Digital Commons Network^™

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, …

A Multi-Objective Optimization Model To Minimize The Gap In Accessibility To Multi-Use Paths While Maximizing The Economic Efficiency Of Active Transportation Investments For Fresno, California, Chih-Hao Wang

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research examines the accessibility to multi-use paths in a variety of neighborhoods in Fresno, California. This study aims to develop a multi-objective optimization modeling framework to be used by decision makers in transportation and policy to maximize the total accessibility to multi-use paths across the city while minimizing the gap between low- and high- accessibility neighborhoods by an optimal allocation of active transportation. Researchers calculate accessibility to multi-use paths by measuring the total length of multi-use paths (walkway and bikeway) a resident could reach from their own Census block group with a 30-minute cycling ride. The study employs a …

Development Of Reduced Chemical Kinetic Models For The Numerical Simulation Of Combustion And Emissions Behavior Of Representative Conventional And Bio-Derived Fuels, Mazen A. Eldeeb

Mineta Transportation Institute

The study addresses two of the main challenges facing combustion modeling for transportation fuels: simultaneous simulation of non-related combustion problems and reducing the computational cost of the modeling process itself. To address the first challenge, researchers determine a characteristic flame time from thermal diffusivity and laminar burning velocity. Researchers examine parametric dependence of flame time and ignition delay time on pressure, temperature and equivalence ratio for methane, based on validated chemical kinetic mechanisms. The study reveals flame time and ignition delay time show similar temperature dependence, flame time has stronger dependence on equivalence ratio and weaker dependence on pressure than …

Colloquium: Bell's Theorem And Locally Mediated Reformulations Of Quantum Mechanics, K. B. Wharton, N. Argaman

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Bell's theorem rules out many potential reformulations of quantum mechanics, but within a generalized framework it does not exclude all locally mediated models. Such models describe the correlations between entangled particles as mediated by intermediate parameters that track the particle worldlines and respect Lorentz covariance. These locally mediated models require the relaxation of an arrow-of-time assumption that is typically taken for granted. Specifically, some of the mediating parameters in these models must functionally depend on measurement settings in their future, i.e., on input parameters associated with later times. This option, often called retrocausal, has been repeatedly pointed out in 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 …

Performance Evaluation Of Cetacean Species Distribution Models Developed Using Generalized Additive Models And Boosted Regression Trees, Elizabeth A. Becker, James V. Carretta, Karin A. Forney, Jay Barlow, Stephanie Brodie, Ryan Hoopes, Michael G. Jacox, Sara M. Maxwell, Jessica V. Redfern, Nicholas B. Sisson, Heather Welch, Elliott L. Hazen

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Species distribution models (SDMs) are important management tools for highly mobile marine species because they provide spatially and temporally explicit information on animal distribution. Two prevalent modeling frameworks used to develop SDMs for marine species are generalized additive models (GAMs) and boosted regression trees (BRTs), but comparative studies have rarely been conducted; most rely on presence-only data; and few have explored how features such as species distribution characteristics affect model performance. Since the majority of marine species BRTs have been used to predict habitat suitability, we first compared BRTs to GAMs that used presence/absence as the response variable. We then …

Assessing Advantages And Drawbacks Of Rapidly Generated Ultra-Large 3d Breast Cancer Spheroids: Studies With Chemotherapeutics And Nanoparticles, Austin R. Holub, Anderson Huo, Kavil Patel, Vishal Thakore, Pranav Chhibber, Folarin Erogbogbo

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Traditionally, two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cell culture models have been used to study in vitro conditions for their ease of use, simplicity and low cost. However, recently, three-dimensional (3D) cell culture models have been heavily investigated as they provide better physiological relevance for studying various disease behaviors, cellular activity and pharmaceutical interactions. Typically, small-sized tumor spheroid models (100–500 µm) are used to study various biological and physicochemical activities. Larger, millimetric spheroid models are becoming more desirable for simulating native tumor microenvironments (TMEs). Here, we assess the use of ultra-large spheroid models (~2000 µm) generated from scaffolds made from a nozzle-free, ultra-high …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Automated Motion Tracking And Data Extraction For Red Blood Cell Biomechanics, Arun Kumar, Brendan R. Schmidt, Zyrina Alura C. Sanchez, Feyza Yazar, Ronald W. Davis, Anand K. Ramasubramanian, Amit K. Saha

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Red blood cell biomechanics can provide us with a deeper understanding of macroscopic physiology and have the potential of being used for diagnostic purposes. In diseases like sickle cell anemia and malaria, reduced red blood cell deformability can be used as a biomarker, leading to further assays and diagnoses. A microfluidic system is useful for studying these biomechanical properties. We can observe detailed red blood cell mechanical behavior as they flow through microcapillaries using high-speed imaging and microscopy. Microfluidic devices are advantageous over traditional methods because they can serve as high-throughput tests. However, to rapidly analyze thousands of cells, there …

Good Prospects: High-Resolution Telemetry Data Suggests Novel Brood Site Selection Behaviour In Waterfowl, Michael L. Casazza, Fiona Mcduie, Austen A. Lorenz, David Keiter, Julie Yee, Cory T. Overton, Sarah H. Peterson, Cliff L. Feldheim, Joshua T. Ackerman

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Breeding success should increase with prior knowledge of the surrounding environment, which is dependent upon an animal's ability to evaluate habitat. Prospecting for nesting locations and migratory stopover sites are well-established behaviours among bird species. We assessed whether three species of California dabbling ducks – mallards, Anas platyrhynchos, gadwall, Mareca strepera, and cinnamon teal, Spatula cyanoptera – in Suisun Marsh, California, U.S.A., a brackish marsh, prospect for suitable wetlands in the week prior to brooding. K-means cluster analyses grouped 29 mallard and gadwall hens into three groups. One group (N = 13) demonstrated evidence of brood site prospecting, with the …

Effective Communication Message Strategy For Enhancing Traffic Safety In Fresno County: The Role Of Time Horizon, Regulatory Focus, And Perceived Personal Control, Samer Sarofim

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research empirically investigated the differential effect of message framing on message recipients’ attitudes and intended behaviors related to pedestrian, cyclist, and motorist traffic safety practices. The framework empirically investigated time horizon (expansive vs. limited) and regulatory focus (prevention vs. promotion) message framing.

The time horizon in the message can make someone either think of the future (expansive) or the present (limited). For example, an expansive time horizon message communicates that life is long and directs the focus on the future. On the contrary, a limited time horizon message communicates that life is short and directs the focus on the …

Assessing Complete Street Strategies Using Microscopic Traffic Simulation Models, Bernice Liu, Alireza Shams, Jonathan Howard, Serena Alexander, Alex Hughes, Anurag Pande

Mineta Transportation Institute

Authors of this research developed a traffic simulation model for the downtown San Jose network and evaluated five different street redesign and travel demand combinations. This model aids understanding of network-wide effects of changes in street design for local and regional agencies who are interested in implementing complete streets and/or one-way to two-way conversion. The base network may be altered to model and evaluate other complete streets (e.g., road diet) and tactical urbanism (e.g., farmer’s market on city streets on certain days of the week) scenarios. The 3-dimensional animated videos for each scenario are also created to be used for …

The Fresno State Transportation Challenge, Christian Wandeler, Steven Hart

Mineta Transportation Institute

The goal of the “Fresno State Transportation Challenge” was outreach to schools and community engagement, to provide K-8 students opportunities to learn about transportation and transportation-related careers, and to practice 21st century skills by solving a transportation-related issue in their community. Through the pedagogical frameworks of action civics and eduScrum (a method to facilitate self-managed teamwork with a visual board), teachers and students worked on solving issues in their community. They learned design thinking to identify issues and develop solutions while using eduScrum to manage their work. University students from transportation engineering visited the schools regularly to support the K-8 …

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 …

A Scientometrics Analysis Of World Vertigo Research Output With The Reference Of Web Of Science In 2001-2017, Vishakha 21654, R Sarangapani

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study examines world publications on Vertigo research during 2001-2017, Scientometrics techniques are engaged to analyze the publications to identify the trend in publication. The total 7459 articles were taken up for study from Web of Science, a bibliographical and citation database offered by Clarivate Analytics which provides access to quality content. The articles pertaining to the area of vertigo and similar studies i.e. dizziness, Meniere’s disease, BBPV and related problems also includes. The result showed that the highest records 685 were published in 2015 and lowest 231 of records were published in 2002. Among all the listed sources ‘Article’ …

Authorship Patterns In Eosinophilia Research Literature: A Scientometric Analysis, Chithiraivel S, Jeyshankar R, Sivasekaran K

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present study the examined the authorship patterns in the field of eosinophilia literature based on the publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection during the period from 1998 to 2017. Totally 70337 researchers have contributed 12118 publications produced over 1,797 journals in the subject of eosinophilia. Findings of the analysis revealed that the author’s productivity examines the trend in understanding the research process in any discipline of science; maximum records of 1625 publications produce by four authors. It is found that the degree of collaboration is an increasing and decreasing trend. This study includes an overview of …

Research Trends On Coronavirus (Covid-19) : A Bibliometric Analysis Between 2010– March 2020, Mahendra Kumar Sahu Dr, Chetan Gk Dr, Siba Prasad Panda Dr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Coronavirus is a respiratory syndrome, a virus causing stern pneumonia in humans. The results of the Pandemic virus is high mortality, respiratory infections including the common cold, high fever etc. The main objective of the study is to explore the publications trends of CoronavCirus research by using R-Studio. Scopus database has been used to extract the bibliographic metadata of the publication between 2010 and April 2020. A total of 10515 documents were published across the globe on Coronavirus (Covid-19) during the assessment period under consideration. The result of the current study suggests that the earlier outbreak of Coronavirus were understudied. …

Research Publication Trends In Indian Lis Journals: A Scientometric Study, Shahaji Shankar Waghmode, Ravindra Anilrao Lathkar, Jagdish N. Kulkarni

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present paper explores the Scientometric analysis of the three reputed and highly circulated Indian Library and Information Science (LIS) journals during last five years i.e. from 2015 to 2019.Total 673 articles published in scope period are analysed by applying various parameters like year-wise distribution of articles, authorship pattern and degree of collaboration, relative growth rate and doubling time, Productivity trends with Lotka’s Law and other parameters of Bibliographic Analysis. The study revealed that the Degree of Collaboration was quite high i.e. 463 (0.69) in terms of collaborators contribution. The study revealed that value of the relative growth rates (RGR) …

Electronic Resources Sharing In Academic Libraries In Ghana: A Comparative Study Of Ghana Technology University College And Presbyterian University College Libraries, Jennifer Kyerewaa Antwi Ms, Ebenezer Ankrah Dr, Akwasi Duffour Frimpong Mr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The purpose of the study was to examine electronic resource sharing among academic libraries focusing on Ghana Technology University College and Presbyterian University College Libraries. Qualitative research was used for the study. A semi-structured interview was used to collect data based on the objectives identified. Twelve (12) participants were interviewed. The findings showed that the majority of the participants indicated inadequate budgetary allocation, the influx of technology and information overload in sharing e-resources influenced both libraries studied, the majority of the participants mentioned inadequate ICT facilities as a challenge in both libraries. Other challenges were on cost in the …

Service Quality Assessment In Agricultural And Medical University Libraries Of Haryana And Punjab States Of India By Applying Libqual+ Model, Bhanu Partap

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The aim of the present study is to assess the quality of services being provided by the agricultural and medical university libraries of Haryana and Punjab states of India by using three dimensions of LibQUAL+ tool, i.e., ‘Affect of Service’, ‘Information Control’, and ‘Library as Place’. Based on the feedback from the different categories of users’, it has been tried to assess the perceptions and expectations of users towards the quality of library services. Total 800 well structured LibQUAL+ questionnaires were distributed among the respondents of four universities under study but 601 were returned, which forms the response rate …

User's Assessment On The Library Service Quality In Tagore Library, University Of Lucknow, Lucknow: A Study, Nazia Salauddin Naz

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract: The performance of service has often been felt in the interpretation of the scholar but is an intrinsic quality of the service itself. In the scholar's work, a qualitative analysis using the LibQUAL+TM method used it with the 285 questionnaires being analyzed, the 28 questions split into four segments. The quality service of the Tagore Library was investigated and is elucidated with a conclusion. Service Enhancement recommendations have also been highlighted.

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 …

Visualisation Of Asthma Research Output In India During 2010-2019, Mallikarjun B, Mallikarjun Kappi

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Research in the field of Asthma has become very essential, thus the purpose of the study was to map and analyse the trends by using scientometric tools to the Asthma literature published between 2010 and 2019.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Scientometric method was used to know categories, publications, funding agencies, authors, international collaboration and web of science prolific journals in the field of Asthma. Further we used MS-Excel for the purpose of date analysis, collaboration networks have been generated by using VOSviewer softwarae.

Findings

1,555 Scientific articles published in the field of Asthma between 2010 and 2019. There was exponential growth …

Library Services Through Social Media During Lockdown Due To Covid-19 With Special Reference To University Libraries Of Assam, Shekharjyoti Neog

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Libraries have been under closure due to lockdown enforced as a measure to tackle COVID-19. This study has been conducted with an aim to investigate the status of the University Libraries of Assam in providing library services through Social Media during lockdown. Structured questionnaire were sent to the University Librarians of 4 Universities of Assam ranked amongst top 100 universities of India in the India Rankings, 2019 by NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework). It is found from the results that WhatsApp is the most used social media for delivering library services during lockdown. The study also revealed that ‘Access to …

Changes In Web Content In First 20 Nirf Ranking Institutes During 2010-19: An Analysis, Subrata Gangopadhyay

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Web content is an important source for education and research. At present it is a mandatory requirement for higher learning institutes of India to present information on their institutional home page. Due to dynamic nature of web content and increase use of emerging technology, the new ways of presenting information on higher education web sites become complex. In this paper, we try to study the changes in web content during last decade in first 20 NIRF ranking institute. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has been used to get the web site update dates and the content of archived web pages.

Virtual Try-On With Generative Adversarial Networks: A Taxonomical Survey, Andrew Jong, Melody Moh, Teng Sheng Moh

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This chapter elaborates on using generative adversarial networks (GAN) for virtual try-on applications. It presents the first comprehensive survey on this topic. Virtual try-on represents a practical application of GANs and pixel translation, which improves on the techniques of virtual try-on prior to these new discoveries. This survey details the importance of virtual try-on systems and the history of virtual try-on; shows how GANs, pixel translation, and perceptual losses have influenced the field; and summarizes the latest research in creating virtual try-on systems. Additionally, the authors present the future directions of research to improve virtual try-on systems by making them …

Public Libraries In Nigeria And The Development Agenda, Victoria O. Okojie Phd, Rose B. Okiy Phd

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The paper examined the services of public libraries in Nigeria, including the National Library of Nigeria with a view to ascertaining which services aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the African Union Agenda 2063 as well as knowing their level of awareness of the AFLIA Cape Town Declaration, 2015. A lot of training has been carried out for librarians by many international non-governmental organizations. However, the visibility of the development work of public libraries in Nigeria is still low. For instance, while many countries have uploaded stories on IFLA Library Map of the World (LMoW), there is no story …