Digital Commons Network^™

The Extent To Which Strategic Talent Management Is Understood, And Properly Utilised, In The Life Science Sector In Ireland, Jennifer O'Brien

Theses

In 2017, Ireland was named the best country in the world for attracting high-value foreign direct investment for the sixth year in a row and is home to the top ten global Life Science organisations. The Life Science industry in Ireland depends on a consistent pipeline of talent to realise the growth incentivised by this investment and as the war for talent rages, there is unrelenting pressure on these organisations to attract, manage, develop, engage and retain highly skilled STEM talent. The talent focus, consequently, has to become more strategic.

This thesis focuses on the extent to which Strategic Talent …

An Approximation To A Bayesian Detection Statistic For Continuous Gravitational Waves., John J. Bero Iv

Theses

This work concerns Bayesian detection statistics in targeted searches for continuous gravitational waves (GWs). The parameter space for continuous GWs can be divided into 2 groups: amplitude parameters which control the signal strength and phase-evolution parameters which determine its time evolution. A common issue in these searches is dealing with these amplitude parameters which do not affect the phase evolution of the system. The F-statistic maximizes the likelihood function of the data analytically over these parameters, while the B-statistic marginalizes over them. The B-statistic, while potentially more powerful and capable of incorporating astrophysical priors, is not used because of the …

Modeling Of A Dynamic Mckibben Style Muscle System Using Material Properties, Alexander G. Arcus

Theses

The McKibben style artificial muscle is a type of pneumatic artificial muscle. When the muscle is pressurized a length contraction and contractive force occur. Modeling a McKibben style muscle presents many challenges. The physical dynamics of the muscle are highly nonlinear, which makes accurate modeling difficult. Modeling using experimentally determined coefficients enables the creation of an equation that ignores the nonlinear nature of the system, but it can have a limited range or accuracy and cannot adjust for changing system properties. Modeling using the system properties requires the consideration of the nonlinear dynamics of the muscle; however, it provides the …

Using High-Order Prior Belief Predictions In Hierarchical Temporal Memory For Streaming Anomaly Detection, Brody Kutt

Theses

Autonomous streaming anomaly detection can have a significant impact in any domain where continuous, real-time data is common. Often in these domains, datasets are too large or complex to hand label. Algorithms that require expensive global training procedures and large training datasets impose strict demands on data and are accordingly not fit to scale to real-time applications that are noisy and dynamic. Unsupervised algorithms that learn continuously like humans therefore boast increased applicability to these real-world scenarios.

Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) is a biologically constrained theory of machine intelligence inspired by the structure, activity, organization and interaction of pyramidal neurons …

Electrical Properties Of Metal Semiconductor Contacts - Metals On Mos2: A Case Study, Xiao Chang

Theses

Properties of monolayer semiconductor, MoS2, are presented in the research. Schottky barrier height and Schottky-Mott rules are discussed. The current-voltage measurement and capacitance-voltage measurement are analyzed considering the role of the work function. We mainly focus on metal semiconductor contacts on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). The properties of bulk and monolayer molybdenum disulfide are discussed. The differences between the bulk and monolayer, based on band gap structure theory, are presented. Utilizing the data obtained in the literature, the influence of temperature on the electrical properties of monolayer molybdenum disulfide are analyzed. In particular, the electrical properties of metals on MoS2 such …

Looping Predictive Method To Improve Accuracy Of A Machine Learning Model, Subramanyam Reddy Pogili

Theses

The topic of this project is an analysis of drug-related tweets. The goal is to build a Machine Learning Model that can distinguish between tweets that indicate drug abuse and other tweets that also contain the name of a drug but do not describe abuse. Drugs can be illegal, such as heroin, or legal drugs with a potential of abuse, such as painkillers. However, building a good Machine Learning Model requires a large amount of training data. For each training tweet, a human expert has determined whether it indicates drug abuse or not. This is difficult work for humans. …

Comparative Analysis Of The Dissolution Performance Of Aspirin Tablets In The Usp Apparatus 2 And In A Minivessel Dissolution System, Annmarie C. Walker

Theses

Dissolution testing is a critical component of quality control procedures in the pharmaceutical industry in order to ensure that the final solid dosage forms have consistent dissolution properties. Dissolution tests are also routinely conducted to evaluate the in-vitro performance of solid dosage forms during pharmaceutical development, to aid in the behavior of formulations, and to optimize drug release from dosage forms.

The use of compendial dissolution test apparatus and techniques, such as the USP 2 (Paddle), to characterize the dissolution performance of oral drug delivery system is an established area of pharmaceutical science. However, this method is not always appropriate, …

Instagram Influencers: The Effects Of Sponsorship On Follower Engagement With Fitness Instagram Celebrities, Morgan Neal

Theses

Instagram influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing trends in advertising. Part of what makes influencers so powerful is their ability to foster parasocial relationships with their followers. But does this relationship change when an influencer becomes affiliated with brands? This study assessed how brand promotions affect follower engagement with influencer posts through the lens of source credibility theory. A quantitative content analysis was performed on 100 fitness influencer posts and their comments (N = 7,716) to determine if followers interact differently with sponsored and organic posts. Significant differences in follower engagement and sentiments were found between sponsored and …

An Alternative Episode Of Care Characterization For Supporting The Implementation Of Cluster-Based Bundled Payment, Amit Singh

Theses

In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in health care expenditures in the United States. The most prevalent reimbursement system for health care expenses, Fee-for-service (FFS), has been deemed as one of the main reasons behind the high health care cost. Medicaid and Medicare have been exploring ways to transition from fee-for-service (FFS) to value-based-payment care plans, and Bundle Payments (BP) in particular. Adopting BPs can potentially improve the quality of care and efficiency by encouraging better coordination among the care providers.

We propose a two-step methodology with clustering and classification to characterize episodes of care by fusing …

A New Radio Spectral Line Survey Of Planetary Nebulae: Exploring Radiatively Driven Heating And Chemistry Of Molecular Gas, Jesse Bublitz

Theses

Planetary nebulae contain shells of cold gas and dust whose heating and chemistry is likely driven by UV and X-ray emission from their central stars and from wind-collision-generated shocks. We present the results of a survey of molecular line emissions in the 88 - 235 GHz range from nine nearby (

A Right To Record: An Analysis Of The Legal Issues Surrounding Cell Phone Videos Of Police Violence, Katherine E. Milburn

Theses

Smartphones have become ubiquitous in modern society, increasing the likelihood of being caught on camera. On July 17th, 2014, a cell phone video of Staten Island police officers wrongfully killing Eric Garner reignited a national controversy on the nature of police violence, and set off a wave of citizen-surveillance through cell phones. By reviewing prior 1st and 4th Amendment court cases, I argue that citizens do indeed have a right to record on-duty police officers, and police do not have the right to conduct a warrantless search or seizure of a phone. Although a case involving citizen-surveillance of law enforcement …

Inferences About The Distribution, Merger Rate, And Evolutionary Processes Of Compact Binaries From Gravitational Wave Observations, Daniel Wysocki

Theses

We are living through the dawn of the era of gravitational wave astronomy. Our first glances through this new window upon the sky has revealed a new population of objects. Since it first began observing in late 2015, the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected gravitational waves three times, along with an additional strong candidate -- and there shall be orders of magnitude more in the years to come. In all four cases, the waveform's signature is consistent with general relativity's predictions for the merging of two black holes. Through parameter estimation studies, estimates on features such as …

The Easy Wrap Orthopedic Cast, Rana Rezaei

Theses

The orthopedic professionals and physicians believe in a safer and faster method to replace the existing application and removal of the orthopedic cast. They also believe that the orthopedic treatment process has much more room for improvement. The Easy Wrap orthopedic cast has several benefits. First, it enhances the application and removal procedure. Second, it replaces the existing casting process to reduce the injuries to patients and physicians. Finally, it decreases the number of lawsuits against hospitals and clinics caused by cast injuries.

Background: Using a cast removal saw creates burns and cuts on patient’s skin. This medical saw is …

3d Hybrid Model For New Product Development, Nataraj Munoli

Theses

Peter Thiel, in his book Zero to One, mentioned the importance of going from zero to one over one to infinity. The value of innovation and creating a unique product will always hold a higher value than doing something that has already been done. The author explains how the businesses that are unique or have very few competitors tend to be more successful when compared to businesses that offer similar services or products as offered by numerous other businesses. To achieve this edge over the contemporaries, there is a growing need to introduce new products to the market by exploiting …

American College Students' Perceptions Of Saudi Arabia As A Travel Destination, Majed Hader

Theses

Destination image is a critical factor for customers making a travel decision. The recent fluctuation in oil prices has forced the Government of Saudi Arabia to focus on tourism to revive its economy. The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, affected the image of Saudi Arabia in the minds of people in other countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate American college students’ perceptions of Saudi Arabia as a travel destination and to provide information to help Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority to develop marketing strategies that will attract potential tourists.

Pixel: Building A Dyslexic Child's Mind, Aparna Natraj

Theses

One in five students, or 15-20% of the population, has a language based learning disability. Dyslexia is the most common of the language based learning disabilities. Dyslexia is mainly a problem with reading accurately and fluently — Accuracy being identified as Letter Recognition and Fluency as Word Recognition.

This thesis looked into various educational applications that help dyslexic children and identified that they rely heavily on intensive instruction in phonetic code and the learning method employed by these applications do not create a lasting impact. The proposed solution integrated the symbol mastery method of learning to create a new digital …

Reborn Of The Beauty, Ting Hsuan Tsao

Theses

Nowadays, 3D techniques play an important role in the reproduction of history and culture on screen. Modeling and 3D visual effects, using technical tools and other computer methods to achieve high returns from the movie industry, have become prominent in today’s technological trends.

Taiwan has always been identified as a province of China. The island nation, however, has its own unique culture and history. With the growing number of people emigrating to Taiwan annually, the opportunity to share our story has grown as well. In this regard, the 3D technique offers useful ways to bring the past back to life, …

Paleo Journey: An Interactive Paleolithic Cave Art Experience. Using The User Experience (Ux) Design Process To Develop An Interactive And Immersive Paleolithic Cave Art Exhibit Suitable For Children Between Five (5) And Seven (7) Years Old., James J. Parrillo

Theses

Most European caves containing Paleolithic cave art paintings (dating from approximately 10,000 – 50,000 years BP) are no longer accessible to the general public, and their visitor centers often require lengthy travel for tourists. In addition, the interactivity associated with these exhibits largely focus upon computer screens, and not a tactile interface. This Thesis project seeks to create a prototype of a tactile interface on a mock cave surface using projection mapping and motion tracking.

In developing this exhibit, the user experience (UX) design process was used as a methodology for defining, researching and co-designing for a particular user segment. …

We Fish: An Interactive Information Design Mobile App For Local Fishing, Liyang Wang

Theses

Fishing is a popular hobby in today’s society. People enjoy fishing to relieve stress, create social bonds, and find it fulfilling and challenging. In order to fish effectively, a fisherman needs to know the real-time weather, location information, and have basic fishing knowledge. There are many ways we can help fishermen by providing this information in an easily accessible manner. For fishing beginners and fishing amateurs, the best way to help them catch fish is to create a tool that solves their needs.

Mobile applications have quickly become a useful tool and are widely used today for its diversity and …

A Low, Cost Portable Ground Station To Track And Communicate With Satellites In Vhf Band, Sneha Velayudhan

Theses

In this thesis, we present the architecture and implementation of a low-cost, small, mobile and easily deployable ground station to track and receive signals from satellites that operate on the VHF-band (144 MHz to 147 MHz). The ground station uses a handheld 5-dB gain Yagi-Uda antenna, a low noise amplifier with 23 dB gain and a software defined radio (FUNcube Dongle) to receive the signals. The analog front end’s software-defined nature gives it the flexibility to target satellites with diverse power, modulation and error-correcting schemes. Software for satellite tracking, signal decoding and processing is freely-available.

The low cost of the …

Weekly: A Design System That Combines Graphic And Interaction Design For Scheduling Student Events, Kaige Liu

Theses

A common need for students is scheduling events efficiently. Students using various methods for scheduling events. Some prefer a physical paper calendar, while others prefer to use a mobile device. Several problems can occur when students schedule events. For example, it may not be clear when a student’s free time periods are, especially when trying to meet with a team or group members. Also, user’s preferences are different on how they schedule events.

To address the issue of inefficiency in scheduling events, a design system that focuses on print, interaction, and user experience design is created. The design system includes …

Bomber Boy, Biying Xu

Theses

Bomber Boy is a 2D animation thesis with a length of three minutes and 44 seconds. It is a story about finding a better way to control temper to avoid causing harm to others. It happens in a world that people blow up when they are angry. All the people in this world have a fuse on their head. While the main character, Thorn, has a very short fuse. He blows up quickly because of it. He blows up several times in school, which makes other students afraid of him. He hates himself and runs into an illusion that he …

The Misconception Of Social Anxiety Disorder: Creating Understanding Through Motion Graphics, Kaijun Qu

Theses

This thesis project explores Social Anxiety Disorder, by showing emotions and feelings of the person who suffers from social phobia to help his/her friends and classmates to understand them.

The symptoms of a person with social phobia can be seen as being afraid of communicating with other people, appearing in public, and/or being the center of attention. In such situations, others may easily misunderstand them, so the patient can lose the chance to communicate to others. As a result, the patient's condition will be getting worse. Therefore, it is very hard for people with social phobia to make new friends. …

Sohni Mahiwal Preserving South Asian Cultural Heritage Through Animated Storytelling, Anem Syed

Theses

Majority of Pakistani youth is not enthralled by the country’s rich cultural heritage. There is less public knowledge on the subject. This translates into less appreciation or interest. The academic system is largely responsible for this. It imparts a conservative history of undivided India, focuses on politics, ignores its nuanced culture. Unless students venture into specialized fields of art and humanities, most do not get stimulated to study history. Additionally, today when digital learning is on the rise, there is a lack of relevant sources on the subject. This thesis is creating a digital source. It is re-packaging an Indian …

Modeling And Implementation Of Hfo2-Based Ferroelectric Tunnel Junctions, Spencer Allen Pringle

Theses

HfO2-based ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs) represent a unique opportunity as both a next-generation digital non-volatile memory and as synapse devices in braininspired logic systems, owing to their higher reliability compared to filamentary resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) and higher speed and lower power consumption compared to competing devices, including phase-change memory (PCM) and state-of-the-art FTJ. Ferroelectrics are often easier to deposit and have simpler material structure than films for magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). Ferroelectric HfO2 also enables complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility, since lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and BaTiO3-based FTJs often are not.

No other groups have yet demonstrated a HfO2-based FTJ …

The Infusion Length Of Material Filled Inside Hollow Core Fiber, Omkar Balasaheb Ugale

Theses

We have designed a MATLAB code to perform the simulations on the infusion length of fluid inside the capillary. Previous research work has shown few results but the equation used for plotting the graph of infusion length v/s time has a numerical error. The work we have done has shown the step-by-step procedure to derive the list of forces acting on the capillary getting filled with the material and has also plotted the graph of infusion length v/s time from the equation we get after proof of derivation. The significant changes can be seen in the overall infusion length from …

Investigations Of Model-Free Sliding Mode Control Algorithms Including Application To Autonomous Quadrotor Flight, Eric Schulken

Theses

Sliding mode control is a robust nonlinear control algorithm that has been used to implement tracking controllers for unmanned aircraft systems that are robust to modeling uncertainty and exogenous disturbances, thereby providing excellent performance for autonomous operation. A significant advance in the application of sliding mode control for unmanned aircraft systems would be adaptation of a model-free sliding mode control algorithm, since the most complex and time-consuming aspect of implementation of sliding mode control is the derivation of the control law with incorporation of the system model, a process required to be performed for each individual application of sliding mode …

Customizable Textured Tablet Case And Magnetic Prompting System To Improve Communication For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Christina Maragioglio

Theses

As Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnoses increase in prevalence, there is a growing need for assistive devices to help meet the communication needs of each person and their own unique set of challenges. Autism is a neurological disorder which most prominently impacts communication and social skills but can impact each person differently by way of coupled conditions. Of these conditions, two of the most common with Autism are Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and Motor Skill delays.

Additionally, to help with communication and language development, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) techniques are often used, with tablet AAC applications being one of the …

Configurable Random Instruction Generator For Risc Processors, Krunal Mange

Theses

Processors have evolved and grown more complex to serve enormous computational needs. Even though modern-day processors share same dna with processors half century ago, verifying them today is the huge wall to scale. Verification dominates production cycle even with advances both in software (programming as well as CAD tools) and manufacturing (fabrication) as there are too many test scenarios to cover. Testing complex devices like processors with manual-testing alone in certainty missing the dead lines. Automatic verification is a great way to overcome hurdles of manual testing viz. speed, manpower, and ultimately cost. The work described in this paper targets …

Studies On Stable Crack Growth, Mohammed Juma Humaid Al-Ghafri

Theses

The goal of this work is to experimentally investigate the stable crack growth (SCG) fracture behavior of AISI 4340 alloy steel. A series of mode I and mixed mode SCG fracture tests were carried out on 8 mm thick compact tension (CT) specimens subjected to quasistatic loading. The wire cutting technique was used to introduce a pre-notch/ pre-crack of 0.05 mm root radius to the specimen. Five different loading angles Ψ between the loading axis and the crack surface were employed; 90° (mode I), 75°, 65°, 60° and 50°. Five different ratios of original crack length to specimen width a …