Digital Commons Network^™

Imagining 5g: Public Sensemaking Through Advertising In China And The Us, Scott W. Campbell, Fangwei Zhao, Jordan Frith, Fan Liang

Publications

This study initiates a line of research on how the fifth generation of wireless infrastructure (“5G”) is being imagined through media portrayals—in this case through advertising. At the time of this writing, 5G is not yet widely available, however the media is saturated with narratives about how it will revolutionize everyday life. Drawing from the social imaginaries and media infrastructures traditions, this textual analysis examines the social shaping of 5G through advertisements from leading telecoms in leading markets, including China and the United States. Findings reveal an overarching trend with ads from both societies imagining 5G in futuristic and utopian …

Theoretical Framework To Assess Green Roof Performance In Mitigating Urban Flooding As A Potential Nature-Based Solution, Arunima Sakar Basu, Francesco Pila, Srikanta Sannigrahi, Rémi Gengembre, Bidroha Basu

Publications

Increases in extreme hydro-meteorological events due to climate change and decreases in soil permeability and infiltration due to urbanization have increased the risk of flooding, particularly in cities. The limitation of the expansion of conventional drainage systems to manage excess stormwater leads to the application of nature-based solutions (NBS) to control flooding. This study explores potential of green roof NBS for rainfall-fed flood reduction, which can utilize existing roof space for deployment. A detailed literature survey using systematic literature-search procedures was conducted to investigate the performance of extensive/intensive green roofs in runoff reduction using monitoring/modeling approaches. Since limited studies have …

A Methodology For Assessing And Monitoring Risk In The Industrial Wastewater Sector, Anna Trubetskaya, William Horan, Paul Conheady, Ken Stockil, Shane Merritt, Sean Moore

Publications

The concept of sustainable risk assessment in industrial wastewater treatment is vital to determine the causes and consequences of plant failure. The potential wastewater-related risks that could hamper the operation of the entire manufacturing facility are currently inadequately defined and under researched. This work proposes a framework that includes the comparison of literature and experimental data to quantify the impact of the significant process parameters on the critical process outputs. From the business perspective, managing and minimising risks will be possible when the number of impact parameters is low and the relationships between different parameters are clearly understood. The results …

Models, Race, And The Law, Moon Duchin, Douglas M. Spencer

Publications

Capitalizing on recent advances in algorithmic sampling, The Race-Blind Future of Voting Rights explores the implications of the long-standing conservative dream of certified race neutrality in redistricting. Computers seem promising because they are excellent at not taking race into account—but computers only do what you tell them to do, and the rest of the authors’ apparatus for measuring minority electoral opportunity failed every check of robustness and numerical stability that we applied. How many opportunity districts are there in the current Texas state House plan? Their methods can give any answer from thirty-four to fifty-one, depending on invisible settings. But …

Peer Learning In Introductory Engineering, Kimberly Luthi, Mohua Kar, Lisa Macon

Publications

Our research aim was to understand if PLTL and engagement in problem-based learning activities increase commitment to engineering pathways and academic success. We used both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis to answer our research questions and give recommendations. The findings show that while there is an overall improvement in grades and commitment to engineering pathways for those involved in PLTL activities, there is still a concern with integration and scalability of PLTL in engineering education.

A Meta-Gradient Approach To Learning Cooperative Multi-Agent Communication Topology, Qi Zhang, Dingyang Chen

Publications

In cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), agents often can only partially observe the environment state, and thus communication is crucial to achieving coordination. Communicating agents must simultaneously learn to whom to communicate (i.e., communication topology) and how to interpret the received message for decision-making. Although agents can efficiently learn communication interpretation by end-to-end backpropagation, learning communication topology is much trickier since the binary decisions of whether to communicate impede end-to-end differentiation. As evidenced in our experiments, existing solutions, such as reparameterization tricks and reformulating topology learning as reinforcement learning, often fall short. This paper introduces a meta-learning framework that aims …

Scaling Professional Development: Integrity Of Implementation As A Measurement Approach, Brooke A. Whitworth, Lori Rubino-Hare, Nena E. Bloom

Publications

Professional learning about an innovative teaching method is a demonstrated way to improve teacher practices, and ultimately impact student learning. One way to scale up professional learning is a facilitator development model, in which professional learning and development (PLD) designers prepare facilitators to understand the innovation and they in turn, teach teachers. To understand the effectiveness of this model, identifying how facilitators implement the model with teachers is critical. As such, the Power of Data (POD) team scaled-up effective PLD by providing Facilitation Academies to teach others to facilitate POD Teacher Workshops (TWs). The expectation was that changes based on …

Fair Allocation At Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Sites, Govind Persad, Govind C. Persad, Monica E. Peek

Publications

On February 26, 2021, the Federal Emergency and Management Agency (FEMA) announced 18 community vaccination centers in major cities capable of administering up to 6000 vaccines daily. Mass vaccination sites like these arrive amid staggering socioeconomic and racial disparities in COVID-19 vaccination. Black and Hispanic people are being vaccinated at less than half the rate of White people, despite being twice as likely to die of COVID-19. The wealth gap is similarly substantial, reaching up to a 65% difference between the wealthiest and poorest counties in Connecticut. The federal government is supporting mass vaccination sites, in part, to alleviate disparities, …

Agency Genesis And The Energy Transition, Sharon B. Jacobs

Publications

Commentators and policymakers frequently propose new government agencies in response to novel or intractable problems. New agencies can refocus public attention on the problems they regulate. They can attract new talent and bypass calcified or captured channels. But they are also costly, and there is no guarantee that they will be more successful than their predecessors.

This Article examines agency genesis at the state level. In the process, it expands recent thinking about the administrative separation of powers to the states. At the federal level, setting up agency rivalries within the executive branch can be an effective tool for mitigating …

Risks To Student Achievement In Higher Education, Angela Atwell, Bettina Mrusek, James Solti, Keith Wilson

Publications

Abstract. A university system sets out to deliver educational experiences that meet set goals such as the achievement of learning outcomes for individual courses and program outcomes for degree programs. There are many factors that impact the successful achievement of student learning outcomes and therefore success-ful program design and implementation. If courses are not effectively designed with assessments properly aligned to learning outcomes, student achievement is challenging to measure. If faculty do not consistently adhere to college and/or uni-versity policies regarding submission of assignments, student behavior and per-ceptions of expectations in future courses may be skewed. In addition, students may, …

Cyber Insurance Effects On Cyber Hygiene: Does The Homeostatic Effect Apply?, Wendi M. Kappers, Aaron Glassman, Michael S. Wills

Publications

A theoretical framework and research strategy is proposed to gain insight into perceptions and decisions as to how SMBs make decisions regarding cybersecurity hygiene measures, which could lead to betterinformed decisions regarding insurance as part of an ISA program, as well as have a bearing on policy structures and pricing for such insurance. This is because the definition of “cybersecurity hygiene habits”(CHH) as a task appears to vary within the industry and makes the practice hard to measure and evaluate. Research suggests that there may be a poorly understood connection between CHHs undertaken by organizations and their perceptions and/or adoption …

Digital Disruption Solution For Airlines In Brazil, Camila Bisinoto Borges, Cristiane Lunardi Das Neves Rodrigues, Daniel Dias Landroni, Tatiane Mendonça, Leila Halawi

Publications

Since March 2017, the cost of denied boarding began to draw all Brazilian airlines' attention because of the Resolution 400 of the Brazilian National Civil Aviation Agency. This Resolution covers several items, but we will focus on the penalty that the airlines need to pay for each passenger who had his boarding denied involuntarily in domestic flights. Our goal is to create a plugin that any airline could use in their self-service check-in channels and direct communication with the passenger. It could also become a way to offer proactive accommodation options and monetary compensations due to itinerary or ticket schedule …

"Let Me Know When I'M Needed": Exploring The Gendered Nature Of Digital Technology Use For Health Information Seeking During The Transition To Parenting, Bradley Hiebert, Jodi Hall, Lorie Donelle Phd, Rn, Fcan, Danica Facca, Kim Jackson, Ewelina Stoyanovich

Publications

This paper presents results of a qualitative descriptive study conducted to understand parents' experiences with digital technologies during their transition to parenting (i.e. the period from pre-conception through postpartum). Individuals in southwest Ontario who had become a new parent within the previous 24 months were recruited to participate in a focus group or individual interview. Participants were asked to describe the type of technologies they/their partner used during their transition to parenthood, and how such technologies were used to support their own and their family's health. Focus group and interview transcripts were then subjected to thematic analysis using inductive coding. …

A Snapshot Of Postgraduate Research At Mtu 2021, Stephen Cassidy

Publications

As our postgraduate research students live and work in an increasingly digital and information-driven age, the ability to write and communicate in a variety of styles appropriate to a range of audiences becomes increasingly important. The Graduate Studies Office working with the MTU Library Service and others, supports research students to develop their writing skills not just for academic publication but also for communicating to the general public. As part of this initiative, we organized the inaugural MTU Postgraduate Research Writing Competition. Its aim was to provide postgraduate research students from all disciplines across the University with an opportunity to …

An Investigation Of The Potential Adoption Of Anaerobic Digestion For Energy Production In Irish Farms, Niamh Power, Sean O'Connor, Ehiaze Ehimen, Suresh C. Pillai, Gary A. Lyons, John Bartlett

Publications

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been recognised as an effective means of simultaneously producing energy while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Despite having a large agriculture sector, Ireland has experienced little uptake of the technology, ranking 20th within the EU-28. It is, therefore, necessary to understand the general opinions, willingness to adopt, and perceived obstacles of potential adopters of the technology. As likely primary users of this technology, a survey of Irish cattle farmers was conducted to assess the potential of on-farm AD for energy production in Ireland. The study seeks to understand farmers’ motivations, perceived barriers, and preferred business model. …

Slavery And The Postbellum University: The Case Of Smu, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Skyler Arbuckle

Publications

People who practiced slavery across the United States, or engaged in slavery-related practices, were often the same civically-minded social, legal, and economic leaders who founded the nation’s first colleges and universities. There was, thus, from our earliest times, an unacknowledged but firm tie between the values and high ideals of the academy that existed in stark contraposition to the horrors of human bondage that fueled those institutions. Many North American colleges founded before the Civil War relied on money derived from the elite members of society with direct involvements in slavery. While a growing body of scholarly work discusses early …

Best Regulatory Practices For Deep Seabed Mining: Lessons Learned From The U.S. Surface Mining Control And Reclamation Act, Mark S. Squillace

Publications

Mining operations around the globe are responsible for significant environmental problems. These problems often stem from poor planning, inadequate regulatory standards, and a failure of regulatory oversight, particularly with respect to inspection and enforcement regimes. Mining regulators are often hamstrung, however, by inadequate information about potential impacts before operations commence. This problem is particularly daunting when considering mining on ocean floors where information about the environment is limited, and the impacts of mining are poorly understood.

As the International Seabed Authority (ISA) develops a comprehensive regulatory program for deep seabed mining, they should draw on the experience gained in regulating …

Technological 'Disruption' Of The Law's Imagined Scene: Some Lessons From Lex Informatica, Margot Kaminski

Publications

Joel Reidenberg in his 1998 Article Lex Informatica observed that technology can be a distinct regulatory force in its own right and claimed that law would arise in response to human needs. Today, law and technology scholarship continues to ask: does technology ever disrupt the law? This Article articulates one particular kind of “legal disruption”: how technology (or really, the social use of technology) can alter the imagined setting around which policy conversations take place—what Jack Balkin and Reva Siegal call the “imagined regulatory scene.” Sociotechnical change can alter the imagined regulatory scene’s architecture, upsetting a policy balance and undermining …

Exploring The Impact Of Composite Material Fires And Associated Response Protocol On The Material Analysis During An Aircraft Accident Investigation, Flavio A. C. Mendonca, Natalie Zimmermann, Peng Hao Wang, Julius Keller

Publications

Metals, beginning in the 1930s, have been frequently used as the material of choice for aircraft construction (Hallion, 1978; Jakab, 1999). Common metals used in the aviation industry range from alloyed and heat-treated aluminum to titanium, magnesium, and superalloys, the latter used in specialized applications (Hallion, 1978; Mouritz, 2012). Nevertheless, a shift in aircraft construction – specifically in terms of the materials used – began in the 1970s, as composite materials were introduced into commercial aircraft (Mouritz, 2012). Among others, the increased use of composited materials was – and still is – propelled by the ability to manufacture comparative lightweight …

Competency-Based Education: A Framework For A More Efficient And Safer Aviation Industry, Flavio A. C. Mendonca, Julius Keller, Brian G. Dillman

Publications

Aircraft design and reliability as well as pilots’ education and training have steadily and significantly improved in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, high-profile accidents still occur, even when the aircraft and related systems are operating adequately. Controlled flight into terrain, runway incursion accidents, and loss of control in flight are examples of mishaps in which inadequate decision-making, poor leadership, and ineffective communication are frequently cited as contributing factors. Conversely, the investigation of accidents (e.g., US Airways Flight 1549, in the U.S. on Jan. 15, 2009) and serious incidents (e.g., TAM Linhas Aereas Flight 3756 in Brazil on June 17, 2011) …

White Paper On Engineering Controls For Bioaerosols In Non-Industrial/ Non-Healthcare Settings, Cheri L. Marcham, American Conference Of Governmental Industrial Hygienists

Publications

The list of disease pathogens that can be transmitted in the air is extensive. This list includes the common cold, SARS, measles, Hansen's disease (leprosy), polio, influenza, Legionella (Legionnaires’ disease and Pontiac fever), and tuberculosis (TB). TB, SARSCoV-1, avian influenza, varicella, and now SARS-CoV-2 all have received public notice due not only to their known or assumed ability to be transmitted in the air rapidly from one individual to another, but also for their virulence. Other bioaerosols that can be transmitted through the air include bacteria, fungal spores and fragments, dust mites, and pollen. This document was developed to address …

Aviation English Assessment And Training, Robert Fowler, Elizabeth Mathews, Jena Lynch, Jennifer Roberts M.A.

Publications

Due to a significant global increase in demand for air travel, there has been a corresponding increase in demand for ab initio flight training. Thousands of international flight students seek admission to collegiate aviation programs in the United States and Canada every year. These international flight students come to the United States and Canada because flight training is nonexistent in their native countries. In fact, flight training in most of these countries is impossible due to airspace restrictions and onerous regulations. If there is flight training available in these countries, the cost is usually prohibitive compared to the cost in …

Transitioning To An Active Learning Environment For Calculus At The University Of Florida, Darryl Chamberlain, Amy Grady, Scott Keeran, Kevin Knudson, Ian Manly, Melissa Shabazz, Corey Stone

Publications

In this note, we describe a large-scale transition to an active learning format in first-semester calculus at the University of Florida. Student performance and attitudes are compared across traditional lecture and flipped sections.

Planning Your Pathway Of Scholarly Influence & Impact, Emily Faulconer, Jeremy Ernst

Publications

The goal of this workshop is to encourage thinking about the broader context of research activities.

• Research Impact (journal and author bibliometrics)
• Scholarly Communication (altmetrics)
• Broader Impacts
• Professional specialists & practitioners
• Legislators and policymakers
• Economic benefits
• Tangible community benefits

Breaking Silos: Cross- And Interdisciplinary Stem, Emily Faulconer

Publications

Integrated STEM connects disciplines to enhance learning.

• Scientific inquiry to understand
• Technological literacy to measure
• Engineering design to learn from failure
• Mathematical thinking to analyze

Does "Significant Difference" Hold True? Comparing Student Performance In Online Vs. Traditional Science Courses, Emily Faulconer, John C. Griffith

Publications

Meta-analysis studies comparing student outcomes in online and traditional courses indicate no significant difference (or a slight improvement in online courses)

Knowledge Infused Policy Gradients With Upper Confidence Bound For Relational Bandits, Kaushik Roy, Qi Zhang, Manas Gaur, Amit Sheth

Publications

Contextual Bandits find important use cases in various real-life scenarios such as online advertising, recommendation systems, healthcare, etc. However, most of the algorithms use at feature vectors to represent context whereas, in the real world, there is a varying number of objects and relations among them to model in the context. For example, in a music recommendation system, the user context contains what music they listen to, which artists create this music, the artist albums, etc. Adding richer relational context representations also introduces a much larger context space making exploration-exploitation harder. To improve the efficiency of exploration-exploitation knowledge about the …

Estimating Infant Hip Joint Moments Using A Novel Musculoskeletal Model, Yeram Lim, Victor Huayamave, Christine Walck, Erin Mannen, Safeer Siddicky

Publications

Musculoskeletal models offer a convenient method to non-invasively study human development, function, and pathologies. While adult musculoskeletal models have been extensively studied [1], infant populations have been widely underserved. However, understanding infant joint biomechanics during the first year of life is vital considering abnormal loads may be detrimental to growth and development. Joint moments from an infant musculoskeletal model could help assess pathologies such as developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH). Previous computational studies involving infant biomechanics [2, 3] lacked the modeling of active muscle response which may affect musculoskeletal development [4]. As such, the purpose of this study is …

Cybersecurity Leaders: Knowledge Driving Human Capital Development, Sharon L. Burton

Publications

Cybersecurity leaders must be able to use critical reading and thinking skills, exercise judgment when policies are not distinct and precise, and have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to tailor technical and planning data to diverse customers’ levels of understanding. Ninety-three percent of cybersecurity leaders do not report directly to the chief operating officer. While status differences influence interactions amid groups, attackers are smarter. With the aim of protecting organizations and reducing risk, knowledge about security must increase. Understanding voids are costly and increased breach chances are imminent. Burning questions exist. What are needed technological learnings for cybersecurity leaders to …

Nlp Is Not Enough - Contextualization Of User Input In Chatbots, Nathan Dolbir, Triyasha Dastidar, Kaushik Roy

Publications

AI chatbots have made vast strides in technology improvement in recent years and are already operational in many industries. Advanced Natural Language Processing techniques, based on deep networks, efficiently process user requests to carry out their functions. As chatbots gain traction, their applicability in healthcare is an attractive proposition due to the reduced economic and people costs of an overburdened system. However, healthcare bots require safe and medically accurate information capture, which deep networks aren’t yet capable of due to user text and speech variations. Knowledge in symbolic structures is more suited for accurate reasoning but cannot handle natural language …