Digital Commons Network^™

Critical Comparison Of The Classification Ability Of Deep Convolutional Neural Network Frameworks With Support Vector Machine Techniques In The Image Classification Process, Robert Kelly

Dissertations

Recently, a number of new image classification models have been developed to diversify the number of options available to prospective machine learning classifiers, such as Deep Learning. This is particularly important in the field of medical image classification as a misdiagnosis could have a severe impact on the patient. However, an assessment on the level to which a deep learning based Convolutional Neural Network can outperform a Support Vector Machine has not been discussed. In this project, the use of CNN and SVM classifiers is used on a dataset of approx. 55,000 images. This dataset was used to assess the …

Exploring The Factors That Affect Secondary Student’S Mathematics And Portuguese Performance In Portugal, Lulu Cheng

Dissertations

Secondary education provides not only knowledge and skills, but also inculcates values, training of instincts, fostering right attitude and habits to enable adolescents to move into tertiary education or to ensure a workplace for students who decided to terminate their secondary schooling. Without secondary education to guide the development of young people through their adolescence, they will be ill prepared for tertiary education or for workplace, moreover, the possibility of juvenile delinquency and teenage pregnancy becomes higher. These negative effects will increase the pressures and expenditures on society and socio-economic. In 2006, Portugal was reported having the higher school-leaving rate …

Physical Human Activity Recognition Using Machine Learning Algorithms, Haritha Vellampalli

Dissertations

With the rise in ubiquitous computing, the desire to make everyday lives smarter and easier with technology is on the increase. Human activity recognition (HAR) is the outcome of a similar motive. HAR enables a wide range of pervasive computing applications by recognizing the activity performed by a user. In order to contribute to the multi facet applications that HAR is capable to offer, predicting the right activity is of utmost importance. Simplest of the issues as the use of incorrect data manipulation or utilizing a wrong algorithm to perform prediction can hinder the performance of a HAR system. This …

Application Of Supervised Machine Learning To Predict The Mortality Risk In Elderly Using Biomarkers, Priyanka Sonkar

Dissertations

The idea of long-term survival amongst older individuals has been a major medical and social concern. A wide range of biomarkers have been identified to prospectively predict disability, morbidity, and mortality outcomes in older adult populations. The machine learning techniques applied with clinically relevant biomarkers provide new ways of understanding diseases and solutions to tackle challenges to the health of the aging population. This paper describes two supervised machine learning techniques, Logistic Regression (LR) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) which are used in the prediction of the mortality in elderly people. LR is one of the traditionally used predictive modeling …

Modeling Mortgage Assessment With Computational Argumentation Theory And Defeasible Reasoning, Henrik Szucs

Dissertations

In the mortgage lending business of a bank, a key focus area is risk analysis, which supports the mortgage awarding process and the prediction of the risk of defaulting (repayment issues). The standard risk assessment method at most banks is a scorecard calculation. A new way of predicting the defaulting is proposed using Defeasible Reasoning (DR) and computational Argumentation Theory (AT), areas of interdisciplinary research, in the discipline of Articial Intelligence (AI). Argumentation is formalised by reasoning models which are inspired by human reasoning. For a more realistic representation AT employs DR which is a non-monotonic reasoning process, meaning that …

Divorce After Long-Term Marriage : A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study, Melanie M. Somerville

Dissertations

Divorce is an enduring feature of American culture. As much as Americans value marriage, they also assert the right to divorce. The literature makes clear that modern couples expect their spouses to meet their individual personal goals of self-fulfillment and growth. Furthermore, divorce recovery is often portrayed as an individualistic endeavor. Changing attitudes about marriage and divorce have contributed to the current rate of divorce among midlife individuals, who have the highest divorce rates of any age group. Many individuals who divorce at midlife have been married for 20 or more years. Divorce is most often experienced as a disruption …

Determining Relationships Between Organizational Unit Functioning (Teams And Working Groups) And Unit Performance In Government Scientific And Engineering Organizations, David A. Clark Pe

Dissertations

For more than sixty years, following the extraordinary scientific and engineering accomplishments achieved during World War II, organizational unit research has been at the forefront of organizational research. What was once referred to as teams of scientists or engineers that delivered the atomic bomb, nuclear power, jet engines, space exploration, micro-computers, cellular communications and the internet has led to the modern incarnation of what are referred to as teams or working groups. The objective of this research was to investigate relationships between organizational functioning (teams and working groups) and organizational unit performance. To investigate these potential relationships, organizational functioning and …

A Model Based Framework For Mobility Assessment Of Older Adults Using Wearable Systems, Priyanka Madhushri

Dissertations

Assessment of mobility in older adults is important for early detection and prevention of falls. The Timed Up and Go (TUG) and the 30 Second Chair Stand (30SCS) tests are recom-mended and routinely used for assessing overall mobility, but they provide a single parameter to quantify mobility. These tests are still subjective and prone to errors. Therefore, we need cost effective new diagnostic procedures that provide more detailed assessment parameters related to fall risks. Modern smartphones enable the development of new mobile health (mHealth) appli-cations by integrating inertial and environmental sensors along with the increasing data pro-cessing and communication capabilities. …

Discrete Time Structured Models And Their Dynamics For Interactive Wild And Sterile Mosquitoes And Malaria Transmissions, Yang Li

Dissertations

Mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria, transmitted between human beings by blood-feeding mosquitoes, have been big concerns for the public health. No vaccines are available. An effective way to prevent such diseases is to control the amount of mosquitoes. The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is indeed a method of biological control. Mathematical models have proven useful in gaining insights into challenging questions in population dynamics and epidemiology. The objectives in this dissertation is to formulate new models for interactive wild and sterile mosquitoes so that the dynamics are relatively simpler and mathematically more tractable, but the fundamental model features are snatched. Instead …

Novel Methods In Harvest Of Microalgae And Extraction Of Lipids From Dilute Microalgal Suspension For Biofuel, Chen Zhang

Dissertations

A method of using organic solvent (hexane, 1-butanol, ethyl acetate) to harvest freshwater microalgae Nannochloropsis sp. by tuning microalgal cell surface hydrophobicity with low pH was reported. Harvesting experiments were performed with culture suspension of 60 mL with biomass concentration of 0.35 g/L and 0.85 g/L. Due to cell surface hydrophobicity, microalgal cells attach to the organic solvent and water interphase after separation. Suspension pH of 3 resulted in the highest harvesting efficiency (92-99%) depending on the organic solvent with processing time of 3 min. This method is efficient, cost-effective and eco-friendly as the supernatant can be reused as growth …

Locked Up: Parallel Correctional Officer, Deputy, And Inmate Decision-Making Experiences In County Jails, Mariko Catherine Peshon

Dissertations

Recidivism is a complex phenomenon. Greater than 65 percent of incarcerated adults return to jail within three years. While numerous empirical studies focus on factors that contribute to recidivism, there is limited existing research that examines decision-making as one of these factors. The purpose of this study is to address this gap in the literature and develop an understanding of the influence of decision-making processes on inmates and correctional officers and deputies in the California criminal justice system. An exploratory 2014 pilot study at three California county jails found correctional officers and inmates faced similar challenges related to decision-making as …

A Movement Against And Beyond Boundaries: Exploring The Impact Of Transgressive Teaching On The Student Affairs Practices Of White, Heterosexual Men, Conor Mclaughlin

Dissertations

Transgressive teaching can have a substantive and transformative impact on the experiences of students in primary, secondary, and higher education classrooms. Transgressive teaching is exemplified by the engaged pedagogy outlined by bell hooks in the seminal work Teaching to Transgress, in which teachers seek to engage spaces of learning in deeper and more holistic ways. Scholars have theorized transgressive teaching, when implemented by student affairs professionals, can have similar effects on the experiences of students, especially those from identity groups which have historically been marginalized in higher education. However, there is a limited understanding of the experiences of student affairs …

The Lived Experience Of Intersectionality Among African American Women With Breast Cancer, Teri D. Armour Burton

Dissertations

African American women (AAW) continue to have breast cancer mortality rates that are 42% higher than White women (De Santis et al., 2015). Researchers suggest that an epistemological approach that integrates the biomedical and feminist models would be more effective in addressing health disparities. The concept of intersectionality, which grew out of the Black feminist movement, provides a lens in which to view the lived experiences of AAW with breast cancer. The intersectionality paradigm attempts to address the marginalized, oppressive, intersecting social existence of AAW through the examination of identity, social class, and power.

This qualitative study applied a descriptive …

Second-Generation Thai American Women's Perceptions On Cervical Cancer Screening, Essie Asawapornmongkol

Dissertations

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable diseases in the United States (US) (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015a). Despite advances in early detection and a vaccine available, it continues to affect Southeast Asian American (SEAA) women in high numbers. Multiple barriers to cervical cancer screening are seen among SEAA women, which include acculturation, age, marital status, apprehension, financial burden, access to healthcare, and knowledge about cervical cancer, screening, and preventative health (Ho & Dinh, 2010). Studies on SEAA women and cervical cancer screening primarily involve women who were born in Southeast Asia. These studies have not …

Toward The “Better Than Well” Cultural Ideal: Understanding Changing Conceptualizations Of Illness And Wellness And North American Parenting, Pedagogy, And Education Policy (19th-21st C.), Nicole Ortegon

Dissertations

In the history of the United States, dominant conceptualizations of mental illness and wellness have been informed by scientific discourses situated in somatic and psychogenic-based paradigms – each affecting parenting, pedagogy, and education policy. From the late nineteenth through twentieth century, the field of psychiatry would come to endorse a primarily psychogenic rather than somatic-based approach to mental health, conceiving of the mind rather than body as the primary locus of illness and wellness. This resulted in a shift from a problem-focused paradigm of mental illness to prophylactic-focused paradigm of mental wellness. Secondary scholarship on the history of psychology and …

Human Rights And Global Justice: A Normative Critique Of Some Rawlsian Approaches., Ndidi Victoria Nwaneri

Dissertations

HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBAL JUSTICE: A NORMATIVE CRITIQUE OF

SOME RAWLSIAN APPROACHES

I hold the position that all forms of social injustice (including global injustice), result

from the intentions and actions of persons. Therefore, irrespective of intervening layers of

causation, such injustice must be understood as intersubjective violations. In this project, I

attempt to develop a global justice theory that takes the level of analysis beyond global

institutions and practices to the level of intersubjective relations between moral agents. My

project opens up the following question: How would a global justice theory look if we took the

expression of human …

Implementing Social Emotional Learning (Sel): An Evaluation Of Illinois Teachers' Capacity To Provide Sel Instruction And Use The Illinois Sel Standards, Daniel Louis Philippe

Dissertations

In 2003, the state of Illinois passed the Children's Mental Health Act, becoming the first state to develop standards focused specifically on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) while mandating the use of SEL instruction in schools. Over a decade and a half later, it is unclear to what degree, if any, Illinois teachers are aware of the standards as a means to guide SEL instruction, or if they possess sufficient awareness of SEL as a framework to systematically support social-emotional development in the first place. In recent years, SEL has received much attention in the field of education. A body of …

Site Specific Isotopic Labeling Of Phenylalanine And Tyrosine : Application To Pth1, Bhargavi Ramaraju

Dissertations

Structural insight into biological macromolecules furthers understanding of function and provides a variety of information about cellular processes. Though NMR spectroscopy can be utilized to provide such insight, limitations, including size, are significant barriers. Site specific isotope labeling can be used to provide information on a variety of systems including large, slow tumbling systems and membrane proteins that are not amenable to study by traditional means. In effect, site specific isotope labeling increases the size barrier and thereby number of macromolecular systems able to be studied by NMR spectroscopy. Methyl labeling has been established as a leading method for site …

Novel Antifungal Properties Of High Mannose Binding Lectins With Particular Emphasis On Scytovirin And Cryptococcus, Tyler Hays Jones

Dissertations

Fungal pathogens represent a growing concern in human health, and the advancement of new therapeutic options is essential. The encapsulated basidiomycotic yeast Cryptococcus causes severe meningoencephalitis and cryptococcosis results in over 600,000 deaths a year. The prevalence of cryptococcal infection is increasing, driving the need for new and improved treatments. Scytovirin is a high mannose binding lectin from the cyanobacterium Scytonema varium. Originally pursued as an antiviral, herein is reported novel antifungal activity with detailed characterization of activity against Cryptococcus. Scytovirin specifically binds Man4, the D3 arm of Man9, a carbohydrate moiety found on cryptococcal glycoproteins. Localization of Scytovirin in …

Exploring A School Culture And Climate Where Students Can Flourish: Using Focus Group Methodology To Capture Key Stakeholder Perceptions About School Culture And Climate In An Alternative Education High School., Michael Lee Paynter

Dissertations

This study was a qualitative action research project that involved focus groups of key stakeholders at an alternative education high school including: students, teaching staff, classified staff, supervisors, families, and collaborative partners. A semi-structured interview guide was used to discover their perceptions of a school culture and climate where students FLOURISH. The word FLOURISH is used in this research to describe the optimal experience of thriving and growing as well as an acronym that contains the elements that a literature review found to be important for such environments serving the most vulnerable student populations. This type of research is especially …

The Relationship Between Transmission Of Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Attitude, And Culture, Esther M. Hooley

Dissertations

Purpose

Sexual knowledge is important for healthy development of adolescents and adults. Currently, there is no consistent mode of introducing the topic of sex to an individual who has not previously learned about the topic. If a shift were to occur in transmission of sexual knowledge, whether by creating a consistent mode, a culture-specific mode, or focusing on sexual attitude rather than behavior, future populations would be positively influenced. If the educational system, religious organizations, and families could be informed of an appropriate and meaningful way to communicate sexual knowledge to adolescents, negative sexual outcomes have the potential to decrease …

An Investigation Of The Attitudes Held By General Education Teachers Toward Students With Disabilities In A Pilot Inclusive Education Program In Cameroon, Agnes Y. Mngo

Dissertations

Problem Statement

The literature from Cameroon depicts that the implementation of inclusive education is not only in its embryonic stage but faces resistance from educators who are still not accepting of the presence of students with disabilities in general education classrooms. This resistance has been attributed to several factors ranging from attachment to customs and traditions that encourage the isolation of persons with disabilities, to the lack of resources and professionals needed for the successful implementation of inclusive education programs. These unfavorable attitudes have been a cause for concern among parents, educators, and especially government leaders who do not want …

Development And Application Of Self-Awareness In Project Leadership: A Multiple Case Study Of Department Of Defense Project Managers, Jeffrey Brian Hart

Dissertations

Problem

This study explored how Project Managers (PMs) in the Department of Defense (DoD) come to understand, develop, and apply self-awareness in leading their projects. The DoD invests heavily in developing their project leaders by providing training, experiences, developmental assignments, and other tools such as self-assessments presumably to help them lead more authentically and become more self-aware as a way to improve project management. Despite this investment, it is unclear how self-awareness is actually developed in PMs and integrated into their leadership practice. In view of the importance of self-awareness in leadership, more understanding is needed on how self-awareness is …

Cultural, Linguistic, Curricular And Financial Stories Of Andrews University International Undergraduate Students And Their Experiences Of Coping During The Academic Year 2014-2015: A Narrative Study, Renaude Etienne Saint-Phard

Dissertations

Problem

The internationalization trends indicate that global growth of international students moving from one country to another is predicted to exceed 7.2 billion in 2025 (IIE, 2011)). This crossing of borders inevitably evokes that international students confront multifaceted challenges in their host country. Although many facets of research have addressed their multilayered challenges, most of these studies do not give a voice to international undergraduate students nor do they seek to understand their cultural, linguistic, curricular, and financial narratives. Most importantly, these studies do not explore how international undergraduate students cope with their challenges. It is essential to understand how …

Measuring The Perceived Effectiveness Of Five Selected Professional Courses Taken By Alumni Theology Majors And How They Are Related To Selective Demographics: A Mixed Methods Study, Barry J. Tryon

Dissertations

Problem

The study was prompted by the need for the evaluation of current theological educational programs for preparing students to meet the many challenges of pastoral ministry in a rapidly changing world. However, to date there has been little published research addressing the effectiveness of undergraduate theological education. Furthermore, changes implemented in the theological education program at Southern Adventist University (Southern) have not been evaluated for their effectiveness for ministerial job preparedness.

Method

This descriptive study measured the perceived effectiveness of five professional courses taught in the undergraduate theological educational program at Southern for ministerial job preparedness. A parallel mixed …

Ethical Analysis Of Abuses Of Power In Christian Leadership - A Case Study Of "Kingly Power" In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Zorislav Plantak

Dissertations

Problem and Purpose

Power is an integral aspect of all types of leadership. The term “abuse of power” describes an inappropriate and corrupt application of power. The exercise of power becomes an abuse of power when a person in a position of power acts in a manner that cannot be justified in terms of truth or morality (goodness, kindness, justice, or obedience). While abuses of power have always been a part of Christian leadership, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church leadership, no scholarly study on the moral dimensions of abuses of power in the Adventist Church has been done. Although such …

Mindset, Academic Motivation, And Academic Self-Efficacy As Correlates Of Academic Achievement Among Undergraduate Students In Communication Sciences And Disorders Programs, Heather Loraine Ferguson

Dissertations

Problem

Higher education serves many stakeholders including students, parents, faculty, staff, university administrators, and other contributors. Those stakeholders are all linked with one purpose: the success of the student. That success or failure is most commonly measured by achievement through grade point average (GPA). The academic demands within the college/university setting is high. Limited academic achievement can result in academic failure, being placed on academic probation, even losing scholarships and grants. Students enter college, progress through college, and often graduate without having a real understanding for what it truly takes to be academically successful and what factors may contribute to …

Applying Krumbolt's Theory Of Career Decision Making (Cdm) To The Longevity Of Principals In The North American Division Of Seventh-Day Adventists, Sadrail Saint-Ulysse

Dissertations

Problem

Ledesma (2011) reports that principals’ average tenure in Adventist schools in North America “ranges from 2.5-4.0 years. Elementary principals remain in leadership for 2.5 years, day academy principals stay for 3.6 years, and boarding academy principals leave after 4.0 years” (p, 8). Ledesma also noted that the length of tenure of a school principal in the Adventist school system mirrors that of other school systems. In an attempt to understand more about the possible factors related to this seemingly high voluntary turnover, this research sought to explore the association between the four factors of Krumboltz’s career decision making model …

The Influence Of Cognitive And Psychological Well-Being Factors On Freshmen Community College Student Gpa: A Prediction Model, Barbara Karwacinski

Dissertations

Problem

One of the most significant issues for higher education in the early 21st century is student success. Research studies indicate that a large number of freshman community college students are unsuccessful in their academic endeavor. However, there is insufficient research conducted to determine the holistic causes of this problem. Current research focuses on two types of traditional predictors: cognitive (ability, academic factors) and non-cognitive (affective, non-academic factors). It seems, however, that traditional cognitive and non-cognitive predictors alone are inadequate measures for determining students’ full potential because they cannot account for the psychological processes that contribute to and influence a …

The Coping Strategies Of Nontraditional Female Students In Southwest Michigan And Northern Indiana, Desiree Davis

Dissertations

Problem

The purpose of this research study was to examine the coping strategies of nontraditional female students in a private university in Southwest Michigan, and a public university in Northern Indiana. According to Carney-Compton & Tan (2002), nontraditional female students characterize the leading emergent set of students beginning college. This study examined the reasons why they are in college, the problems they face while there, and the coping strategies they used to make the adjustment to school life.

Method

The Coping Scale for Adults survey was used to determine what coping strategies are utilized by nontraditional female students. The factor …