Digital Commons Network^™

Vaccine Procurement In A Time-Indexed Model With Quantity-Based Discounts, Joseph N. Yeiter

Theses

Vaccination is hailed as one of the greatest scientific achievements of the past century. However, affordability and accessibility prevent low-income countries from realizing the full benefit of immunization. This study applies operations research methods to a hypothetically coordinated global vaccine market with quantity-based discounts to minimize procurement and holding costs while ensuring investment recovery of manufacturers. The effects on affordability of fixed-costs, holding costs, cold-chain capacity, and tender length (i.e. the maximum number of years ahead markets are willing to order supply from producers) are analyzed for each income-based segment of the global market. Experimental results show that increases in …

Translating Counting Problems Into Computable Language Expressions, Zach Prescott

Theses

The realm of automated problem solving is a relatively new field, even in the context of natural language processing. One area where this is often demonstrated is that of creating a program that can solve word problems. The program must understand the problem, perform some processing, and then convey this information to a user in a way that is accessible and understandable. There has been quite a lot of progress in this area with simpler problems. However, when it comes to understanding problems that involve a level of NLP, the results are not conclusive. In this paper, we would like …

Employing Optical Flow On Convolutional Recurrent Structures For Deepfake Detection, Akash Chintha

Theses

Deepfakes, or artificially generated audiovisual renderings, can be used to defame a public figure or influence public opinion. With the recent discovery of generative adversarial networks, an attacker using a normal desktop computer fitted with an off-the-shelf graphics processing unit can make renditions realistic enough to easily fool a human observer. Detecting deepfakes is thus becoming vital for reporters, social networks, and the general public. Preliminary research introduced simple, yet surprisingly efficient digital forensic methods for visual deepfake detection. These methods combined convolutional latent representations with bidirectional recurrent structures and entropy-based cost functions. The latent representations for the video are …

Self-Supervision Initialization For Semantic Segmentation Networks, Kenneth Alexopoulos

Theses

Convolutional neural networks excel at extracting features from signals. These features are able to be utilized for many downstream tasks. These tasks include object recognition, object detection, depth estimation, pixel level semantic segmentation, and more. These tasks can be used for applications such as autonomous driving where images captured by a camera can be used to give a detailed understanding of the scene. While these models are impressive, they can fail to generalize to new environments. This forces the cumbersome process of collecting images from multifarious environments and annotating them by hand. Annotating thousands or millions of images is both …

Radio Observations Of The Neutron Star X-Ray Binary Circinus X-1: Clues On The Onset Of Radio Emission And Jet Formation, Batool Ahmad Essa Saleh Ilyasi

Theses

Circinus X-1 is a Neutron-Star X-ray Binary System which features strong and variable radio emission. This emission is triggered as a result of the interaction between neutron star and its companion as they approach periastron. Radio observations of Circinus X-1 have not been carried out over the past 7 years. Here are the results of the radio observation and monitoring campaign on Circinus X-1 with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) – Australia, at centimeter wavelengths (5.5 and 9 GHz). The radio behavior of Circinus X-1 has been monitored over two of its orbits (16.6 days each) to probe its …

Fabrication, Characterization And Applications Of Chemically Modified Planar Metallic Electrodes From Copper Clad Sheets, Rana T. Alsaidi

Theses

In this work, we developed a fabricating method for planar electrodes by milling and cutting copper-clad sheets. The main objectives of this thesis are to produce customized planar electrodes with different geometries with relatively higher reusability compared to the screen-printed electrodes available by commercial vendors. The fabricated electrodes from copper-clad sheets were electroplated with different metals using commercial electroplating baths to produce different metallic planar electrodes. Also, the fabrication of planar electrodes with cavities to be filled with modified carbon paste was done. The electroplated planar electrodes were characterized by the cyclic voltammetry technique. In addition to that, they were …

Disruptive Bussiness Model For Higher Education, Aya Rizik Abushawish

Theses

A business model is a plan for the successful operation of a business, identifying the source of revenue, the intended customers, value proposition, key resources, activities, and financing. It describes how organizations create, deliver and capture value. The recent developments in information and communications technology (ICT) disrupted most business models in different industries. The higher education industry is no exception, where it witnessed enormous integration of information and communications technologies. E-learning in higher education has made a tremendous shift in students’ life and raised the expectations of higher education service quality. The main objective of this thesis to develop a …

Biological Control Of Sudden Decline Disease Of Date Palm (Phoenix Dactylifera L.) In The United Arab Emirates, Khawla Juma Saif Zeail Alwahshi

Theses

Date palm orchards suffer from serious diseases, including sudden decline syndrome (SDS). The fungal pathogen Fusarium solani was associated with SDS on date palm in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Application of Cidely® Top (difenoconazole and cyflufenamid) significantly inhibited the fungal mycelial growth In vitro and reduced SDS development on date palm seedlings pre-inoculated with F. solani under greenhouse conditions. This is the first report confirming that the chemical fungicide Cidely® Top is strongly effective against SDS on date palm. Fungal pathogens not only inhibit plant growth directly but also induce the plant to synthesize stress ethylene. Much of the …

Biological Control Of Fusarium Wilt In Date Palm (Phoenix Dactylifera L.) In The United Arab Emirates By Endophytic Actinobacteria, Aisha Abdullah Darwish Shambeh Alblooshi

Theses

Date palm trees suffer from many various serious diseases, including sudden decline syndrome (SDS). External symptoms were characterized by whitening on one side of the rachis, progressing from the base to the apex of the leaf until the whole leaf dies; while the internal disease symptoms included reddish roots and highly coloured vascular bundles causing wilting and death of the tree. Although three Fusarium spp. (F. oxysporum, F. proliferatum and F. solani) were isolated from diseased root samples, the fungal pathogen F. solani was associated with SDS on date palm in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Fusarium spp. were identified …

Push Recovery For Humanoid Robots Using Linearized Double Inverted Pendulum, Saurav Singh

Theses

Biped robots have come a long way in imitating a human being's anatomy and posture. Standing balance and push recovery are some of the biggest challenges for such robots. This work presents a novel simplified model for a humanoid robot to recover from external disturbances. The proposed Linearized Double Inverted Pendulum, models the dynamics of a complex humanoid robot that can use ankle and hip recovery strategies while taking full advantage of the advances in controls theory research. To support this, an LQR based control architecture is also presented in this work. The joint torque signals are generated along with …

Multi-Sensor Fusion For 3d Object Detection, Darshan Ramesh Bhanushali

Theses

Sensing and modelling of the surrounding environment is crucial for solving many of the problems in intelligent machines like self-driving cars, autonomous robots, and augmented reality displays. Performance, reliability and safety of the autonomous agents rely heavily on the way the environment is modelled. Two-dimensional models are inadequate to capture the three-dimensional nature of real-world scenes. Three-dimensional models are necessary to achieve the standards required by the autonomy stack for intelligent agents to work alongside humans. Data driven deep learning methodologies for three-dimensional scene modelling has evolved greatly in the past few years because of the availability of huge amounts …

Privacy-Preserving Recommendation System Using Federated Learning, Rahul Basu

Theses

Federated Learning is a form of distributed learning which leverages edge devices for training. It aims to preserve privacy by communicating users’ learning parameters and gradient updates to the global server during the training while keeping the actual data on the users’ devices. The training on global server is performed on these parameters instead of user data directly while fine tuning of the model can be done on client’s devices locally. However, federated learning is not without its shortcomings and in this thesis, we present an overview of the learning paradigm and propose a new federated recommender system framework that …

Analysis Of Gameplay Strategies In Hearthstone: A Data Science Approach, Connor W. Watson

Theses

In recent years, games have been a popular test bed for AI research, and the presence of Collectible Card Games (CCGs) in that space is still increasing. One such CCG for both competitive/casual play and AI research is Hearthstone, a two-player adversarial game where players seeks to implement one of several gameplay strategies to defeat their opponent and decrease all of their Health points to zero. Although some open source simulators exist, some of their methodologies for simulated agents create opponents with a relatively low skill level. Using evolutionary algorithms, this thesis seeks to evolve agents with a higher skill …

Model-Based Deep Siamese Autoencoder For Clustering Single Cell Rna-Seq Data, Zixia Meng

Theses

In the biological field, the smallest unit of organisms in most biological systems is the single cell, and the classification of cells is an everlasting problem. A central task for analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data is to identify and characterize novel cell types. Currently, there are several classical methods, such as K-means algorithm, spectral clustering, and Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs), which are widely used to cluster the cells. Furthermore, typical dimensional reduction methods such as PCA, t-SNE, and ZIDA have been introduced to overcome “the curse of dimensionality”. A more recent method scDeepCluster has demonstrated improved and promising performances in …

An Information Theoretic Approach To Assess Perceived Audio Quality Using Eeg With Reduced Number Of Electrodes, Sansit Das

Theses

Electroencephalograph(EEG) is a process mainly used in medical and research fields to study the electrical activities in a brain. In this technique, 128 or 256 electrodes are attached to the scalp and the electrical activities of the human brain is recorded with the help of a software. In the global scenario, the EEG responses are studied and analysed to acknowledge any disorders in the brain, such as epilepsy or head injury.

Recent studies performed by researchers, have focused on analysing these electrical activities to access perceived audio quality from users by using information theoretic approaches, such as mutual information. Experiments …

Prediction Of Gas-Hydrate Equilibrium, Stability And Kinetic Nucleation In Porous Media, Yali Zhang

Theses

Natural gas-hydrates are crystalline inclusion compounds with gas molecules (guest compounds) trapped within a host lattice formed by water molecules in an ice-like hydrogen-bonded framework. Natural gas-hydrates have the potential to become an important carbon-based resource addressing the increasing energy demand, and they pose a risk in terms of climate change. Accurate estimates of gas-hydrates global inventory, understanding of formation and dissociation processes of gas-hydrates, and evaluation of their environmental impact require models that accurately describe gas-hydrate stability in sediments and predict gas-hydrate kinetic nucleation processes. The hypothesis driving this work is that incorporation of selected sediment properties, i.e., surface …

Customer Complaints Auto-Assignment Using Machine Learning Algorithms, Muammar Nasser Saleh Mohammed

Theses

Managing customer complaints is a very challenging activity, especially when it comes to a government entity like Roads a Transport Authority (RTA) that manages the roads infrastructure and services. RTA for the management of the customer complaints requires a sophisticated and intelligent responsive system for the large volume of cases and calls, which result in needs to a lot of human resources to receive, record and handle customer calls and cases. "The key customer-save course of action is the complaints-handling process. Customers who complain to service providers and are well treated by the process are less likely to churn than …

The Primary Volatile Composition Of Comet C/2015 Er61 (Panstarrs), Aaron Butler

Theses

In the outer edges of the solar system exist two regions: the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. These two regions have a high amount of icy bodies (comets) orbiting the Sun. Comets located within the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt contain an ancient codex to the solar systems contents, before the formation of our solar system. Presented are near-infrared, high-resolution (λ/Δλ ~40000) data obtained from the immersion-grating echelle spectrograph iSHELL at the 3m NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Maunakea, Hawaii of the Oort cloud comet C/2015 ER61 (PANSTARRS). Observations took place on April 15 and 17 in 2017 while …

Polarization Properties Of Broad Lines In Active Galactic Nuclei, Brian Christopher Lake

Theses

The center of every large galaxy is believed to host a supermassive black hole (SMBH). In some of these galaxies, the nuclear region is extremely luminous and far outshines the entire stellar population. Called active galactic nuclei (AGN), these central sources are equally fascinating and perplexing. Due to their immense distance and small size, modern observation techniques are unable to resolve the structure of these regions. However, the polarization of scattered light carries the imprint of the geometry and kinematics of both the sources and the scattering medium. Here, we present a study of the broad H$\alpha$ lines in a …

School Bus Network Optimization, Husam Abdelrahim Al-Qawasmeh

Theses

The city of Dubai has more than 200 schools, with around 6,500 School buses that are either managed by the school itself or bus operator companies. A low percentage of bus-usage aggravates school traffic according to top RTA official that stated that only 11% of total school trips in Dubai are via bus (compared to 32% in the United States), school buses account for 13% of peak-hour traffic while they 53% of bus seats were occupied, as parents prefer private transport. Private transport schools remain as significant contributing factor traffic congestion, and environmental pollution as a major percentage of students …

An Analysis Of Communication Apprehension Between Stem And Non-Stem University Students, Samantha Schreiber

Theses

This study compares communication apprehension (CA) of undergraduate STEM and non-STEM students at a private university in the United States. Using a variation of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension, undergraduate students were surveyed online and during in-person class sessions. Based on 409 (N = 409) survey responses, there was no significant difference in CA between STEM and non-STEM students. However, independent sample t-tests revealed differences in STEM for gender and year-level. Male students have significantly higher CA than their female classmates in all contexts. Additionally, senior students have significantly higher CA in group discussions and public speaking settings compared …

A Doe To Determine Significant Manufacturing Parameters For Opv Devices, Iain Tracton

Theses

The study of alternative energy sources is important to fighting climate change by reducing our dependence on burning of fossil fuels. Solar power is of interest because of the immense power radiated by the sun. Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) devices offer the ability to produce cheaper solar power but are challenged by low device efficiencies. In this study we work with devices made from squaraines (SQ) and a common functionalized fullerene (PCBM). We conduct a Design of Experiments (DOE) to determine what manufacturing parameters are affecting device efficiencies. By conducting a DOE, we also gain the ability to determine if there …

Epics At The Bottom Of The River: Narratives Of Economic Development In French Louisiana, Kat Spears

Theses

A use of narrative and biographical history to describe how economic creolization developed French Louisiana.

On Scaling Of Brake Test Sae J2522, David Sean Mckavanagh

Theses

Friction brakes represent the most important safety feature literally in all vehicles and their rigorous “friction testing” is usually performed on several platforms/scales and completed with field tests. Since friction and wear are system properties, it is not trivial to design “small scale” tests and to correlate data generated at different levels of testing complexity. Nevertheless, the economy of the brake materials development process could be improved, when interpretation of friction and wear test data is based on a deeper/proper understanding of physics and chemistry of ongoing friction phenomena. This contribution follows the two series previously presented at SAE Brake …

The Feminine Renaissance: Examining The Implications Of Disegno, Kim Pokorny

Theses

This paper analyzes the concept of disegno in its effect on the success of the female artist in the early modern era. Achieving disegno effectively meant that an artist had reached a renowned level of intelligence and artistic mastery. Formulating this principle in one's art was taught in studios and academies by use of gradual monitored practice and the study of the human figure. Disegno elevated the social status of the artist, as wealthy patrons understood the talent behind the work of an artist that could display it in their paintings. As women were not admitted into most academies and …

Bayesian Methods For Radiometric Calibration In Motion Picture Encoding Workflows, Ricardo R. Figueroa

Theses

A method for estimating the Camera Response Function (CRF) of an electronic motion picture camera is presented in this work. The accurate estimation of the CRF allows for proper encoding of camera exposures into motion picture post-production workflows, like the Academy Color Encoding Specification (ACES), this being a necessary step to correctly combine images from different capture sources into one cohesive final production and minimize non-creative manual adjustments.

Although there are well known standard CRFs implemented in typical video camera workflows, motion picture workflows and newer High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging workflows have introduced new standard CRFs as well as …

Parallelized Robustness Computation For Cyber Physicalsystems Verification, Joseph Cralley

Theses

Failures in cyber physical systems can be costly in terms of money and lives. The marsclimate orbiter alone had a mission cost of 327.6 million USD which was almostcompletely wasted do to an uncaught design flaw. This shows the importance of beingable to define formal requirements as well as being able to test the design against theserequirements. One way to define requirements is in Metric Temporal Logic (MTL), whichallows for constraints that also have a time component. MTL can also have a distancemetric defined that allows for the calculation of how close the MTL constraint is to beingfalsified. This is …

Posits: An Alternative To Floating Point Calculations, Matt Wagner

Theses

Floating point arithmetic is one of several methods of performing computations in digital designs; others include integer and fixed point computations. Fixed point utilizes a method comparable to scientific notation in the binary domain. In terms of computations, floating point is by far the most prevalent in today’s digital designs. Between the support offered by compilers, as well as for ready-to-use IP blocks, floating point units (FPU’s) are a de-facto standard for most processors. Despite its prevalence in modern designs, floating point has many flaws. One of the most common is the use of not-a-numbers (NaN’s). These are meant to …

Led Selection For Spectral (Multispectral) Imaging, Jenibel N. Paray

Theses

Research was performed to design an LED-based spectral imaging system having channels, commonly referred to as a multispectral imaging system. The first part tackled the evaluation of a camera model in predicting the signals of a 10 LED LEDmotive Technologies Spectra Tunelab coupled with a Finger Lakes Instrumentation panchromatic camera. The camera model was shown to be valid and effective in predicting the camera signal taking into account the color transformation noise. The second part involved the computational selection of 10 LEDs in order to determine the optimum combination for a custom Spectra Tunelab. The computational selection used the spectral …

Theoretical Analysis And Design Of Analog Distortion Circuitry, Daniel Saber

Theses

The music industry is one that demands the use of modern engineering technologies, such as effects pedals, in order to achieve a customizable tone for a unique style. Using effects pedals such as distortion, delay, reverb, and many more, a musician can create a specific tone with distinct characteristics and adjust certain parameters of the sound to their own preference. This paper will focus on distortion pedals and the theory revolving around the design of a custom distortion pedal. Different kinds of distortion require different circuitry and different components. Certain types of guitar distortion pedals create distortion using simple transistor …