Digital Commons Network^™

Interrelationships In Inventory Turnover Performance Between Supplier And Customer Firms, Joseph J. Henry, Peter Christensen, James C. Brau

Faculty Publications

Using inventory turnover to measure the efficiency of corporate inventory management, we perform econometric analyses to verify whether the inventory efficiency of a firm’s supply chain partners is a statistically significant driver of the firm’s own inventory efficiency. We test two mutually exclusive hypotheses. First, suppliers hold inventory on behalf of customers, effectively displacing inventory up the supply chain and resulting in a negative correlation between supplier and customer inventory turnover. Alternatively, inventory efficiency is integrated along the supply chain, resulting in a positive correlation between supplier and customer inventory turnover. Our bivariate and multivariate analyses of both firm- and …

“Someone In Their Corner”: Parental Support In Online Secondary Education, Courtney N. Hanny, Charles R. Graham, Richard E. West, Jered Borup

Faculty Publications

Despite increased interest in K–12 online education, student engagement deficits and the resulting student attrition remain widespread issues. The Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework theorizes that two groups support online student engagement: the personal community of support and the course community of support. However, more evidence is needed to understand how members of these communities, especially parents, support students in various contexts. Using insights gleaned from 14 semi-structured interviews of parents with students enrolled in online secondary school, this study adds support to the roles identified in the ACE framework by presenting real examples of parents supporting their online …

A Coupled Source Panel, Actuator Line, And Viscous Vortex Particle Method In An O(N) Scheme, Ryan Anderson, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

Wake interactions play a significant role in aerodynamics. However, common modeling approaches are either expensive or lack fidelity, making them unreliable or difficult to use in the design process. The vortex particle method can capture the relevant physics effectively, but imposing boundary conditions with solid surfaces in a computationally efficient way is challenging. We explore two possible methods of imposing solid surface boundary conditions of vortex particle simulations. The first, a novel variation on a pure particle approach, is easy to implement but is moderately expensive, and suffers from some numerical instability. The second, source panels accelerated with a fast …

Auditing With Data And Analytics: External Reviewers’ Judgments Of Audit Quality And Effort, Scott A. Emett, Steven E. Kaplan, Elaine G. Mauldin, Jeffrey Pickerd

Faculty Publications

Audit firms hesitate to take full advantage of data and analytics (D&A) audit approaches because they lack certainty about how external reviewers evaluate those approaches. We propose that external reviewers use an effort heuristic when evaluating audit quality, judging less effortful audit procedures as lower quality, which could shape how external reviewers evaluate D&A audit procedures. We conduct two experiments in which experienced external reviewers evaluate one set of audit procedures (D&A or traditional) within an engagement review, while holding constant the procedures’ level of assurance. Our first experiment provides evidence that external reviewers rely on an effort heuristic when …

Multibillion-Dollar Tax Questions, James Alm, Jay A. Soled, Kathleen Delaney Thomas

Faculty Publications

Tax compliance in the United States historically hovers in the 80 percent range, costing the nation approximately half a trillion dollars annually in uncollected tax revenue. To foster greater tax compliance, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) should employ whatever tools are at its disposal. Standard deterrence theory argues that increasing the audit rate and imposing stiffer penalties would foster greater tax compliance. There are political headwinds, however, that strongly suggest that these approaches are not currently viable. Instead, there is a low-cost method that could yield greater tax compliance. Drawing on recent and compelling social science research, the IRS should …

The Mediating Effect Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Relationship Between Technology And Organizational Performance: Evidence From Ghana Banking Industry, Manaseh Tsekpo, Williams Kwasi Peprah

Faculty Publications

This study aimed to investigate the mediating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between technology and organizational performance, using evidence from the Ghana banking industry. The study adopted a correlation and mediation research design, with 232 respondents conveniently sampled from eight indigenous Ghanaian Banks. The data were analyzed using correlation, regression, and mediation techniques. The results show that technology serves as a catalyst for improving organizational performance and alleviating the negative effects of COVID-19 on organizational performance. The findings also revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic highly mediates technology and organizational performance with a significant positive relationship between technology …

To The Moon: Strategic Competition In The Cislunar Region, Shawn M. Willis

Faculty Publications

China’s advancing space capabilities, particularly in the cislunar region, call for increased cislunar space domain awareness on the part of the United States. US military and civilian decisionmakers must take into account the full scope of China’s cislunar plans and capabilities as the military builds space strategies and future force designs. The United States must also increase near-term investments that support more robust cislunar space domain awareness.

A Predator-Prey Biological Model With Combined Birth Rates, Self-Limitation And Competition Terms, Joon Hyuk Kang, Lucinda Ford

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to give sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of positive solutions to a rather general type of elliptic system of the Dirichlet problem on a bounded domain Ω in Rn. Also considered are the effects of perturbations on the coexistence state and uniqueness. The techniques used in this paper are super-sub solutions method, eigenvalues of operators, maximum principles, spectrum estimates, inverse function theory, and general elliptic theory. The arguments also rely on some detailed properties for the solution of logistic equations. These results yield an algebraically computable criterion for the positive coexistence of …

Atmospheric Meteorological Effects On Forecasting Daily Lightning Occurrence At Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Jon Saul, Torrey J. Wagner, Eric G. Mbonimpa, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

As the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center increase their launch rate, any process that could assist in the automation of the currently-manual lightning forecast would be valuable. This work examines the possibility of machine-learning assistance with the daily lighting forecast which is produced by the 45th Weather Squadron. A dataset consisting of 34 lightning, pressure, temperature and windspeed measurements taken from 334 daily weather balloon (rawinsonde) launches in the timeframe 2012-2021 was examined. Models were created using recursive feature elimination on logistic regression and XGClassifier algorithms, as well as Bayesian and bandit optimization of neural network …

Machine Learning Prediction Of Dod Personal Property Shipment Costs, Tiffany Tucker, Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personal property moves account for 15% of all domestic and international moves - accurate prediction of their cost could draw attention to outlier shipments and improve budget planning. In this work 136,140 shipments between 13 personal property shipment hubs from April 2022 through March 2023 with a total cost of $1.6B were analyzed. Shipment cost was predicted using recursive feature elimination on linear regression and XGBoost algorithms, as well as through neural network hyperparameter sweeps. Modeling was repeated after removing 28 features related to shipment hub location and branch of service to examine their influence …

The Behavior Of Partially Coherent Twisted Space-Time Beams In Atmospheric Turbulence, Milo W. Hyde Iv

Faculty Publications

We study how atmospheric turbulence affects twisted space-time beams, which are non-stationary random optical fields whose space and time dimensions are coupled with a stochastic twist. Applying the extended Huygens–Fresnel principle, we derive the mutual coherence function of a twisted space-time beam after propagating a distance z through atmospheric turbulence of arbitrary strength. We specialize the result to derive the ensemble-averaged irradiance and discuss how turbulence affects the beam’s spatial size, pulse width, and space-time twist. Lastly, we generate, in simulation, twisted space-time beam field realizations and propagate them through atmospheric phase screens to validate our analysis.

Accelerating A Software Defined Satnav Receiver Using Multiple Parallel Processing Schemes, Logan Reich, Sanjeev Gunawardena, Michael Braasch

Faculty Publications

Excerpt: Satnav SDRs present many benefits in terms of flexibility and configurability. However, due to the high bandwidth signals involved in satnav SDR processing, the software must be highly optimized for the host platform in order to achieve acceptable runtimes. Modules such as sample decoding, carrier replica generation, carrier wipeoff, and correlation are computationally intensive components that benefit from accelerations.

Global South Research Collaboration: A Comparative Perspective, Abdoulaye Gueye, Edward Choi, Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela, Gustavo Gregorutti

Faculty Publications

Research collaboration has become a major research topic in the social sciences. While this literature has mainly focused on collaborative dynamics in the Global North, more recent studies have examined these dynamics within the Global South. This article expands the scope of analysis by comparing the level of co-publications by Global South-based scholars with Global South-based colleagues and that between academics at Global South institutions and researchers in Global North universities. It shows that academic partnerships within the Global South are less common than instances of collaboration between the Global South and Global North. The relatively weak Global South collaborative …

Nitrous Oxide Production And Isotopomer Composition By Fungi Isolated From Salt Marsh Sediments, Birch Maxwell Lazo-Murphy, Samantha Larson, Sydney Staines, Heather Bruck, Julianne Mchenry, Annie Bourbonnais, Xuefeng Peng

Faculty Publications

The emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting agent, have been steadily increasing from coastal environments, such as salt marsh sediments, as a result of anthropogenic nutrient loading. Biotic processes, including nitrification and denitrification, are the largest sources of N₂O from salt marsh sediments. While it is assumed that the bulk of N₂O from salt marsh sediment is produced by nitrification and bacterial denitrification, recent reports suggest fungal denitrification may contribute significantly. In this study, four fungi capable of growth under sulfidic conditions were isolated from salt marsh sediments in …

Editorial: Sustainability Of Physical Activity Interventions And Public Health, Erica Y. Lau, Maureen C. Ashe, Sharon E. Taverno, Russell R. Pate Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Association Of Chlorhexidine Use And Scaling And Root Planing With Birth Outcomes In Pregnant Individuals With Periodontitis: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Maxwell Akonde, Rajat Das Gupta, Maxwell Akonde, Mark Reynolds, Stephanie Smith-Warner, Jihong Liu Sc.D., Fouzia Tarannum, James Beck, Donald Mattison

Faculty Publications

Importance Chlorhexidine mouthwash enhances treatment effects of conventional periodontal treatment, but data on chlorhexidine as a source of heterogeneity in meta-analyses assessing the treatment of maternal periodontitis in association with birth outcomes are lacking.

Objective To assess possible heterogeneity by chlorhexidine use in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) evaluating the effect of periodontal treatment (ie, scaling and root planing [SRP]) vs no treatment on birth outcomes.

Data Sources Cochrane Oral Health’s Trials Register, Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth’s Trials Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE Ovid, Embase Ovid, LILACS BIREME Virtual Health Library (Latin American and Caribbean Health Science …

Association Of Chlorhexidine Use And Scaling And Root Planing With Birth Outcomes In Pregnant Individuals With Periodontitis: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Anwar T. Nerchant, Rajat Das Gupta, Maxwell Akonde, Mark Reynolds, Stephanie Smith-Warner, Jihong Liu, Fouzia Tarannum, James Beck, Donald Mattison

Faculty Publications

Importance Chlorhexidine mouthwash enhances treatment effects of conventional periodontal treatment, but data on chlorhexidine as a source of heterogeneity in meta-analyses assessing the treatment of maternal periodontitis in association with birth outcomes are lacking.

Objective To assess possible heterogeneity by chlorhexidine use in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) evaluating the effect of periodontal treatment (ie, scaling and root planing [SRP]) vs no treatment on birth outcomes.

Data Sources Cochrane Oral Health’s Trials Register, Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth’s Trials Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE Ovid, Embase Ovid, LILACS BIREME Virtual Health Library (Latin American and Caribbean Health Science …

A Very Luminous Jet From The Disruption Of A Star By A Massive Black Hole, Igor Andreoni, Michael W. Coughlin, Daniel A. Perley, Yuhan Yao, Wenbin Lu, S. Bradley Cenko, Harsh Kumar, Shreya Anand, Anna Y.Q. Ho, Mansi M. Kasliwal, Antonio De Ugarte Postigo, Ana Sagués-Carracedo, Steve Schulze, D. Alexander Kann, S. R. Kulkarni, Jesper Sollerman, Nial Tanvir, Armin Rest, Luca Izzo, Jean J. Somalwar, David L. Kaplan, Tomás Ahumada, G. C. Anupama, Katie Auchettl, Sudhanshu Barway, Eric C. Bellm, Varun Bhalerao, Joshua S. Bloom, Michael Bremer, Mattia Bulla, Eric Burns, Sergio Campana, Poonam Chandra

Faculty Publications

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are bursts of electromagnetic energy that are released when supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies violently disrupt a star that passes too close¹. TDEs provide a window through which to study accretion onto supermassive black holes; in some rare cases, this accretion leads to launching of a relativistic jet^2–9, but the necessary conditions are not fully understood. The best-studied jetted TDE so far is Swift J1644+57, which was discovered in γ-rays, but was too obscured by dust to be seen at optical wavelengths. Here we report the optical detection of …

A Bayesian Susceptible-Infectious-Hospitalized-Ventilated-Recovered Model To Predict Demand For Covid-19 Inpatient Care In A Large Healthcare System, Stella Coker Watson Self Ph.D., Ms, Rongjie Huang, Shrujan Amin, Joseph Ewing, Carolina Rudisill, Alexander C. Mclain Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained healthcare systems in many parts of the United States. During the early months of the pandemic, there was substantial uncertainty about whether the large number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization would exceed healthcare system capacity. This uncertainty created an urgent need to accurately predict the number of COVID-19 patients that would require inpatient and ventilator care at the local level. As the pandemic progressed, many healthcare systems relied on such predictions to prepare for COVID-19 surges and to make decisions regarding staffing, the discontinuation of elective procedures, and the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) …

A Bayesian Susceptible-Infectious-Hospitalized-Ventilated-Recovered Model To Predict Demand For Covid-19 Inpatient Care In A Large Healthcare System, Stella Coker Watson Self Ph.D., Ms, Rongjie Huang, Shrujan Amin, Joseph Ewing, Caroline Rudisill, Alexander C. Mclain

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained healthcare systems in many parts of the United States. During the early months of the pandemic, there was substantial uncertainty about whether the large number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization would exceed healthcare system capacity. This uncertainty created an urgent need to accurately predict the number of COVID-19 patients that would require inpatient and ventilator care at the local level. As the pandemic progressed, many healthcare systems relied on such predictions to prepare for COVID-19 surges and to make decisions regarding staffing, the discontinuation of elective procedures, and the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) …

Survival Of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer In Black Women: A Society To Cell Approach In The African American Cancer Epidemiology Study (Aaces), Joellen M. Schildkraut, Courtney Johnson, Lauren F. Dempsey, Bo Qin, Paul Terry, Maxwell Akonde, Edward S. Peters, Hannah Mandle, Michele L. Cote, Lauren Peres, Patricia Moorman, Ann G. Schwartz, Micheal Epstein, Jeffrey Marks, Melissa Bondy, Andrew B. Lawson, Anthony Alberg, Elisa V. Bandera

Faculty Publications

Purpose

The causes for the survival disparity among Black women with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) are likely multi-factorial. Here we describe the African American Cancer Epidemiology Study (AACES), the largest cohort of Black women with EOC.

Methods

AACES phase 2 (enrolled 2020 onward) is a multi-site, population-based study focused on overall survival (OS) of EOC. Rapid case ascertainment is used in ongoing patient recruitment in eight U.S. states, both northern and southern. Data collection is composed of a survey, biospecimens, and medical record abstraction. Results characterizing the survival experience of the phase 1 study population (enrolled 2010–2015) are presented.

Results …

Predicted Episode Of Submarine Groundwater Discharge Onto The South Carolina, Usa, Continental Shelf And Its Effect On Dissolved Oxygen, Wilson S. Moore, Jacob Vincent, James L. Pickney, Alicia M. Wilson

Faculty Publications

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) may directly influence the dissolved oxygen (DO) content of coastal bottom waters. Here, we report a predicted episode of enhanced SGD that caused low DO concentrations on the South Carolina continental shelf. The prediction model linked episodes of SGD to upwelling-favorable winds. The data revealed these waters were a factor of 2–6 higher in ²²⁶Ra and ²²⁸Ra compared to typical bottom water values and were significantly depleted in DO (<130 μM). The tight ²²⁸Ra:²²⁶Ra correlation of these data was similar to values during a strong hypoxic event off SC in 2012. Water ages from …

Uniqueness Of Steady State Positive Solutions To A General Elliptic System With Dirichlet Boundary Conditions, Joon Hyuk Kang

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to give conditions for the uniqueness of positive solution to a rather general type of elliptic system of the Dirichlet problem on a bounded domain Ω in Rⁿ. Also considered are the effects of perturbations on the coexistence state and uniqueness.

Enhanced Structural Control Of Soft-Templated Mesoporous Inorganic Thin Films By Inert Processing Conditions, Maximilliano Jesus Jara Fornerod, Alberto Alvarez-Fernandez, Eric R. Williams, Miximillian W.A. Skoda, Beatriz Prieto-Simon, Nicolas H. Voelcker, Morgan Stefik, Marc-Oliver Coppens, Stefan Guldin

Faculty Publications

Mesoporous thin films are widely used for applications in need of high surface area and efficient mass and charge transport properties. A well-established fabrication process involves the supramolecular assembly of organic molecules (e.g., block copolymers and surfactants) with inorganic materials obtained by sol-gel chemistry. Typically, subsequent calcination in air removes the organic template and reveals the porous inorganic network. A significant challenge for such coatings is the anisotropic shrinkage due to the volume contraction related to solvent evaporation, inorganic condensation, and template removal, affecting the final porosity as well as pore shape, size, arrangement, and accessibility. Here, we show that …

Effects Of A Behavioral Intervention On Physical Activity, Diet, And Health-Related Quality Of Life In Pregnant Women With Elevated Weight: Results Of The Hipp Randomized Controlled Trial, Sarah Wilcox Phd, Jihong Liu, Gabrielle Turner-Mcgrievy Ph.D., Rd, Alycia K. Boutte, Ellen Wingard Msph, Rd, Ld

Faculty Publications

Background

Physical activity (PA), diet, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) are related to maternal and infant health, but interventions to improve these outcomes are needed in diverse pregnant women with elevated weight.

Methods

Health In Pregnancy and Postpartum (HIPP) was a randomized controlled trial. Women who were pregnant (N=219, 44% African American, 56% white) with overweight or obesity but otherwise healthy were randomized to a behavioral intervention grounded in Social Cognitive Theory (n=112) or to standard care (n=107). The intervention group received an in-depth counseling session, a private Facebook group, and 10 content-based …

Resilience Monitoring For Multi-Filter All-Source Navigation Framework With Assurance, Jonathon S. Gipson, Robert C. Leishman

Faculty Publications

The Autonomous and Resilient Management of All-source Sensors (ARMAS) framework monitors residual-space test statistics across unique sensor-exclusion banks of filters (known as subfilters) to provide a resilient, fault-resistant all-source navigation architecture with assurance. A critical assumption of this architecture, demonstrated in this paper, is fully overlapping state observability across all subfilters. All-source sensors, particularly those that only provide partial state information (altimeters, TDoA, AOB, etc.), do not intrinsically meet this requirement. This paper presents a novel method to monitor real-time overlapping position state observability and introduces an observability bank within the ARMAS framework, known as stable observability monitoring (SOM). SOM …

Diversifying And Perennializing Plants In Agroecosystems Alters Retention Of New C And N From Crop Residues, Marshall D. Mcdaniel, Jeffrey A. Bird, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Erika Marin-Spiotta, Tom M. Schmidt, A. Stuart Grandy

Faculty Publications

Managing soils to retain new plant inputs is key to moving toward a sustainable and regenerative agriculture. Management practices, like diversifying and perennializing agroecosystems, may affect the decomposer organisms that regulate how new residue is converted to persistent soil organic matter. Here we tested whether 12 years of diversifying/perennializing plants in agroecosystems through extended rotations or grassland restoration would decrease losses of new plant residue inputs and, thus, increase retention of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in soil. We tracked dual-labeled (13C and 15N), isotopically enriched wheat (Triticum aestivum) residue in situ for 2 years as it decomposed in three …

Non-Destructive Quality Evaluation Of Tropical Fruit (Mango And Mangosteen) Purée Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Combined With Partial Least Squares Regression, Pimpen Pornchaloempong, Sneha Sharma, Thitima Phanomsophon, Kraisuwit Srisawat, Wasan Inta, Panmanas Sirisomboon, Witoon Prinyawiwatkul, Natrapee Nakawajana, Ravipat Lapcharoensuk, Sontisuk Teerachaichayut

Faculty Publications

Mango and mangosteen are commercially important tropical fruits with a short shelf life. Fruit processing is one of the alternatives to extend the shelf life of these fruits. Purée is one of the processed products of fresh fruit. In this research, the quality of mango and mangosteen purée was analyzed. Titratable acidity (TA) and total soluble solids (TSS) were predicted using non-destructive near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. A partial least squares regression (PLSR) model was developed based on the NIR spectra with a wavelength ranging from 800 to 2500 nm. The PLSR model returned a coefficient of determination (r2) and a ratio …

Improving Customer Satisfaction For Smes In Emerging Countries: A Comparative Study Of Hungary And Indonesia, Santi Setyaningsih, Peter Kelle

Faculty Publications

Improving Customer Satisfaction (CS) is a key strategical goal for companies, especially for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). The objective of this research is to find and rank the major factors supporting CS. We focus on SMEs in two emerging markets located in two countries with different geographical and supply chain environments. We test a conceptual framework that includes several factors supporting CS. The data were collected from Hungarian and Indonesian SMEs by online questionnaire. We used statistical analysis such as Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Model (SEM) to test our model and hypothesis. …

Angles Between Subspaces And Nearly Optimal Approximation In Gfem, Robert Lipton, Paul Sinz, Michael Stuebner

Faculty Publications

The Generalized Finite Element Methods (GFEM) are known for accurately resolving local features in heterogeneous media. Recent numerical experiments have shown that the use of local bases made from A-harmonic extensions of well chosen boundary data have nearly optimal approximation properties. In this paper we show that the explanation is geometric and given by the angle between any finite dimensional approximation space and the optimal finite dimensional approximation space introduced in (Babǔska and Lipton, 2011). The effect of the angle is quantified by an upper bound on the convergence rate. This rate is seen in the numerical simulations where local …