction Of Mild Cognitive Impairment Using The Conn Toolbox, Meenakshi Anbukkarasu

Master's Projects

Alzheimer's is an irreversible neurodegenerative disorder described by dynamic psychological and memory defalcation. It has been accounted for that the pervasiveness of Alzheimer's is to increase by 4 times in a few years, where one in every 75 people will have this disorder. Hence, there is a critical requirement for the analysis of Alzheimer's at its beginning stage to diminish the difficulty of the overall medical complications. The initial state of Alzheimer’s is called Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and hence it is a decent target for premature diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's. This project focuses on coordinating numerous imaging modalities …

Detection Of Mild Cognitive Impairment Using Diffusion Compartment Imaging, Matthew Jones

Master's Projects

The result of applying the Neurite Orientation Density and Dispersion Index (NODDI) algorithm to improve the prediction accuracy for patients diagnosed with MCI is reported. Calculations were carried out using a collection of 68 patients (34 control and 34 with MCI) gathered from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database (ADNI). Patient data includes the use of high-resolution Magnetic Resonance Images as with as Diffusion Tensor Imaging. A Linear Regression accuracy of 83% was observed using the added NODDI summary statistic: Orientation Dispersion Index (ODI). A statistically significant difference in groups was found between control patients and patients with MCI with …

Probabilistic And Machine Learning Enhancement To Conn Toolbox, Gayathri Hanuma Ravali Kuppachi

Master's Projects

Clinical depression is a state of mind where the person suffers from persevering and overpowering sorrow. Existing examinations have exhibited that the course of action of arrangement in the brain of patients with clinical depression has a weird framework topology structure. In the earlier decade, resting-state images of the brain have been under the radar a. Specifically, the topological relationship of the brain aligned with graph hypothesis has discovered a strong connection in patients experiencing clinical depression. However, the systems to break down brain networks still have a couple of issues to be unwound. This paper attempts to give a …

Malware Classification Based On Hidden Markov Model And Word2vec Features, Aparna Sunil Kale

Master's Projects

Malware classification is an important and challenging problem in information security. Modern malware classification techniques rely on machine learning models that can be trained on a wide variety of features, including opcode sequences, API calls, and byte ��-grams, among many others. In this research, we implement hybrid machine learning techniques, where we train hidden Markov models (HMM) and compute Word2Vec encodings based on opcode sequences. The resulting trained HMMs and Word2Vec embedding vectors are then used as features for classification algorithms. Specifically, we consider support vector machine (SVM), ��-nearest neighbor

(��-NN), random forest (RF), and deep neural network (DNN) classifiers. …

Word Embedding Techniques For Malware Classification, Aniket Chandak

Master's Projects

Word embeddings are often used in natural language processing as a means to quantify relationships between words. More generally, these same word embedding techniques can be used to quantify relationships between features. In this paper, we conduct a series of experiments that are designed to determine the effectiveness of word embedding in the context of malware classification. First, we conduct experiments where hidden Markov models (HMM) are directly applied to opcode sequences. These results serve to establish a baseline for comparison with our subsequent word embedding experiments. We then experiment with word embedding vectors derived from HMMs— a technique that …

Ai Quantification Of Language Puzzle To Language Learning Generalization, Harita Shroff

Master's Projects

Online language learning applications provide users multiple ways/games to learn a new language. Some of the ways include rearranging words in the foreign language sentences, filling in the blanks, providing flashcards, and many more. Primarily this research focused on quantifying the effectiveness of these games in learning a new language. Secondarily my goal for this project was to measure the effectiveness of exercises for transfer learning in machine translation. Currently, very little research has been done in this field except for the research conducted by the online platforms to provide assurance to their users [12]. Machine learning has been used …