Digital Commons Network^™

Optimizing Work Zone Schedules Considering Traffic Diversion With Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm, Celina Semaan

Dissertations

Highway maintenance activities often decrease roadway capacity and intrude traffic movements. The need to finish the project on time and under a specific budget while minimizing the traffic congestion and complying with the emission standards requires an appropriate work zone schedule optimization. The objective of this research is to improve the efficiency of work zone activities and minimize the total project cost including maintenance, user, and emission cost.

While previous studies investigated the work zone optimization problem, they did not consider the implementation of emission standards nor applied a green diversion strategy. This dissertation analyzes the optimization of work zone …

Intelligent And Secure Fog-Aided Internet Of Drones, Jingjing Yao

Dissertations

Internet of drones (IoD), which utilize drones as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, deploys several drones in the air to collect ground information and send them to the IoD gateway for further processing. Computing tasks are usually offloaded to the cloud data center for intensive processing. However, many IoD applications require real-time processing and event response (e.g., disaster response and virtual reality applications). Hence, data processing by the remote cloud may not satisfy the strict latency requirement. Fog computing attaches fog nodes, which are equipped with computing, storage and networking resources, to IoD gateways to assume a substantial amount of …

Impact Of User Traversal On Performance Of Stem Learners In Immersive Virtual Environments, Eric W. Nersesian

Dissertations

The emerging technologies of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) may have vast implications to societal communication and representation of information. AR/VR computer interfaces are unique in that they may be placed spatially around the user in three-dimensional (3D) space; this affords new methods of both presentation and user interaction with the target information.

This may be especially impactful in the education of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals. Prior research has shown that simulations and visualizations improve the performance of STEM learners compared to live instruction and textbook reading. Yet, research into AR/VR as a learning environment for widespread …

Deep Learning On Image Forensics And Anti-Forensics, Zhangyi Shen

Dissertations

Image forensics protect the authenticity and integrity of digital images. On the contrary, as the countermeasures of digital forensics, anti-forensics is applied to expose the vulnerability of forensics tools. Consequently, forensics researchers could develop forensics tools against possible new attacks. This dissertation investigation demonstrates two image forensics methods based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and two image anti-forensics methods based on generative adversarial network (GAN).

Detecting unsharp masking (USM) sharpened image is the first study in this dissertation. A CNN architecture comprises four convolutional layers and a classification module is proposed to discriminate sharpened images and unsharpened images. The results …

Eigenvalue Problems For Fully Nonlinear Elliptic Partial Differential Equations With Transport Boundary Conditions, Jacob Lesniewski

Dissertations

Fully nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs) arise in a number of applications. From mathematical finance to astrophysics, there is a great deal of interest in solving them. Eigenvalue problems for fully nonlinear PDEs with transport boundary conditions are of particular interest as alternative formulations of PDEs that require data to satisfy a solvability condition, which may not be known explicitly or may be polluted by noisy data. Nevertheless, these have not yet been well-explored in the literature. In this dissertation, a convergence framework for numerically solving eigenvalue problems for fully nonlinear PDEs is introduced. In addition, existing two-dimensional methods …

Global Mhd And Acoustic Solar Modeling And Helioseismic Analysis, Andrey M. Stejko

Dissertations

Computational fluid dynamic simulations have become one of the most prolific avenues of study in the fields of solar and stellar physics within the last several decades. With the advent of ever increasing computing power, high-definition global models of the Sun have become indispensable in understanding the complex and chaotic nature of flows in the solar interior, as well as their impact on the evolution of the global solar dynamo. The mechanisms that connect the generation of the toroidal magnetic field at the base of the convection zone to the emergence of a poloidal field onto the solar surface can …

Electric Field Induced Self-Assembly Of Mesoscale Structured Materials And Smart Fluids, Suchandra Das

Dissertations

This dissertation aims to study the forces that drive self-assembly in binary mixtures of particles suspended in liquids and on fluid-liquid interfaces when they are subjected to a uniform electric or magnetic field. Three fluid-particle systems are investigated experimentally and theoretically : (i) Suspensions of dielectric particles in dielectric liquids; (ii) Suspensions of ferromagnetic and diamagnetic particles in ferrofluids; and (iii) Dielectric particles on dielectric fluid-liquid interfaces. The results of these studies are then used to estimate the parameter values needed to assemble materials with desired mesoscale microstructures.

The first fluid-particle system studied is an electrorheological (ER) fluid formed using …

Service Quality Assessment And Improvement Methods And Tools, Kevin M. Moriarty

Dissertations

The nucleus of this research concept and system is being applied to turret lathe and milling machine Computer Numerical Control (CNC) tool systems. The research has a generic application to the service of broad array of sophisticated computer controlled / integrated machines, devices / equipment such as industrial robotics, medical equipment, surgical robots, and similar types of engineered system. Quality design review for quality service systems is a unique concept. Standard product service systems are qualitative and subjective in nature. The quantitative system identifies Key Predictive Attributes (KPAs) and applies quantitative methods to these attributes to develop a systematic process …

Asymmetric Multivariate Archimedean Copula Models And Semi-Competing Risks Data Analysis, Ziyan Guo

Dissertations

Many multivariate models have been proposed and developed to model high dimensional data when the dimension of a data set is greater than 2 (d ≥ 3). The existing multivariate models often force the “exchangeable” structure for part or the whole model, are not very flexible which tends to be of limited use in practice. There is a demand for developing and studying multivariate models with any pre-specified bivariate margins.

Suppose there exists such a class of flexible models with any pre-specified bivariate margins. Given a multivariate data, what is the distribution function and how to easily estimate the parameters …

Investigation Of Topological Phonons In Discrete Mechanical Metamaterials, Kai Qian

Dissertations

The study of topological mechanical metamaterials is a new emerging field that focuses on the topological properties of artificial mechanical structures. Inspired by topological insulators, topological mechanism has attracted intensive attention in condensed matter physics and successfully connected the quantum mechanical descriptions of electrons with the classical descriptions of phonons. It has led to experiments of mechanical metamaterials possessing topological characteristics, such as topologically protected conducting edges or surfaces without back-scattering. This dissertation presents a new experimental approach for mechanically engineering topological metamaterials based on patterning magnetically coupled spinners in order to localize the propagation of vibrations and evaluate different …

Towards Improving The Security Of The Software Supply Chain, Hammad Afzali

Dissertations

A software supply chain comprises a series of steps performed to develop and distribute a software product. History has shown that each of these steps is vulnerable to attacks that can have serious repercussions and can affect many users at once. To address the attacks against the software supply chain, end users must be provided with verifiable guarantees about the individual steps of the chain and with assurances that the steps are securely chained together.

In this dissertation, the security of several individual steps in the software supply chain is enhanced. The first step of the chain, managing the source …

Improving Multi-Threaded Qos In Clouds, Weiwei Jia

Dissertations

Multi-threading and resource sharing are pervasive and critical in clouds and data-centers. In order to ease management, save energy and improve resource utilization, multi-threaded applications from different tenants are often encapsulated in virtual machines (VMs) and consolidated on to the same servers. Unfortunately, despite much effort, it is still extremely challenging to maintain high quality of service (QoS) for multi-threaded applications of different tenants in clouds, and these applications often suffer severe performance degradation, poor scalability, unfair resource allocation, and so on.

The dissertation identifies the causes of the QoS problems and improves the QoS of multi-threaded execution with three …

Mechanisms Of Oscillations And Polyglot Entrainment In Neuronal And Circadian Models, Emel Khan

Dissertations

Entrainment is a type of synchronization in which the period of an endogenous oscillator matches the period of an external forcing signal and a stable phase relationship is maintained between them. Entrainment patterns are described in terms of the number of input oscillations (N) that are phase-locked to a number of output oscillations (M), referred to as N:M patterns. Arnold tongue diagrams are used to depict the regions of N:M entrainment patterns in the input period-amplitude parameter space. Although the entrainment of self-sustained oscillators by periodic forcing are well investigated is a well-studied problem, entrainment of damped oscillators has been …

Modeling And Analysis Of Intracellular Signaling Networks And Cellular Decisions, Mustafa Ozen

Dissertations

Developing molecular network analysis methods is important due to their applications on complex biological systems such as target discovery, development of drugs, discovering drug effects, and finding treatments for many complex diseases, e.g., cancer, autoimmune, and mental disorders. An example of analysis techniques is the fault diagnosis analysis, in which the purpose is to quantify how much vulnerable the entire network is to dysfunction of one or multiple molecules. Such analysis can be done after proper network models are implemented, trained, and tested against the experimental data. In this dissertation, a Boolean modeling framework is implemented and methods to train …

An Investigation Of Success Factors In A High School Algebra I Program, Sherri Kulpa

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate a high school Algebra I program through an examination of potential relationships among teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics, teachers’ instructional styles, students’ academic self-concept in mathematics, and students’ mathematics achievement in an Algebra I course. While a significant amount of research has focused on individual components of the study (e.g., instructional practices, academic self-concept), little research has been done to identify potential relationships between factors. Additionally, much of the available research focused on the elementary level leaving a gap in understanding how various factors were related to the success of …

The Effects Of Academic Performance, Demographic Characteristics, Work, And Personal Experiences On Admissions To A Clinical Laboratory Science Training Program, Mara Williams

Dissertations

In this study, I sought to discover factors that contributed to candidate success in gaining admission to the San Jose State University Clinical Laboratory Scientist (CLS) Training Program. Social Cognitive Career Theory suggests that the interplay between an individual’s personal characteristics and life experiences lead to self-efficacy expectations, learning experiences, and goal setting which crystalizes their choice of career. To understand these phenomena in the context of CLS candidates, I used quantitative methods to explore the influence of race, gender, age, work, and personal experience on the probability of a candidate gaining an interview or placing for clinical internship in …

The Effectiveness Of California's System Of Support: Dashboard And Differentiated Assistance, As Perceived By County Office Of Education, Court And Community School Administrators, Jennifer Izant Gonzales

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to: (1) describe the perceptions of County Office of Education Court and Community School administrators on the accuracy of the California Dashboard/Dashboard Alternative School Status; (2) describe the perceptions of County Office of Education Court and Community School administrators about the efficacy of California’s System of Support, specifically Differentiated Assistance, on impacting equity-focused change in California County Office of Education Court and Community Schools; and (2a) describe the most impactful actions taken by County Office of Education Court and Community Schools related to California’s System of Support. This study was conducted using an integrated …

Unresolved Issue In Education: Disproportionate Disciplining Of Hispanic Students In Education, Richard Ruiz

Dissertations

The disproportionate disciplining of Hispanic students has been a reoccurring issue that has persisted for decades. With the rising Hispanic populations nationwide and in the state of California, this issue must be addressed. Therefore, to contribute to the scholarship of this phenomenon, the author critically examined teacher and administrator perceptions and attitudes about students who embody a stereotypical urban street subculture. The purpose of this convergent parallel mixed-methods study was to examine the interplay of race, cultural capital, community, and communication, with the disproportionate disciplining of Hispanic students in schools where they are a minority population. The findings of this …

Expanding Consciousness Across Disruptions: Developmental Leadership Coaches Growing Together Through Action Inquiry, Ilaria Distefano

Dissertations

The planetary, societal, and personal challenges of our times call for the expansion of leaders’ consciousness. More comprehensive and integrated ways of making meaning of self and systems are required to navigate the current levels of complexity. Based on constructive-developmental theory, developmental leadership coaching supports leaders in this evolution.

The literature on developmental coaching converges on the relevance of the coach’s meaning-making to coaching outcomes and processes. The purpose of this study was to explore how seven developmental leadership coaches, including the researcher, could evolve their consciousness, capacities and skills using action inquiry. Seven meetings were held, and knowledge and …

Strategies Superintendents Use To Build Leadership Capacity With Executive Teams, Andrew Leonard Giannini

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative, multiple case study was to describe how exemplary superintendents build leadership capacity with their executive teams using Kirtman’s (2014) Seven Competencies for School Leadership.

Methodology: This multiple case study used purposeful criterion sampling and recommendations from a panel of experts to identify seven superintendents throughout the United States to participate in the study. Each superintendent was interviewed with questions developed and field-tested by the researcher and provided artifacts. Collected data was coded using case-based, cross-case analysis to identify themes in how superintendents build leadership capacity with their executive teams.

Findings: The findings identified 21 …

Synthesis And Self-Assembly Of Amphiphilic Block Copolymers For The Fabrication Of Non-Spherical Polymersomes, Tamuka Chidanguro

Dissertations

Polymersomes, also known as polymer vesicles, have gained a lot of interest over the past two decades. These hollow spherical systems are made via the self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers and have found use in a range of areas from drug delivery, to cellular models, to nanoreactors. Their hollow nature allows them to carry hydrophilic cargo in their inner compartment and hydrophobic cargo in their membrane. Over the last decade, increasing efforts have focused on controlling the morphology of polymersomes. Research has shown that polymersome morphology plays an important role for instance in drug delivery, where tubular or rod-like vesicles …

The Power Of Sulfur: A Study Of An Isothiocyanate Chiral Derivatizing Agent, Thioamide Based Chiral Solvating Agents, And The Geometry Of Sulfonamides, Emily B. Crull

Dissertations

This three-part dissertation is connected by the thread of utilizing sulfur-based functional groups, hence the power of sulfur. The first project was the development of a pentafluorobenzene based isothiocyanate chiral derivatizing agent (CDA), a class of compounds that differentiate enantiomers through covalent bond formation. This project, which was addressed using a combination of synthetic and computational methods and NMR analysis, gave rise to an CDA that was highly selective for amines and computationally predictable. Branching off of that, the second project demonstrated the use of two thioamide chiral solvating agents (CSAs), which had never been reported as a core functional …

A Component-Wise Approach To Smooth Extension Embedding Methods, Vivian Montiforte

Dissertations

Krylov Subspace Spectral (KSS) Methods have demonstrated to be highly scalable methods for PDEs. However, a current limitation of these methods is the requirement of a rectangular or box-shaped domain. Smooth Extension Embedding Methods (SEEM) use fictitious domain methods to extend a general domain to a simple, rectangular or box-shaped domain. This dissertation describes how these methods can be combined to extend the applicability of KSS methods, while also providing a component-wise approach for solving the systems of equations produced with SEEM.

On The Treatment Of Bilinear Forms Involving Matrix Functions As Perturbations Of Quadratic Forms, Keelia Altheimer

Dissertations

Optimizing the approximation of bilinear forms using a one-sided perturbation, where the computation of the approximate solution is generated faster while using less storage or reusing information is possible. Standard methods for approximation like Lanczos and others exist; however, separating the work a little bit and having the bilinear form relate to the quadratic form can yield a more efficient algorithm. When we have an application where the needs are different, it is helpful to understand how the processes like symmetric Lanczos and unsymmetric Lanczos relate to one another so that we can find a way to break things down …

Data-Driven Approaches To Complex Materials: Applications To Amorphous Solids, Dil Kumar Limbu

Dissertations

While conventional approaches to materials modeling made significant contributions and advanced our understanding of materials properties in the past decades, these approaches often cannot be applied to disordered materials (e.g., glasses) for which accurate total-energy functionals or forces are either not available or it is infeasible to employ due to computational complexities associated with modeling disordered solids in the absence of translational symmetry. In this dissertation, a number of information-driven probabilistic methods were developed for the structural determination of a range of materials including disordered solids to transition metal clusters. The ground-state structures of transition-metal clusters of iron, nickel, and …

Semantic Classification Of Multidialectal Arabic Social Media, Tom Rishel

Dissertations

Arabic is one of the most widely used languages in the world, but due in part to its morphological and syntactic richness, resources for automated processing of Arabic are relatively rare. Arabic takes three primary forms: Classical Arabic as seen in the Qur’an and other classical texts; Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as seen in newspapers, formal documents, and other written text intended for widespread distribution; and dialectal Arabic as used in common speech and informal communication. Social media posts are often written in informal language and may include non-standard spellings, abbreviations, emoticons, hashtags, and emojis. Dialectal Arabic is commonly used …

Structural Origin Of Thermal, Mechanical Properties And Morphological Behaviors Of Semiconducting Polymers, Song Zhang

Dissertations

The past decades have witnessed a surging exploration of semiconducting polymers for the application of wearable and flexible organic electronic devices. Despite the increased amounts of molecular engineered polymers and their much-improved electrical performances, a systematic study of the structure-thermal/mechanical property-morphology relationship of semiconducting polymers is still less investigated.

To understand the thin-film mechanical properties, a pseudo-free standing tensile tester was self-built and utilized to obtain their real-time stress-strain behaviors through uniaxial stretching on top of the water surface. It also enables the first quantitative measurement of fracture energy on ultrathin polymeric films. Through multiple mechanical testing methods (i.e., strain-rate …

Efficient Denoising Of High Resolution Color Digital Images Utilizing Krylov Subspace Spectral Methods, Eva Lynn Greenman

Dissertations

The solution to a parabolic nonlinear diffusion equation using a Krylov Subspace Spectral method is applied to high resolution color digital images with parallel processing for efficient denoising. The evolution of digital image technology, processing power, and numerical methods must evolve to increase efficiency in order to meet current usage requirements. Much work has been done to perfect the edge detector in Perona-Malik equation variants, while minimizing the effects of artifacts. It is demonstrated that this implementation of a regularized partial differential equation model controls backward diffusion, achieves strong denoising, and minimizes blurring and other ancillary effects. By adaptively tuning …

Comparison Of Manipulatives Effect On Academic Achievement In Preschool Math, Ashley Stewart

Dissertations

Students in the United States tend to possess poor academic performance in mathematics compared to other developed countries. Despite the increased preschool enrollment and attendance, there are academic disparities among preschool students. Earlier exposure to mathematical concepts can positively affect student outcomes. Research supports the idea that early exposure and mastery of patterning skills and non-symbolic quantity knowledge are trajectories of math academic achievement during elementary and middle-level grades (Rittle-Johnson, Fyfe, Hofer, & Farran, 2016). Students who begin with mathematics deficiencies, without proper intervention, tend to continue to lack understanding of foundational math skills that are essential for proficiency in …

Design And Modeling Of Bioinspired Polyelectrolytes With Controlled Architectures For Gene Delivery Applications, Kelli Stockmal

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the development of a range of bioinspired polyelectrolytes with controlled architectures for gene and drug delivery applications. Glycans are ubiquitous in biological systems, and understanding the role of saccharide stereochemistry, as well as cationic charge, on polymer behavior in aqueous solution and the interactions with nucleic acids can provide insight into how synthetic polyelectrolytes can be used for non-viral gene delivery and other biological applications. The first chapter provides an introductory overview on how cationic polyelectrolytes can be used to aid the delivery of RNA for controlling gene expression in a variety of cell types, how …