Digital Commons Network^™

Gender, Role Models, Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy And Career Intentions: Implications For Entrepreneurial Education, Ciara Marie Lavelle - O Brien

Theses

This thesis explores gender, role models, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and career intentions of secondary school students in Ireland. Most prior research includes entrepreneurial education as an important factor in the decision to start a business. Few studies include the importance of entrepreneurial perceptions, role models, self-efficacy, and career intentions combined and what implications this may have for entrepreneurial education. Previous studies cite the importance of role models for potential entrepreneurs but ignore how the role model is perceived or who the role models of this generation (Gen Z) are. This study used a semistructured questionnaire and the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) …

Predicting Carcass Cut Yields In Cattle From Digitalimages Using Artificial Intelligence, Darragh Matthews

Theses

Beef carcass classification in Europe is predicated on the EUROP grid for both fatness and conformation. Although this system performs well for grouping visually similar carcasses, it cannot be used to accurately predict meat yields from these groups, especially when considered on an individual cut level. Deep Learning (DL) has proven to be a successful tool for many image classification problems but has yet to be fully proven in a regression scenario using carcass images. Here we have trained DL models to predict carcass cut yields and compared predictions to more standard machine learning (ML) methods. Three approaches were undertaken …

The Role Of Software Engineering In Bioinformatics, Brendan Sean Lawlor

Theses

This thesis proposes that by applying state-of-the-art software engineering tools, techniques and frameworks to currently recognised challenges in bioinformatics, improved outcomes can be attained in that field. It begins by decomposing software engineering into two categories, namely process and architecture, and choosing two key challenges in the practice of bioinformatics: reproducibility and scalability. The body of the thesis is an exploration of the intersection between these two software engineering categories and these two bioinformatics challenges. The question is asked: Can best practices in professional software engineering be applied to address key issues in the bioinformatics domain, creating positive outcomes? And …

The Art Of Fiction: Fact, Myth And New Knowledge On The North Australian Expedition, 1855 - 1857, Stevie Cole

Theses

This thesis determines the degree to which the North Australian Expedition, 1855–1857, contested established European fiction of the Australian frontier by systematically collecting new knowledge. It analyses the outcomes of one of the most forgotten expeditions in Australian history by interrogating the journals, charts and artworks of the explorers. In 1855, the Royal Geographical Society and the British Colonial Office sent an expedition into northern Australia under the command of Augustus Gregory. It was a region that Britain hoped would hold lucrative resources to support further economic and population development. The artist-explorer, Thomas Baines, was made second-in-command of the expedition. …

On 'Synderesis' And Moral Imagination: An Inquiry Into The Beneficence Of ‘Imaginative Prudence’ In Moral Development Via The First Principles Of Natural Law Of Saint Thomas Aquinas And The Imagination Ethic Theory Of Darcia Narvaez, Pierangelo Dela Cruz Repuyan

Theses

he Thomistic habit of synderesis innately inclines moral agents to the first principles of natural law which state that good is to be done and pursued and evil to be avoided. Serving as an ethical foundation in moral development, these primary moral principles direct practical reason to those acts that actualise the essence of human nature. Since the act of synderesis involves pre-cognitive (intuitive) and cognitive (apprehensive) processes, moral formation is necessary for the formal knowledge of the primary moral principles to inchoately foment through virtue habituation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, virtues are habitual acts that form moral agents …

Assessment Of Performance Parameter Uncertainty Of A Solid Fuel Ramjet, William Jarrett Hankins

Theses

This research develops a methodology for quantifying the uncertainties in key experimentally determined performance parameters for two solid fuel ramjet propellants in a connected pipe ramjet using the Monte Carlo Method. The performance parameters include characteristic velocity, characteristic velocity efficiency, thrust, specific impulse, and vacuum specific impulse. The burning rate equations and their uncertainty intervals were also calculated. Burning rate equations were constructed with terms in air flux and air temperature. The uncertainty intervals were found to be 4% - 5.1% at the test points. The burning rates were found to be accurate within ± 7.7%. Uncertainties in the performance …

Elucidation Of Multi-Origin Inula Helenium L. For Antimicrobial Activity And Heavy Metal Profiling As An Exemplar For The Use And Regulation Of Plants As Antibiotics., Ciara Ruth Kenny

Theses

An impending post-antibiotic era looms, thus new sources of therapeutic chemical entities are crucial to sustain effective antimicrobial chemotherapy worldwide. Plant natural products are a source of accessible, structurally diverse compounds that provide therapeutic potential. The pharmacological applications of plants in medicine can be guided by the attestation of traditional use or the application of this knowledge to uncover new leads in the drug discovery process. The range of modified in vitro methods commonly used to investigate preclinical antimicrobial efficacy of plant-derived natural products, and the associated limitations and challenges in the provision of new antimicrobial drugs from plants is …

Experimental Measurements Of The Wing Deformation And Force Production Of Real Monarch Butterfly Wings, Timothy Daniel Robert Morris

Theses

Monarch Butterflies are capable of flying over 4000 kilometers as they migrate from North America to Mexico. In regard to the aerodynamic mechanisms that drive this extensive flight, little is known. This thesis is motivated by the hypothesis that their flapping wing flight is enhanced by fluid-structure interactions. The objective was to quantify the aeroelastic performance of a real monarch butterfly wing at flapping amplitudes near monarch free-flight amplitudes. The performance of the real monarch butterfly wing was tested by measuring the wing motion and lift at a flapping amplitude of 55° and frequencies between 7.0 and 14.4 Hz. The …

Human Activity Recognition Using Wearable Sensors: A Deep Learning Approach, Jialun Xue

Theses

In the past decades, Human Activity Recognition (HAR) grabbed considerable research attentions from a wide range of pattern recognition and human–computer interaction researchers due to its prominent applications such as smart home health care. The wealth of information requires efficient classification and analysis methods. Deep learning represents a promising technique for large-scale data analytics. There are various ways of using different sensors for human activity recognition in a smartly controlled environment. Among them, physical human activity recognition through wearable sensors provides valuable information about an individual’s degree of functional ability and lifestyle. There is abundant research that works upon real …

Incident Duration Time Prediction Using A Supervised Topic Modeling Method, Jihyun Park

Theses

Precisely predicting the duration time of an incident is one of the most prominent components to implement proactive management strategies for traffic congestions caused by an incident. This thesis presents a novel method to predict incident duration time in a timely manner by using an emerging supervised topic modeling method. Based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, this thesis performs semantic text analyses with text-based incident dataset to train the model. The model is trained with actual 1,466 incident records collected by Korea Expressway Corporation from 2016-2019 by applying a Labeled Latent Dirichlet Allocation(L-LDA) approach. For the training, this thesis …

Cold Storage Work And Cold Protective Gloves – A Review, Daena Charles

Theses

The rise of e-commerce and the increasing demand for online grocery shopping and delivery has prompted the growth of warehouse workers subjected to cold temperature working conditions. To ensure food safety and the preservation of inventory, majority of these e-grocery warehouses are cold storage with temperatures from 10°C to -23°C. Exposure to such cold working environments can have effects on the workers comfort, performance and health. As the demand for workers in cold temperature environments increases, it is important to understand how this environment affects the workers and the challenges it may present.

This review evaluates how working in cold …

Preparation And Characterization Of Reactive Composites Combining Boron With Mixed Oxides, Purvam Mehulkumar Gandhi

Theses

Thirteen liquids have been explored as Process Control Agents (PCAs) for high-energy mechanical milling of two metal oxide powders, CuO and Bi₂O₃, with the practical purpose to reduce the sizes of powder particles and refine their crystal structure. Multiple liquid properties have been considered to analyze their effect on evolution of both particle and crystallite sizes during milling for each oxide. Experimental data were analyzed using the δ-AICc (Akaike Information criterion) correlation function applied to linear relations between liquid properties and powder characteristics. Multiple linear correlation models were ranked based on the highest log-likelihood and the …

Treated Hfo2 Based Rram Devices With Ru, Tan, Tin As Top Electrode For In-Memory Computing Hardware, Yuvraj Dineshkumar Patel

Theses

The scalability and power efficiency of the conventional CMOS technology is steadily coming to a halt due to increasing problems and challenges in fabrication technology. Many non-volatile memory devices have emerged recently to meet the scaling challenges. Memory devices such as RRAMs or ReRAM (Resistive Random-Access Memory) have proved to be a promising candidate for analog in memory computing applications related to inference and learning in artificial intelligence. A RRAM cell has a MIM (Metal insulator metal) structure that exhibits reversible resistive switching on application of positive or negative voltage. But detailed studies on the power consumption, repeatability and retention …

Automatic Pain Assessment Through Facial Expressions, Ilham Seladji

Theses

Pain is a strong symptom of diseases. Being an involuntary unpleasant feeling, it can be considered as a reliable indicator of health issues. Pain has always been expressed verbally, but in some cases, traditional patient self-reporting is not efficient. On one side, there are patients who have neurological disorders and cannot express themselves accurately, as well as patients who suddenly lose consciousness due to an abrupt faintness. On another side, medical staff working in crowded hospitals need to focus on emergencies and would opt for the automation of the task of looking after hospitalized patients during their entire stay, in …

The Role And Mechanism Of Cytochrome P450 1b1 On The Development Of Atherosclerosis; Producing The Animation For Visual Communication And Education., Joon Yeol Ryu

Theses

A large number of people are suffering from cardiovascular disease and losing their lives because of it. Atherosclerosis, a classic example of cardiovascular disease, is related to cytochrome p450 1B1 and other molecules in the development of the disease. Educational materials for patients and students on this topic are expected.

Advantage, role and effectiveness of three-dimensional (3D) animation as a communication tool in biomedical science research and education have been proved. Therefore, 3D animation is a suitable medium to create visual material for atherosclerosis and related subject.

Autodesk Maya 3D computer graphics software used for animation from modeling to animating …

Combating Human Trafficking: Assessing Justice Systems Response, Carly Stephens

Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to examine and assess justice system efforts in combating human trafficking; more specifically sex trafficking. The goal was to understand how efforts of combating human trafficking started, how they progressed, and to explore where efforts remain at this time. Additionally, the goal was to identify and understand what is working in law enforcement, human trafficking courts, and policy. This included identifying issues such as disparity in law enforcement reporting, lack of recognition of sex trafficking, and outdated policies. To assess these issues, this project utilized human trafficking data available through the FBI Uniform Crime …

Fda Regulation Impact On Early Stage Medical Device Innovation In Academia, Keyana Fariello

Theses

The commercialization of medical products at the university level is a multilayered and challenging process. One barrier to commercialization is the difficulty of meeting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory requirements. Regulations and standards are undoubtedly necessary to maintain the highest product safety levels, but it creates many obstacles. This paper will analyze how researchers involved with early-stage medical device innovation in a university setting deal with FDA compliance issues and the implications of this engagement for innovation. I conducted an exploratory case study of ten medical product development projects at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Overall, I found …

Functional Investigations Of Proteins And Enzymatic Toxins From Full-Length-Enriched Cdna Of Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus Horridus), Joshua Osula

Theses

Snake Venom is a highly modified form of saliva, contains hundreds of zootoxins, necrotoxins, cytotoxins, neurotoxins, and mytotoxins, all of which are primarily made up of mostly proteins, polypeptides, and other components such as enzymes, lipids, and carbohydrates. Although snake venom is known for its harmful effects, it has also had a positive impact in scientific discovery and medicine. Some toxins from snakes function to inhibit pain, and this means they can be very effective analgesics. For instance, crotalphine is considered a 14-amino-acid-peptide that has a disulfide bond and shows analgesic properties through TRPA1 desensitization. This …

Effects Of Eye Imagery On Criminal Justice And Forensic Students Cheating In Online Testing, Kortni Larue

Theses

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a well-established subsection of environmental criminology in which aspects of the environment are altered in order to prevent crimes before they happen. This is primarily accomplished in two ways: physical and psychological. CPTED strategies often utilize both in order to prevent crime, but there is a lack of primarily psychologically based research in circulation. This includes the manipulation of the biopsychological response to gaze detection in order to increase prosocial behavior. Additionally, there is a lack of studies indicating if CPTED strategies are effective in a classroom setting and even less concerning online …

Exposure To Pesticides And Hepatocellular Carcinoma (Hcc) Risk In And Around Monroe County, Ny, Theodros Woldeyohannes

Theses

The impact of long-term exposure and persistence of pesticides in the environment on human biology is not completely understood. With the proliferation of pesticide application technologies, there have been documented associations between exposure to every major functional group of pesticide and adverse health effects in humans such as cancer and neurological disease. Of observed pesticide-induced cancer health-risks, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has shown some of the most significant associations. Epidemiological study is complex, especially when examining pesticide health risks. It is difficult to understand the significance behind interactions between the large list of pesticide compounds, external environmental factors, and biological variables. …

Freedom Of The Light, Kyle R. Padden

Theses

Freedom of the Light is a feature length script that follows the heir to a highly religious kingdom on her journey of self discovery and revelation. Amalye Alsean has spent her entire life in the isolationist kingdom of Caelios, being told that the other inhabitants of the continent are merciless barbaric savages. It is only when she defies her father and experiences the continent herself that she is able to see the lies she has been fed. With her newfound power and knowledge, she must confront her father and enlighten her people. The script explores the relationships between father and …

Secure Outsourced Computation On Encrypted Data, Asma Aloufi

Theses

Homomorphic encryption (HE) is a promising cryptographic technique that supports computations on encrypted data without requiring decryption first. This ability allows sensitive data, such as genomic, financial, or location data, to be outsourced for evaluation in a resourceful third-party such as the cloud without compromising data privacy. Basic homomorphic primitives support addition and multiplication on ciphertexts. These primitives can be utilized to represent essential computations, such as logic gates, which subsequently can support more complex functions. We propose the construction of efficient cryptographic protocols as building blocks (e.g., equality, comparison, and counting) that are commonly used in data analytics and …

Retail Store Ranking Recommender System, Fatmah Ahmed Ali Alkhzami

Theses

Companies have been changing and developing their marketing tools and techniques in order to follow the rapid growth of e-commerce in many aspects, and they specifically try to target customers by offering them the products and services they need using recommender engines. Moreover, the rapid growth in e-commerce resulted in people placing the web as the source of information to buy or sell from. Therefore, other than normal stores, many online shops exist, in different forms, from websites with private domain to thread in online forums. This has advantages which is that people have more options to shop from, but …

Dysphoria Ballet: A Morning Routine, Andrew Sonntag

Theses

Dysphoria Ballet is a short, stop-motion film that portrays the internal morning routine of a particular trans woman. It is based on a series of interviews with a woman early in transition, and is what I consider to be a deconstruction, compression, and expressionist interpretation of these interviews. It was made with her enthusiastic support and approval. In this way, it might be considered a kind of animated documentary, but it is deconstructed to the point of ultimately being shown as a kind of “experimental-narrative” dance film. It is motivated by an exploration and validation of using performative expression as …

Video-Based Iris Feature Extraction And Matching Using Deep Learning, Anisia Jabin

Theses

This research is initiated to enhance the video-based eye tracker’s performance to detect small eye movements.[1] Chaudhary and Pelz, 2019, created an excellent foundation on their motion tracking of iris features to detect small eye movements[1], where they successfully used the classical handcrafted feature extraction methods like Scale InvariantFeature Transform (SIFT) to match the features on iris image frames. They extracted features from the eye-tracking videos and then used patent [2] an approach of tracking the geometric median of the distribution. This patent [2] excludes outliers, and the velocity is approximated by scaling by the sampling rate. To detect the …

A More Sustainable Way To Treat School Furniture, Huiyu Yang

Theses

People start to aware of living in a sustainable life and used school furniture is a part of the waste. School is a learning environment, and students are not only learned from teachers but also anything around them. How schools treat school furniture can be a huge influence on student’s attitudes to treat things in their lives. Therefore, this article is about how to redesign the school furniture sustainably and create an educational opportunity for students to learn how to live a sustainable lifestyle.

After the author analyses three aspects of the needs of school, manufacture, and sustainability and then …

Regulation Of Transposable Elements By Tumor Suppressor Protein 53, Andrew J. Rosato

Theses

Multiple transposable elements have been identified by colocalization analysis that display a strong predicted regulatory relationship with p53 associated peaks. RNA-Seq was used to identify differentially expressed transposable elements. ChIP-Seq was used to identify peaks representing transcription factor binding sites in p53 activated cells. The results of both experiments were then combined in a colocalization analysis identifying transposable element locations that were both differentially regulated and located near p53 associated peaks. The colocalization of ChIP-Seq and RNA-Seq analyses allows for the verification of p53’s regulatory role in the expression of transposable elements across the genome. A Monte Carlo simulation was …

Cstars: Cryogenic Cmos Optical Star Tracking, Kevin Gates

Theses

CMOS and sCMOS image sensors are a cost-effective alternative to the more common CCD based experimental sensors. While often being less favored than CCDs at room temperature, CMOS image sensors have a better performance at lower temperatures and are the only of the two highly used technologies that is viable at cryogenic temperatures. This paper discusses development iterations of the star tracking rocket attitude regulation system (CSTARS). This includes discussions of the cryogenic operation of CMOS sensors as well as operating in and interfacing with a NASA sounding rocket as a star tracking system. Both iterations of the project have …

Customer Allocation Targeted For Broadband Services In South Africa Using Predictive Analytics, Hamad Jassem Mohammad Alhelo

Theses

In this capstone project, we propose a solution to the business problem being facing by one of the satellite companies in UAE, Yahsat. They are providing broadband (internet) services through satellite for wide area in the world including Middle East, Asia and Africa. Specifically, in South Africa, they noticed that they are losing some customers and at the same time the number of customers is not as what was anticipated when they entered the business there. So, increasing the number of customers will increase the revenue, which is the main goal of the company. For Yahsat Company to achieve their …

An Examination Of Meat Consumption As A Pro-Environmental Behavior And Its Weak Correlation To Delay Discounting, Sarah Parkinson

Theses

This study presented meat consumption as an environmentally relevant behavior (ERB) and examined how the delay to an environmental loss might affect peoples’ decisions to eat meat. Participants completed a delay discounting survey where they selected what percentage of meat they would eliminate from their diet based on varying delays to rising sea levels flooding of their neighborhood. After watching a brief educational video, participants completed the survey a second time to examine whether the video had any influence on discounting rates in the post-survey. Participants also completed the 27-Item Monetary Choice Questionnaire (MCQ; Kirby & Marakovic, 1996) in order …