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Reviving Mozart With Intelligence Duplication, Jacob E. Galajda Jan 2021

Reviving Mozart With Intelligence Duplication, Jacob E. Galajda

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Deep learning has been applied to many problems that are too complex to solve through an algorithm. Most of these problems have not required the specific expertise of a certain individual or group; most applied networks learn information that is shared across humans intuitively. Deep learning has encountered very few problems that would require the expertise of a certain individual or group to solve, and there has yet to be a defined class of networks capable of achieving this. Such networks could duplicate the intelligence of a person relative to a specific task, such as their writing style or music …

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The Role Of Islam In Establishing Women's Rights In The Muslim World, Assad Khan Jan 2021

The Role Of Islam In Establishing Women's Rights In The Muslim World, Assad Khan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This paper examines the literature surrounding women's rights in the Muslim world to determine the factors that have contributed to the oppression of women in the Muslim world and to understand the role that different interpretations of Islam can have on either restricting or improving the status of women in the Muslim world. The practices of Muslim people as a population deviate from what is prescribed by Islam in some cases, contributing to the misconception that the restrictive practices toward women in many Muslim-majority countries are founded in Islamic teachings. Factors such as individual levels of religiosity and adherence to …

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Designing An Expressive Writing Unit For Students With Asd In Mind: The Synthesis Of Social-Emotional Learning And Writing Strategy Instruction, Maya Govea Jan 2021

Designing An Expressive Writing Unit For Students With Asd In Mind: The Synthesis Of Social-Emotional Learning And Writing Strategy Instruction, Maya Govea

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In general education classrooms across the United States, students with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) learn how to write and cultivate their writing skills. Teachers of students with ASD have the unique responsibility of carrying out effective instruction to all students. However, the growing body of research around evidence-based practices and approaches for students with ASD is limited. Two effective practices that have shown positive statistical significance for students with ASD are the self-regulated strategy development model (SRSD) and the social-emotional learning (SEL) framework. General education instruction faces a research-practice gap because of the widespread lack of strategy instruction and lack …

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Examining One Teacher's Practices In Supporting Students With Exceptionalities In An Online Setting, Alyson L. Hepler Jan 2021

Examining One Teacher's Practices In Supporting Students With Exceptionalities In An Online Setting, Alyson L. Hepler

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis explored how students with exceptionalities learned literacy skills in an online learning environment and how the teacher was supported in the online classroom environment through professional development. Analysis of classroom observations and interviews with a teacher resulted in five findings: (1) There was limited professional development for teaching exceptional education students online. (2) Meeting exceptional student educational needs in the online environment was challenging for the teacher. (3) During the teacher's online lessons, there were some elements of literacy present such as comprehension and real-world examples. (4) The teacher missed out on some key components for literacy development …

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The Relationship Between Creative Hobbies And Visual Spatial Ability, Victoria Alexander Jan 2021

The Relationship Between Creative Hobbies And Visual Spatial Ability, Victoria Alexander

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Recent developments in educational practices have identified the teaching of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) areas as important, but this emphasis on STEM fields has sacrificed educational focus on the Arts (Cohen, 2016). This is a significant loss, not only in terms of the loss of humanities education in itself, but through the potential loss of foundational skills through practice in artistic areas. The current paper explores this idea by investigating the correlational relationship between visual spatial abilities and participation in a variety of creative activities. Spatial ability is known to be a cognitive skill that underlies success in …

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The Mobilizer And The Mobilized: An Exploration Of "Latinx", Marisa E. Norzagaray Jan 2021

The Mobilizer And The Mobilized: An Exploration Of "Latinx", Marisa E. Norzagaray

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In this project, I endeavor to bridge the gap between these two by analyzing "Latinx" as a symbol that functions distinctly when employed as a personal or group identity. My argument for this thesis can be broken into two main parts: its significance as an identity, and its tangibility. As a group identity, I argue "Latinx" represents a social movement for liberation, visibility, and minority allyship. While this is not unconnected to its personal meaning, individual embodiment of the term involves the performance and realization of the intersectional. In other words, it gives those with overlapping queer and Latina/o identities …

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Simulating Systematic Errors In Exoplanetary Transits For The James Webb Space Telescope, David C. Wright Iii Jan 2021

Simulating Systematic Errors In Exoplanetary Transits For The James Webb Space Telescope, David C. Wright Iii

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a next-generation space telescope that will be capable of making transformative observations of planetary transits. As its launch date grows ever closer, it becomes imperative that astronomers have access to accurate simulations of JWST observations in order to best plan observations and devise data analysis pipelines. Unfortunately, available simulation tools do not provide the most accurate or realistic simulations, including noise and systematic errors. In this thesis, I present an open-source time-domain simulator of planetary transits that is capable of accurately modeling these effects in observations made by JWST.

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Can Underdog Stories Help Students To Overcome College Barriers? A Study On Gender And Ethnic Differences, Daniela Gonzalez Jan 2021

Can Underdog Stories Help Students To Overcome College Barriers? A Study On Gender And Ethnic Differences, Daniela Gonzalez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Previous organizational research has shown that people who perceived discrimination can bounce back from their negative experiences by constructing underdog stories: narratives in which others do not believe an individual could succeed, but in the end, the person succeeds. However, this concept has not been tested in the educational setting. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine if constructing underdog stories can influence how college students perceive potential barriers in education. Participants were randomly assigned conditions: Underdog and control (neutral stories) condition. We hypothesized that creating underdog stories would reduce perceived barriers in college. We further hypothesized that …

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Examining Everyday Literacies: An Autoethnographic Analysis Of Mundane Textualities, Kyle J. Mauter Jan 2021

Examining Everyday Literacies: An Autoethnographic Analysis Of Mundane Textualities, Kyle J. Mauter

Honors Undergraduate Theses

As a way of extending perspectives of writing and learning, this thesis explores everyday literacy activities and their role in function in shaping people's activities. Taking up an autoethnographic approach to studying the mundane literacies of everyday life, this thesis offers a fine-grained analysis of the processes and practices involved in two specific literate activities I have engaged in over the two years: creating a mixtape for a friend and streaming my participation in online video games. As key findings, the analysis of these everyday literate activities suggests that the interactions between people and social contexts figure prominently in the …

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Recapture: A Virtual Reality Interactive Narrative Experience Concerning Perspectives And Self-Reflection, Indira Avendano Jan 2021

Recapture: A Virtual Reality Interactive Narrative Experience Concerning Perspectives And Self-Reflection, Indira Avendano

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This project presents a virtual reality (VR) Interactive Narrative aiming to leave users reflecting on the perspectives one chooses to view life through. The narrative is driven by interactions designed using the concept of procedural rhetoric, which explores how rules and mechanics in games can persuade people about an idea, and Shin's cognitive model, which presents a dynamic view of immersion in VR. The persuasive nature of procedural rhetoric in combination with immersion techniques such as tangible interfaces and first-person elements of VR can effectively work together to immerse users into a compelling narrative experience with an intended emotional response …

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Predicting Employee Performance: A Meta-Analysis And Systematic Review On Data Mining Methods, Turku Erengin Jan 2021

Predicting Employee Performance: A Meta-Analysis And Systematic Review On Data Mining Methods, Turku Erengin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Data mining methods have been used to study a variety of topics in industrial and organizational psychology, including predicting employee performance. With the increased interest in predictive analytics in human resources, the present study aimed to review and explore the application of two commonly used data mining methods, decision trees (DTs) and artificial neural networks (ANNs), for predicting employee performance in organizational settings. Out of 103 studies reviewed, eight studies were retained and used for the meta-analyses. The number of employee performance classifications meta-analyzed was 2430 in total. The results suggested that both data mining methods showed good performance in …

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Monitoring Of Microscopic Traffic Behavior For Safety Applications Using Temporal Logic, Mariam Wessam Hassan Mohamed Nour Jan 2021

Monitoring Of Microscopic Traffic Behavior For Safety Applications Using Temporal Logic, Mariam Wessam Hassan Mohamed Nour

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Smart cities are revolutionizing the transportation infrastructure by the integration of technology. However, ensuring that various transportation system components are operating as expected and in a safe manner is a great challenge. One of the proposed solutions is traffic monitoring systems which collect and analyze traffic data for the safe operation and management of the overall system. Even though traffic safety analysis has been tied to crash data, surrogate safety measures (SSM) have recently emerged as a replacement. SSM can provide a convenient alternative for understanding the impact of conflicts on overall road safety. Traditionally, conflicts were studied through manual …

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Secure And Trustworthy Hardware And Machine Learning Systems For Internet Of Things, Shayan Taheri Jan 2021

Secure And Trustworthy Hardware And Machine Learning Systems For Internet Of Things, Shayan Taheri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The advancements on the Internet have enabled connecting more devices into this technology every day. This great connectivity has led to the introduction of the internet of things (IoTs) that is a great bed for engagement of all new technologies for computing devices and systems. Nowadays, the IoT devices and systems have applications in many sensitive areas including military systems. These challenges target hardware and software elements of IoT devices and systems. Integration of hardware and software elements leads to hardware systems and software systems in the IoT platforms, respectively. A recent trend for the hardware systems is making them …

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The Impact Of Misspecification Of Within-Person Autocorrelated Covariance Structure On Nonlinear Latent Growth Curve Models: A Monte Carlo Simulation Study, Mingming Zhou Jan 2021

The Impact Of Misspecification Of Within-Person Autocorrelated Covariance Structure On Nonlinear Latent Growth Curve Models: A Monte Carlo Simulation Study, Mingming Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of misspecification (i.e., under-specification, over-specification, and general misspecification) of the within-person level errors in longitudinal data under quadratic, exponential, and logistic latent growth curve models and to make a contribution to the literature in this area. A Monte Carlo simulation in R uncovered a common bias pattern throughout this study. For under-specification of autocorrelated processes and general misspecification of MA as AR, the mean intercept was more likely to be downward- biased, but the linear slope and nonlinear slope for an individual tend to be upward-biased. On average, the variation …

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Conceptual Factors In Black And Hispanic Proficient Students' In English Language Arts (Ela), Christina Aldrich Jan 2021

Conceptual Factors In Black And Hispanic Proficient Students' In English Language Arts (Ela), Christina Aldrich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study investigated the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) English Language Arts (ELA) scores of proficient third-grade students and explored trends in achievement or decline on the FSA in fourth grade. Further, this study explored the relationship of school environment to academic outcomes of Black and Hispanic fourth-grade public school students in terms of FSA ELA scores from third to fourth grade. This study used multiple statistical analyses on pre-existing de-identified data to explore learning gains by race/ethnicity. By focusing on and studying only one school district, this study provides conclusive results connecting learning gains and ethnicity in specific instances, but …

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Analysis Of Sign Language Facial Expressions And Deaf Students' Retention Using Machine Learning And Agent-Based Modeling, Marie Alaghband Jan 2021

Analysis Of Sign Language Facial Expressions And Deaf Students' Retention Using Machine Learning And Agent-Based Modeling, Marie Alaghband

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

There are currently about 466 million people worldwide who have a hearing disability, and that number is expected to increase to 900 million by 2050. About 15% of adult Americans have hearing disabilities and about every three in 1,000 U.S. children are born with hearing loss in one or both ears. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual global cost of $980 billion, including cost of educational support, loss of productivity, and societal costs. These are all evident that people with hearing loss are experiencing several kinds and levels of difficulties. In this dissertation, …

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Periodicity Estimation Using Representations In Nested Periodic Dictionaries With Applications In Neural Engineering, Pouria Saidi Jan 2021

Periodicity Estimation Using Representations In Nested Periodic Dictionaries With Applications In Neural Engineering, Pouria Saidi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In this dissertation, we investigate periodicity estimation with nested periodic dictionaries (NPDs), a newly introduced family of matrices that can capture periodicity in the data. We address two main problems. First, we study the detection of periodic signals using their representations in NPDs. To this end, the detection problem is posed as a composite hypothesis testing problem, where the signals are assumed to admit sparse representations in a Ramanujan Periodicity Transform (RPT) dictionary as an instance of NPDs. For the binary case, we develop a generalized likelihood ratio detector and obtain exact distributions of the test statistics in terms of …

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Influence Of Body Composition, Velocity Profiles, And Sex-Related Differences On Army Combat Fitness Test Performance, David Boffey Jan 2021

Influence Of Body Composition, Velocity Profiles, And Sex-Related Differences On Army Combat Fitness Test Performance, David Boffey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) will become the United States Army's mandatory physical fitness test in March of 2022. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between ACFT performance and both body composition and velocity profiles, and to determine sex differences for these variables. Data was collected in November 2020 (Fall) and March 2021 (Spring) from male (n = 55) and female (n = 17) Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) cadets. Body composition was assessed with a bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy (BIS) device, and cadets completed a squat jump (SJ) force-velocity profile (FVP) and a hex …

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Numerical Modeling Of Shockwave Initiated Combustion Of A Hydrogen-Oxygen Mixture Within A Shock Tube, Reed Forehand Jan 2021

Numerical Modeling Of Shockwave Initiated Combustion Of A Hydrogen-Oxygen Mixture Within A Shock Tube, Reed Forehand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Shock tubes are as close to an ideal reactor as most modern experiments can attain to examine chemical kinetics. As reaction temperatures drop, homogeneous combustion within a shock tube begins to exhibit inhomogeneous modes, which in a typical Hydrogen-Oxygen system are ex- pressed as deflagration to detonation transition. Experimental results of such a system in the Uni- versity of Central Florida's low-pressure shock tube have been collected through end and side-wall imaging to analyze flame structure and chemical kinetics. The purpose of this work is to con- duct a baselining of these results using both chemical and computational fluid dynamics …

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The Relationship Between College Students' Level Of Alcohol Use And Their Grit, Personal Growth Initiatives, And Emotion Regulation Scores Using Structure Equation Modeling, Gelawdiyos Haile Jan 2021

The Relationship Between College Students' Level Of Alcohol Use And Their Grit, Personal Growth Initiatives, And Emotion Regulation Scores Using Structure Equation Modeling, Gelawdiyos Haile

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The purpose of this study was to examine the directional relationship between college students' level of grit, personal growth initiative, cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation strategy, and their level of harmful alcohol consumption and related problems. This study tested the theoretical structure model that college students' (N = 356) level of grit (as measured by the Grit Short Scale [Grit-S; Duckworth & Quinn, 2009]), personal growth initiative (PGI; as measured by the Personal Growth Initiative Scale-II [PGIS-II; Robitschek et al., 2012]), and cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation strategy (as measured by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [ERQ; Gross & John, 2003]) contribute to …

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Understanding Discourse Of Co-Teachers In Middle School Mathematics Inclusive Classrooms, Amanda Lannan Jan 2021

Understanding Discourse Of Co-Teachers In Middle School Mathematics Inclusive Classrooms, Amanda Lannan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The researcher in this study investigated the verbal discourse moves of co-teachers in middle school mathematics classrooms to solicit students' mathematical thinking with a specific focus on students with disabilities. In this examination of two classrooms, students received high-level mathematics instruction from expertly trained co-teachers. A quantitative analysis of the video transcripts using a validated tool for coding teacher behaviors was used to examine the content and context of mathematical discourse in each of the classrooms. The researcher examined qualitative data using a critical discourse framework. Three themes emerged from the discourse analysis: (a) empowerment of co-teachers, (b) strategic use …

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Male Students Of Color In Stem Through The Lens Of Intersectionality: A Transformative Mixed-Methods Exploration Of Their Science Identities, Relevant Science Learning Experiences, And Decisions To Pursue Science Professions, Regina Mccurdy Jan 2021

Male Students Of Color In Stem Through The Lens Of Intersectionality: A Transformative Mixed-Methods Exploration Of Their Science Identities, Relevant Science Learning Experiences, And Decisions To Pursue Science Professions, Regina Mccurdy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The purpose of this 3-phase transformative mixed-methods study was to use intersectionality theoretical framework to explore the science identities and relevant science learning experiences of male students of color (MSOCs) in STEM and their decisions to pursue science professions after college. Phase 1 utilized a researcher-developed survey to analyze differences in science identity scores (SIS), science relevancy scores (SRS), and decisions to pursue science professions of 702 diverse college students enrolled in STEM-related courses at a state college in Southeast United States. While there were no statistically significant differences in SIS and SRS scores regarding race/ethnicity or socioeconomic factors, statistical …

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Energy-Efficient In-Memory Architectures Leveraging Intrinsic Behaviors Of Embedded Mram Devices, Shadi Sheikhfaal Jan 2021

Energy-Efficient In-Memory Architectures Leveraging Intrinsic Behaviors Of Embedded Mram Devices, Shadi Sheikhfaal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

For decades, innovations to surmount the processor versus memory gap and move beyond conventional von Neumann architectures continue to be sought and explored. Recent machine learning models still expend orders of magnitude more time and energy to access data in memory in addition to merely performing the computation itself. This phenomenon referred to as a memory-wall bottleneck, is addressed herein via a completely fresh perspective on logic and memory technology design. The specific solutions developed in this dissertation focus on utilizing intrinsic switching behaviors of embedded MRAM devices to design cross-layer and energy-efficient Compute-in-Memory (CiM) architectures, accelerate the computationally-intensive operations …

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Using Wearable Assistive Technology To Improve Time Management Of Students With Disabilities In A School-Based Employment Training Setting, Jonathan Solomon Jan 2021

Using Wearable Assistive Technology To Improve Time Management Of Students With Disabilities In A School-Based Employment Training Setting, Jonathan Solomon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

All areas of life require time management, but those skills are especially integral and require a different level of accountability for an individual to be successful in academia or when employed (DiPipi-Hoy et al., 2009; Macan et al., 1990). A study by Janeslätt et al. (2015) measured daily time management of adults and found individuals with cognitive disabilities possessed low daily time management skills compared to neurotypical peers. In a study by Button et al. (2019) the majority of college students with disabilities at one university who sought out support services spent most of their time working on the area …

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A Causal Comparative Examination Of The Effects Of Tiered Interventions Within The Mtss Framework In One Intermediate Grade, Hope Strange Jan 2021

A Causal Comparative Examination Of The Effects Of Tiered Interventions Within The Mtss Framework In One Intermediate Grade, Hope Strange

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This post hoc quantitative research used a causal-comparative design to explore the relationship between tiered interventions as part of an MTSS intervention and student achievement. Data from the Florida Standards Assessment for English Language Arts (FSA ELA) and mathematics (FSA Mathematics) from 2018 and 2019 formed the basis of the study; student demographic data also identified each student's highest level of reading, mathematics, and behavior interventions during the 2018-2019 school year. Students who received interventions were coded into a separate higher tier. Percentile change was calculated and analyzed using an ANOVA to determine how percentile change differed by intervention tier. …

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Classification Of Ground-Truth Fire Debris Samples Using Neural Networks, Nicholas Thurn Jan 2021

Classification Of Ground-Truth Fire Debris Samples Using Neural Networks, Nicholas Thurn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Fire debris samples are currently analyzed according to ASTM E1618-19, which is the "Standard Test Method for Ignitable Liquid Residues in Extracts from Fire Debris Samples by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry." This method requires that an analyst make a visual comparison to an appropriate reference sample using the total ion and the extracted ion chromatograms. The analyst then provides an opinion about whether an ignitable liquid residue is present in the sample. The method is inherently subjective due to the visual interpretation that is needed. In order to automate this process, this work uses neural networks and a subset of the …

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College Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder Enrolled In Stem Disciplines And Their Experiences With Support Systems: A Qualitative Exploration, Michelle Howell Jan 2021

College Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder Enrolled In Stem Disciplines And Their Experiences With Support Systems: A Qualitative Exploration, Michelle Howell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

As the number of individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) increases, the number of those individuals graduating from high school with the goal of pursuing postsecondary education also increases. For those students with ASD interested in pursuing higher education, Wei et al. (2013) found that they have a propensity to pursue STEM disciplines. The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to explore the ways students with ASD pursuing STEM disciplines described their experiences with support before and during college. Using Schlossberg's (1984) 4S Transition Model as a framework, the researcher conducted interviews with ten students to explore the challenges …

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A Holistic Approach For Power Systems Using Machine Learning And System Dynamics, Bibi Ibrahim Jan 2021

A Holistic Approach For Power Systems Using Machine Learning And System Dynamics, Bibi Ibrahim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The growing digital economy has imposed greater demand on the electricity supply's reliability in the past decades, with more consumers and electric vehicles (EV) becoming connected to the electric grid. While the uncertainty of the outcomes is unavoidable, there is a need for more accurate forecasts, modeling tools, and detailed roadmaps that can support the reliable transitioning of power systems. Predicting the electricity demand growth will allow energy managers to understand consumer demand in the near future better. However, there are challenges for forecasting the peak demand growth since it is very difficult to model the various complex features that …

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Towards Improving The Robustness Of Neural Abstractive Summarization, Kaiqiang Song Jan 2021

Towards Improving The Robustness Of Neural Abstractive Summarization, Kaiqiang Song

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Recent deep learning and sequence-to-sequence learning technology have produced impressive results on automatic summarization. However, the models have limited insights on the underlying language and it remains challenging for system-generated summaries to be truthful to the original input or cover the most important information. This is especially the case for generating abstractive summaries using neural models. My work aims for a flexible and controllable summarization system that can be adapted to cater to different scenarios. It is designed to incorporate linguistic structure information into deep neural networks, have the capability to produce abstracts by re-using a varying amount of source …

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Influence Of Geography On The Healthy Gut Microbiome And The Role Of The Gut Microbiome In Ibd Symptom And Disease Progression, Sayf Al-Deen Hassouneh Jan 2021

Influence Of Geography On The Healthy Gut Microbiome And The Role Of The Gut Microbiome In Ibd Symptom And Disease Progression, Sayf Al-Deen Hassouneh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The human gut microbiome is believed to play an integral role in host health and disease. In a microbial community, associations between constituent members play an important role in determining the overall structure and function of the community. To understand the nature of bacterial associations at the species level in healthy human gut microbiomes, we analyzed previously published collections of whole-genome shotgun sequence data, from fecal samples obtained from four different healthy human populations. Using a Random Forest Classifier, we identified bacterial species that were prevalent in these populations and whose relative abundances could be used to accurately distinguish between …

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