Digital Commons Network^™

Feasibility Of Twitter Sentiment Analysis In Predicting Crime In The Uae, Rashed Khalifa Alsubousi

Theses

In this study, we demonstrate how the information provided by individuals on social media can represent some aspects of their behavior to predict criminal activities and intentions in societies. The problem discussed in this study is finding a model that can analyze social media posts to infer the intentions and feelings of the publisher behind those posts to predict the probability of committing a crime. This is a preventive technique that can be used to monitor individuals or organizations who have a behavioral pattern that can be inferred as criminal intent. To help detect and predict criminal activities, we observe …

Quantum Correlations Using Classical Detectors, Chamithri Adikarige

Theses

Single photons are vital to quantum computing, information processing, and transportation. Popular single-photon experiments are one or two-photon interference, classification of the light source, and characterization of detectors. Currently, the most efficient detector in the telecom wavelength is the Superconducting Nanowire detector. How- ever, experiments have been successful in demonstrating single-photon measurements can be done with unconventional detectors. One such method employed an EMCCD camera to observe spatial correlations between pixels with single photons. This thesis aims to test non-single photon-counting PIN photodetectors to observe time-correlation measurement. The improved detection model uses a high-resolution 2GHz oscilloscope and a cross-correlation algorithm. …

Used Cars Price Prediction And Valuation Using Data Mining Techniques, Abdulla Alshared

Theses

Due to the unprecedented number of cars being purchased and sold, used car price prediction is a topic of high interest. Because of the affordability of used cars in developing countries, people tend more purchase used cars. A primary objective of this project is to estimate used car prices by using attributes that are highly correlated with a label (Price). To accomplish this, data mining technology has been employed. Null, redundant, and missing values were removed from the dataset during pre-processing. In this supervised learning study, three regressors (Random Forest Regressor, Linear Regression, and Bagging Regressor) have been trained, tested, …

Adaptability And Revisability In Climate Models, Kristopher Edelman

Theses

The global climate is shifting rapidly, bringing with it increased risk for climate-related harms to human societies. Climate science is a multi-disciplinary field, requiring experts from diverse specialties to collaborate in order to model complex systems. The complexity and uncertainty of these scientific models raise philosophical questions such as:

• What epistemic, ethical, and social assumptions go into model creation?
• What mathematical and statistical principles are incorporated into their design?
• How is interpretation involved in the selection and analysis of data to generate climate models?

Philosophical issues related to complexity, uncertainty, and the role of values require that modelers evaluate trade-offs. …

Invasive Carp Movement, Behavior, And Habitat Use: Evaluating Common Carp As A Surrogate For Bigheaded Carps, Alexander Catalano

Theses

Invasive species are a major concern for fish populations globally, and the ability to predict the susceptibility of ecosystems to additional invasions or range expansions is needed. Bigheaded carp [Silver Carp (Hypophthalmichthys moltrix) and Bighead Carp (H. nobilis)] pose a serious threat to the Great Lakes Basin and numerous other aquatic ecosystems, where suitable habitat for spawning could allow for the establishment of breeding populations. Evaluating a surrogate would be useful to predict how bigheaded carp behave beyond their current range. To determine whether Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) is an appropriate surrogate for bigheaded carp, their potential overlap in diets, …

Measuring Shadows: Fpga-Based Image Sensor Control Systems For Next-Generation Nasa Missions, Irfan Rafi Punekar

Theses

Astronomy and astrophysics are fields of constant growth and exploration, and discoveries are being made every day. Behind each discovery, however, is the equipment and engineering that makes that science possible. The science and engineering go hand in hand in two ways: advances in engineering make new scientific discoveries possible, and new scientific questions create the need for more advanced engineering. The work that led to this thesis is an example of the latter statement. The big-picture goal is to support the development of next-generation detectors such as the Quanta Image Sensor (QIS), a gigapixel-scaleble Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) photon-number …

Lilaclock, Yinting Fan

Theses

Lilaclock is an online VR teamwork game that promotes shared memories and communication with family and friends. In modern lifestyles and relationships, social media are the primary method for photo sharing. However, they always draw users' attention to many different posts, and neglect communication with friends and family. This project provides players a unique place to share their photos, video, and audio memories. In the game's background story, pirates in the memory world steal the players' memories and hide them in a place called Lilaclock. Players follow the lilac trace and enter the memory world. The objective is to find …

Camera-Based Deep Learning Ai Assistant System For Basketball Training, Guangkun Zeng

Theses

The YOLO, a Computer Vision Algorithms, is brought out to analyze the basketball player’s status as a dataset. It can record the players’ behavior on the court including dribbling, shooting, and running. In this way, the app could collect the field goal you made and missed. First, you should use this app to record a video of your shoot training. After that, the AI would analyze and brings out a 3d virtual diagram to interpret your performance. This diagram will show the hot zone and cold zone for your field goal. Also, the track of your ball will be displayed …

Developing Risk Assessment Tool For Patients’ In-Hospital Falls Using Predictive Modeling, Rasika Patil

Theses

Inpatient falls are a serious cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among patients of all ages leading to disability and stillness. The post-fall treatment comes with rising medical costs and a stressful recovery phase. The present assessment tools align with analyzing causes of falls from historical data instead of present conditions. The key focus area of this research is to develop general-purpose fall risk assessment tools using machine learning-based predictive modeling. We used performance metrics to compare the accuracy and suggest the best suitable model for each shift. This general-purpose fall risk assessment tool can be used for all age …

Split-Horizon Dual-Stage Dispatch Scheme For A Standalone Microgrid, Aslam Amir

Theses

The advent of microgrids has prompted plenty of studies into its design, control, protection, and implementation, with several operational as well as pilot systems being commissioned worldwide. This necessitates the development of hardware and software for the Energy Management System, the supervisory controller in a microgrid. Hence, this thesis provides a novel dual-stage dispatch scheme for the Energy Management System of a Standalone microgrid by “splitting” the dispatch time horizon into four equal quarters to facilitate better usage of power forecast accuracies. The two stages include Unit Commitment/Scheduling and Economic Dispatch for the dispatchable Distributed Energy Resources based on renewable …

Nature And Nurture, Jessica Maffett

Theses

Nature and Nurture is an animated short film about a mother wolf raising her newborn cub through its first year of life. Humanity has started to develop near their home and we see how that affects their ecosystem and existence from the perspective of the wolves. It is fiction based on historical facts of grey wolf populations in the American Midwest from the 1960’s onward. Being a predator species, they have been viewed as the villain in the folklore of many different civilizations and have been considered a pest for the damages to livestock and farmland that they can cause …

Harnessing Intelligence In Implementing Smart Parking Systems Integrated With Interactive Guidance System In Distinctive Shindagha Historical Neighborhood To Enhance And Regulate Mass Experiences, Rahaf Ahmad Al Kassab

Theses

Under the light of the importance of finding smart solutions for cities strategic issues and in conjunction with the broad race for urban development in order to provide the best living environment and the most appropriate tourist destination, Mobility Management occupies the first place among these issues. Due to the variation in the urban fabric of cities, especially the old historical neighborhoods that are unique in their nature, composition, and conditions for their preservation, challenges related to mobility management raised in these critical areas. Therefore, in this study, we present a smart suggestion to solve the problem of providing smart …

Self-Care Agency And Self-Care Practice Of Adult African Americans With Type 2 Diabetes, Martha Eddings

Theses

The purpose of the study was to identify and examine the concepts of self-care agency and self-care practice of African American adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, living in the local community. The research questions addressed were:

1) What is the self-care agency of adult African Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes?

2) What is the self-care practice of adult African Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes?

3) Is there a relationship between self-care agency and self-care practice in adult African Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes?

“From The House Come Everything”: Macler Shepard And Jeffvanderlou, Inc’S Effort To Rebuild A North St. Louis City Neighborhood, 1966-1978, Mark Loehrer

Theses

This thesis charts the course of the JeffVanderLou (JVL) organization between the pivotal years of 1966 to 1976, using the life of a man named Macler Shepard as the primary lens of exploration. Born in Marvell Arkansas, Macler Shepard followed in the footsteps of tens of thousands of other Southern migrants to cities like St. Louis, hoping to find a new life in the industrial North. However, no sooner had he settled in, he was displaced by the construction of Pruitt-Igoe, one of St. Louis’ first large-scale urban renewal programs. In response, Shepard became involved in neighborhood organizing, focusing on …

Stay In Touch: An Interaction Design Project For Managing And Facilitating Healthy Long-Distance Relationships, Zhichao Zhou

Theses

The global pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness in America. Quarantine during COVID-19 restricts in-person social activities that make managing long-distance relationships challenging. People feel uncomfortable and less confident to maintain healthy relationships in a virtual world. My thesis explores interaction methods to encourage people to stay in touch in long-distance relationships through establishing and maintaining communication contracts. To solve the problem, I designed Stay In Touch - a mobile APP and a watch to provide users a quick and interesting way to monitor and manage long-distance relationships. The APP helps people manage connections and take quick reach-out actions. …

Task Assignment And Path Planning For Autonomous Mobile Robots In Stochastic Warehouse Systems, Maojia Patrick Li

Theses

The material handling industry is in the middle of a transformation from manual operations to automation due to the rapid growth in e-commerce. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are being widely implemented to replace manually operated forklifts in warehouse systems to fulfil large shipping demand, extend warehouse operating hours, and mitigate safety concerns. Two open questions in AMR management are task assignment and path planning. This dissertation addresses the task assignment and path planning (TAPP) problem for autonomous mobile robots (AMR) in a warehouse environment. The goals are to maximize system productivity by avoiding AMR traffic and reducing travel time. The …

A Tool To Evaluate Simulations In Nursing Education, Susan Kane Patton

Theses

The purpose of the study is to test the interrater reliability of a tool to evaluate student performance during clinical simulations, using a convenience sample of senior Baccalaureate nursing (BSN) students and clinical instructors. Permission was obtained from Creighton University to use the Creighton Simulation Evaluation Instrument (CSEI) and further test inter-rater reliability.

Cultural Competence In The Baccalaureate Degree Nursing Curriculum, Angela E. Silvestri-Elmore

Theses

Health care providers are members of a helping profession and need to provide quality care to all members of society. As a result of current and projected demographic changes within the United States (U.S.), health care professionals are faced with the challenges of providing culturally competent care and fulfilling the role as the "helping profession." In the past 10 years, minority populations have increased in the U.S. For example, the African American population experienced an approximate 12.3% increase, and the Hispanic population increased by 43%. Just as it is necessary for health care professionals to respond to the increase in …

Hand-Tracking Object Interaction System, Zihao Li

Theses

At this point, VR, AR and MR technologies are thriving in different industries and business. They are increasing substantial productivity for large enterprises like Boeing and Ford at this point. Therefore, it’s well recognised that in future, VR, AR and MR will dive deeper into people's life, especially in to-business area. With VR, AR and MR being applied deeperly, more use cases and scenarios will show up. However, from interaction design and user experience perspective, current interactions for VR, AR and MR is still very primitive and not user-centered enough along with several major problems. Problems include limited accessibility, being …

Aerial Planning For Flying Taxi Of Dubai, Maitha Ali Salem Alnuaimi

Theses

Urban air mobility is the future of transportation in cities, and Dubai is one of the first cities to announce the use of air mobility models in the city. The air taxi is expected to be operational in 2023. It is announced to be electric and autonomous and will be the first in the region. The overall goal of the study was to prepare the infrastructure to operate the taxi. The problem was that the Dubai authorities have not yet started this phase, while the target date for operation has already been announced. The basic design of the study involved …

Self-Reported Confidence Levels And Satisfaction By New Graduate Nurses Practicing Independently In A Nurse Residency Program, Kaitlynn Thurman

Theses

The current challenges in retaining and maintaining confident and satisfied new graduate nurses are attributed to three primary factors: lack of competence, lack of self-confidence and lack of peer support (Twibell et all, 2012). There has been a call for nurse residency programs to supplement the transition from student nurse to working nurse. The purpose of this study was to determine if new graduate nurses enrolled in the University of California Davis' Nurse Residency program reported satisfaction with their current job and to determine their level of confidence with specific nursing situations and tasks.

The Song Of The Soul: Transforming Disabling Illness Through Art, Zulis Yalte

Theses

The focus of this qualitative, arts-based inquiry was to understand how disabling illness might be transformed through art. A/r/tography - art/research/teaching and writing, was the method used to explore and understand the meaning(s) held within the art: Border Crossings - a conceptual, figurative, sculptural installation. The installation embodied the experience of disabling illness, symbolically depicting power relationships, identities, subjectivities and the multi-dimensional nature of being, of one coming up against the institution, the illness and the self. Guided by the work of Heidegger (Hermeneutic Circle), Deleuze and Guatarri (Rhizome and The body without Organs) and Foucault (Power Relationships), the A/r/tographer …

Culture Of Safety: Beyond The Safety Survey: A Cross-Sectional, Mix-Methods Study, Kim Whitney

Theses

Assessing the safety climate of healthcare organizations is an important step in embarking on creating processes to improve overall patient safety. Nursing leadership considerations for improving safe practice must begin with a measurement of the current perception of safe practice in order to correct unsafe practice. If the present culture is not responding to interventions to improve unsafe practice, there is no point in measuring safety culture (Pronovost P., Sexton, B. 2006). The Agency for Health Research and Quality's (AHRQ), Culture of Safety Survey (COSS) poses questions in key areas affecting patient safety from frontline staff's lived experience and perceived …

Identification Of Nurses' Stressors During Electronic Records Implementation, Brooke Brantley

Theses

The problem was a gap in knowledge regarding the stress nurses experience with electronic medical records. The participants were mostly female nurses working in a hospital during and 6-months after implementation of an electronic medical record. The Clinical Index of Stress was used to measure stress levels and two questionnaires were utilized to determine specific stressors and coping mechanisms. The findings represented no significant increase in stress overall at implementation and 6-months after implementation. There was a significant correlation between increased stress levels and increased age of participant with a Pearson coefficient of 0.771. The conclusions drawn indicate that age …

Evidence Based Practice In School Nursing: A Study Of School Nurses In Central And Eastern North Carolina, Lisa M. Barnes

Theses

The purpose of the study, Evidence Based Practice Use: A Study of School Nurses in Central and Eastern North Carolina, is to gain insight of the barriers and facilitators of evidence based research in the school setting. The unique and autonomous nature of school nursing makes evidence base practice and research utilization especially important to achieve optimal outcomes in this setting that is often isolated from other health care providers. A descriptive cross sectional survey design using the BARRIER scale was used in this quantitative study (Funk et al., 1991). Using the BARRIER scale by Sandra Funk, school nurses from …

A Measure Of Perceived Fatigue Among Nurses In Western North Carolina, Karen R. Cochran

Theses

We are anticipating a heightened shortage of nurses as our aging population retires. A shortage of workers tends to lead to overtime for those still in the work force. Previous research has demonstrated a link between working long hours, fatigue, and decreased performance among nurses. Fatigue has specifically been linked to on the job injuries and poorer patient outcomes. This research study examined perceived fatigue among nurses in western North Carolina.

Job Satisfaction Of Registered Nurses In Muscat, Sultanate Of Oman, Asma S. Al Yahyaei

Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine the level of job satisfaction of Registered nurses in Muscat and relationships to Herzberg's motivation and hygiene factors. The theoretical underpinning of this study is based on Herzberg's concepts, in which an individual's motivation and hygiene factors are met within an organization, to the extent that the individual employee will express in job satisfaction. A descriptive, nonexperimental research design was used. The Work Quality Index and a demographic survey were given to 202 registered nurses at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) and Royal Hospital (RH) in Muscat. The data was collected over …

Survey Validation: Perception And Knowledge Of Concussions Amongst Ncaa Student-Athletes, Victoria L. Haywood

Theses

Background: Sport related concussion diagnosis can often be challenging as all athletes experience different signs and symptoms and may not have the correct knowledge to be able to identify every possible symptom of a concussion. When a concussion is sustained by an athlete, it is crucial that the injury is handled correctly not only by medical providers, but more importantly by the athlete themselves. Because the most common symptoms being a headache, dizziness, etc., a clinical diagnosis is highly dependent on the patient self-reporting their own symptoms. It is important for an athlete to be able to recognize a concussion …

Exploring A New Dimension Of Learning And Work In Kosovo: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Non-Formal Learning, Employability, And The Job Performance Of Young People, Clirim Sheremeti

Theses

The mismatch between what is taught in schools and what is required in the labor market is one of the foremost problems that the labor market and young people in Kosovo face today. In 2019, 49.4% of working-age young people in Kosovo were unemployed and 32.5% of youth in Kosovo were not in education, employment, or training (NEET), the highest percentage in the region ("Punësimi dhe analiza e tregut të punës në Kosovë", 2020). Out of those who were employed, 56% of them work in occupations that do not match their educational qualifications ("What are the challenges of being young …

Impact Of Image Complexity On Early Exit Neural Networks For Edge Applications, Sharan Vidash Vidya Shanmugham

Theses

The advancement of deep learning methods has ushered in novel research in the field of computer vision as the success of deep learning methods are irrefutable when it comes to images and video data. However deep learning methods such as convolutional neural networks are computationally heavy and need specialized hardware to give results within a reasonable time. Early-exit neural networks offer a solution to reducing computational complexity by placing exits in traditional networks bypassing the need to compute the output of all convolutional layers. In this thesis, a reinforcement learning-based exit selection algorithm for early-exit neural networks is analyzed. The …