Digital Commons Network^™

Do Workshops Work For Building Evaluation Capacity Among Cooperative Extension Service Faculty?, Kathleen D. Kelsey

Journal of Extension

A case study used survey design (pre-test, satisfaction, and post-test) to determine if a 1-day workshop affected participants' skills and self-efficacy in regard to conducting evaluation and if workshop participants applied evaluation skills afterwards. Findings indicate that the workshop was effective in building self-efficacy; however, it did not sustain evaluation practice. Formal training may be necessary to develop skills such as logic modeling, data collection and analysis, and reporting findings to solidify evaluation competencies among participants. It is recommended that Extension faculty engage in continuing education in program evaluation as part of a career development ladder to build evaluation capacity.

Eastern Idaho Teens Learn Table Etiquette, Barbara D. Petty, Lorie Dye, Janice Stimpson

Journal of Extension

University of Idaho Extension Educators developed Manner Mishaps to teach teenagers skills for familial, social, and professional dinner settings. Through the use of PowerPoint® slides, demonstrations, the video Etiquette Hotline, and an interactive game, the students learned proper table settings and the use of tableware. Of the 1,086 participants, 97% agreed or strongly agreed that the program was interesting and that participating in the program would be helpful in their future. Student knowledge of etiquette rules and behaviors increased from an average of 65.9% on the pre-test to 95.0% after completing the course.

Cooperative Effort Leads To The Development Of Tools To Assist Pork Producers In Evaluating Structural Soundness Of Replacement Gilts, Kenneth Stalder, Dale Miller, Colin Johnson, Mark Boggess

Journal of Extension

The objective of the project described here was to develop and deliver new visual tools to assist pork producers to evaluate the structural and reproductive soundness of replacement gilts within their sow herds. The development and distribution of the posters demonstrates how Extension, industry commodity groups, industry partners, and business media can work together to deliver the tools needed to have a positive economic impact at the farm level. Ideas like these are needed to meet the increasingly complex educational needs of modern agricultural industries like the U.S. pork industry.

Explaining Inferences In Bayesian Networks, Ghim-Eng Yap, Ah-Hwee Tan, Hwee Hwa Pang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While Bayesian network (BN) can achieve accurate predictions even with erroneous or incomplete evidence, explaining the inferences remains a challenge. Existing approaches fall short because they do not exploit variable interactions and cannot account for compensations during inferences. This paper proposes the Explaining BN Inferences (EBI) procedure for explaining how variables interact to reach conclusions. EBI explains the value of a target node in terms of the influential nodes in the target's Markov blanket under specific contexts, where the Markov nodes include the target's parents, children, and the children's other parents. Working back from the target node, EBI shows the …

Dit News, 1st.-31st. Of December, 2008, Dit:Students Union

DIT Student Union

No abstract provided.

Simulation Of Nanostructured Electrodes For Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells, Sanjeev M. Rao, Yangchuan Xing

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with Pt uniformly deposited on them are being considered in fabricating the catalyst layer of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell electrodes. When coated with a proton conducting polymer (e.g., Nafion) on the Pt/CNTs, each Pt/CNT acts as a nanoelectrode and a collection of such nanoelectrodes constitutes the proposed nanostructured electrodes. Computer modeling was performed for the cathode side, in which both multicomponent and Knudsen diffusion were taken into account. the effect of the nanoelectrode lengths was also studied with catalyst layer thicknesses of 2, 4, 6, and 10 μm. It was observed that shorter lengths …

Pas: Predicate-Based Authentication Services Against Powerful Passive Adversaries, Sriram Chellappan, Xiaole Bai, Wenjun Gu, Xun Wang, Dong Xuan, Bin Ma

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Securely authenticating a human user without assistance from any auxiliary device in the presence of powerful passive adversaries is an important and challenging problem. Passive adversaries are those that can passively monitor, intercept, and analyze every part of the authentication procedure, except for an initial secret shared between the user and the server. In this paper, we propose a new secure authentication scheme called predicate-based authentication service (PAS). In this scheme, for the first time, the concept of a predicate is introduced for authentication. We conduct analysis on the proposed scheme and implement its prototype system. Our analytical data and …

Neural-Network-Based State Feedback Control Of A Nonlinear Discrete-Time System In Nonstrict Feedback Form, Pingan He, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a suite of adaptive neural network (NN) controllers is designed to deliver a desired tracking performance for the control of an unknown, second-order, nonlinear discrete-time system expressed in nonstrict feedback form. In the first approach, two feedforward NNs are employed in the controller with tracking error as the feedback variable whereas in the adaptive critic NN architecture, three feedforward NNs are used. In the adaptive critic architecture, two action NNs produce virtual and actual control inputs, respectively, whereas the third critic NN approximates certain strategic utility function and its output is employed for tuning action NN weights …

Energy Efficiency In Steel Casting Production, Raymond Monroe, Kent D. Peaslee, R. Eppich

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Know Your Audience: An Assessment Of Preferred Learning Styles Of Freshman Students At Red River High School In Grand Forks, North Dakota, Kelly D. Peters

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research was to identify theories and describe characteristics of learning styles, assess characteristics of freshman students at Red River High School using data from the CAPSOL (Computerized Assessment and Prescription Styles of Learning) Style of Learning Assessment, MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) Scores, GPA (Grade Point Average), and North Dakota STARS (State Automated Reporting System), and justify a pedagogical and philosophical change in instruction to adapt instructional strategies to match and strengthen students' learning styles.

The research investigated the relationships between learning style scale scores, GPA, gender, RIT (Rasch Unit) Scores, and socioeconomic factors. This study …

Improvements In Steel Melting Efficiency -- Industrial Trials, Kent D. Peaslee, Semen Naumovich Lekakh, Edith Martinez

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Industrial trials were completed to improve energy efficiency in steel melting. First, the benefits of increased chemical energy from an oxyfuel burner and a Co-Jet system in a basic 20 ton electric arc furnace (EAF) were studied. Observations and measurements were made during production before and after the installation of the two systems. The additional chemical energy improved energy efficiency and resulted in increased production. In addition, production using a basic EAF practice was compared to the traditional acid EAF practice. Second, an industrial trial using a 750 lb ladle with a combination of a lightweight alumina castable refractory and …

Maximum Likelihood And Gaussian Estimation Of Continuous Time Models In Finance, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper overviews maximum likelihood and Gaussian methods of estimating continuous time models used in finance. Since the exact likelihood can be constructed only in special cases, much attention has been devoted to the development of methods designed to approximate the likelihood. These approaches range from crude Euler-type approximations and higher order stochastic Taylor series expansions to more complex polynomial-based expansions and infill approximations to the likelihood based on a continuous time data record. The methods are discussed, their properties are outlined and their relative finite sample performance compared in a simulation experiment with the nonlinear CIR diffusion model, which …

Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The law on apparent bias has been mired in some controversy following the High Court decision of Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni, where Sundaresh Menon J.C. seemingly departed from the tentative views of Andrew Phang J.C. (as he then was) in Tang Kin Hwa v. Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Board on the issue of whether there were any material differences between the “reasonable suspicion of bias” test and the “real likelihood of bias” test, the two formulations of the test for apparent bias that have been variously adopted by different jurisdictions in the common law world. In Tang Kin …

Global Analysis Of An Expectations Augmented Evolutionary Dynamics, Angelo Antoci, Antonio Gay, Massimiliano Landi, Pier Luigi Sacco

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a deterministic evolutionary model where players form expectations about future play. Players are not fully rational and have expectations that change over time in response to current payoffs and feedback from the past. We provide a complete characterization of the qualitative dynamics so induced for a two strategy population game, and relate our findings to standard evolutionary dynamics and equilibrium selection when agents have rational forward looking expectations.

Cognitive Agents Integrating Rules And Reinforcement Learning For Context-Aware Decision Support, Teck-Hou Teng, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While context-awareness has been found to be effective for decision support in complex domains, most of such decision support systems are hard-coded, incurring significant development efforts. To ease the knowledge acquisition bottleneck, this paper presents a class of cognitive agents based on self-organizing neural model known as TD-FALCON that integrates rules and learning for supporting context-aware decision making. Besides the ability to incorporate a priori knowledge in the form of symbolic propositional rules, TD-FALCON performs reinforcement learning (RL), enabling knowledge refinement and expansion through the interaction with its environment. The efficacy of the developed Context-Aware Decision Support (CaDS) system is …

A Fast Pruned‐Extreme Learning Machine For Classification Problem, Hai-Jun Rong, Yew-Soon Ong, Ah-Hwee Tan, Zexuan Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Extreme learning machine (ELM) represents one of the recent successful approaches in machine learning, particularly for performing pattern classification. One key strength of ELM is the significantly low computational time required for training new classifiers since the weights of the hidden and output nodes are randomly chosen and analytically determined, respectively. In this paper, we address the architectural design of the ELM classifier network, since too few/many hidden nodes employed would lead to underfitting/overfitting issues in pattern classification. In particular, we describe the proposed pruned-ELM (P-ELM) algorithm as a systematic and automated approach for designing ELM classifier network. P-ELM uses …

Chosen-Ciphertext Secure Proxy Re-Encryption Without Pairing, Robert H. Deng, Jian Weng, Shengli Liu, Kefei Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In a proxy re-encryption system, a semi-trusted proxy can convert a ciphertext originally intended for Alice into a ciphertext intended for Bob, without learning the underlying plaintext. Proxy re-encryption has found many practical applications, such as encrypted email forwarding, secure distributed file systems, and outsourced filtering of encrypted spam. In ACM CCS'07, Canetti and Hohenberger presented a proxy re-encryption scheme with chosen-ciphertext security, and left an important open problem to construct a chosen-ciphertext secure proxy re-encryption scheme without pairings. In this paper, we solve this open problem by proposing a new proxy re-encryption scheme without resort to bilinear pairings. Based …

Cfrp Repair Of Concrete Beams Aged By Accelerated Corrosion, George C. Parish

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In 2006, the Federal Highway Administration statistics showed that approximately one out of every 13 reinforced concrete bridges in the USA is structurally deficient. As infrastructure continues to age and deteriorate, there will not be sufficient funds to replace every deficient bridge. Therefore, effective and durable repair methods must be developed and implemented. In this research, an experimental study is presented to determine both the short- and long-term efficiencies of concrete retrofit with externally-bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) fabrics. The primary objective is to determine effective concrete-repair and CFRP-retrofit approaches for rehabilitation of deteriorated concrete bridge girders, based on …

Identifying Genomic Signatures For Predicting Breast Cancer Outcomes, Shruti Rathnagiriswaran

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Predicting the risk for recurrence in breast cancer patients is a critical task in clinics. Recent developments in DNA microarrays have fostered tremendous advances in molecular diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer.;The first part of our study was based on a novel approach of considering the level of genomic instability as one of the most powerful predictors of clinical outcome. A systematic technique was presented to explore whether there is a linkage between the degree of genomic instability, gene expression patterns, and clinical outcomes by considering the following hypotheses; first, the degree of genomic instability is reflected by an aneuploidy-specific …

Design And Implementation Of A Multithreaded Softcore Processor With Tightly Coupled Hardware Real-Time Operating System, Terance Prabhasara Wijesinghe

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The objective of this thesis is to design and implement an FPGA-based softcore processor with hardware Real Time Operating System (RTOS).;RTOSs provide an abstracted environment on top of the hardware with different mechanisms to simplify and coordinate the behavior of the system. Software mechanisms including multithreading, semaphores, timers, interrupts, etc. consume large amounts of CPU time which increases overhead and contributes to the degradation of the performance. In order to offload this overhead, RTOSs with hardware acceleration have been a research topic with considerable interest. Most research works are focused on the design of a hardware RTOS external to the …

Impulsivity And Trauma Exposure In Adolescents, Lisa B. Greene

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Trauma exposure is prevalent among adolescents and may have a negative impact on social, educational, and occupational functioning. Research indicates that individual-level variables, such as impulsivity, may be risk factors for exposure to traumatic events but the findings have been mixed. This study examined the relation between impulsivity and accidental trauma exposure using a multi-method, multi-informant procedure with a community sample of 48 adolescents. Mean age was 15.2 (SD = 1.38) and the sample was predominantly female (62.5%) and predominantly Caucasian (87.5%). No significant difference was noted between genders in terms of number of traumatic events reported. As a whole, …

Video Modeling Via Implicit Motion Representations, Yunfei Zheng

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Video modeling refers to the development of analytical representations for explaining the intensity distribution in video signals. Based on the analytical representation, we can develop algorithms for accomplishing particular video-related tasks. Therefore video modeling provides us a foundation to bridge video data and related-tasks. Although there are many video models proposed in the past decades, the rise of new applications calls for more efficient and accurate video modeling approaches.;Most existing video modeling approaches are based on explicit motion representations, where motion information is explicitly expressed by correspondence-based representations (i.e., motion velocity or displacement). Although it is conceptually simple, the limitations …

Effects Of Rate Of Feedback And Reinforcement On Novel Responding, Vennessa L. Walker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Ten middle-school students were assigned to receive feedback and token reinforcement either every 1 min (HR) or every 15 min (LR). Subjects used a computer program to learn to perform 5 basic algebra skills at high rates and high accuracy. Subjects were yoked with a partner for practice so that each member of the pair completed the same number of items per skill. Subjects were provided with cumulative review worksheets and then were tested for distraction, adduction, and retention. Results suggest that HR facilitates faster acquisition of skills as well as better performance on cumulative reviews, distraction, and retention tests. …

Maximizing Warfighter Capability Using Surveyed Necessity Measurement: Application To The Usaf F-15c Fleet, John M. Colombi, David R. Jacques, Dennis D. Strouble

Faculty Publications

Within the Department of Defense, with changing missions to counter dynamic and asymmetrical threats, the acquisition workforce strives to maximize capability for joint warfighting. How acquisition professionals measure and select capability improvements for the nation’s weapon systems is a perpetual challenge, made even more complex with constrained defense budgets. This study identifies a method for determining which upgrades should be purchased (production) for which aircraft in the F- 15C fleet by optimizing a capability proxy measure. Each upgrade’s “necessity” for a given mission area was obtained by conducting a survey of over 250 experienced F-15C pilots. The solution presented in …

An Introduction To Agile Development The Outdoors Edge: Case Study, Christopher D. Thames Iv

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

This project contains a well rounded overview of Microsoft .NET agile development to solve the problem of unsuccessful software development projects. Not only do we look at what was wrong with the traditional plan-driven style of software development, but also how we can mitigate that with agile software development and agile project management methodologies. The main focus initially is to define what agile is and what the principle concepts that are the driving force behind it. Some of these concepts are about shaping the mentality of a developer so that a developer can be the most efficient and effective developer. …

University Students' Perceptions Of Their Parents' Childrearing Styles Associated With Their Inclinations To Become Parents, Judi Mccracken

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Researchers have associated Diane Baumrind's parenting styles (Baumrind, 1967; Baumrind, 1966; Baumrind, 1968; Baumrind, 1971) with countless outcomes among children, adolescents, and adults. However, few, if any, have investigated an age group's perceptions of their childrearing compared with their inclination to become parents. This study examined 67 West Virginia University students' responses to the Adapted Parenting Attribute Questionnaire (APAQ) completed by Child Development and Family Studies majors in 2007. The purpose was to determine patterns of perceptions in guardians' parenting styles, then compare the participants' inclinations to become parents and their rankings of importance (low, medium, or high; low and …

Creation Of A Mouse With A Humanized Fpgs Gene Compatible With Normal Development, Linying Xie

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: Folylpoly-γ-glutamate synthetase (FPGS) catalyzes the formation of polyglutamate forms of the reduced folates and antifolates such as methotrexate (MTX) and pemetrexed; this allows the retention of folates and antifolate cancer drugs inside the cell. The enzyme activity of FPGS is essential for cell proliferation and survival. The mouse fpgs gene contains two promoters spaced 10 kb apart which are activated in a tissue-specific manner. The upstream promoter (P1) and exons A1a and A1b are used in some differentiated tissues, mainly liver and kidney, whereas the downstream promoter (P2) and exon 1 are used in rapidly dividing cells. In contrast, …

Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Nontraumatic Dental-Condition Visits To Emergency Departments And Physician Offices In The Wisconsin Medicaid Program, Christopher Okunseri, Nicholas M. Pajewski, David C. Brousseau, Sandy Tomany-Korman, Andrew Snyder, Glenn Flores

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Nontraumatic dental condition (NTDC) visits occur in emergency departments (EDs) and physician offices (POs), but little is known about factors associated with NTDC visit rates to EDs and POs.

Methods

The authors analyzed all Medicaid dental claims in Wisconsin from 2001 through 2003 to examine factors associated with NTDC visits to EDs and POs. They performed bivariate and multivariable analyses. The independent variables they examined included race/ethnicity, age, sex, dental health professional shortage area (DHPSA) designation and urban influence code for county of residence.

Results

The authors evaluated 956,774 NTDC visits made during 1,718,006 person-years; 4.3 percent of visits …

Manipulation Of The Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus Envelope Protein In An Effort To Develop Directly And Indirectly Targeted Retroviral Vectors For Use In Human Gene Therapy, Geneva M. Vasser

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Highly effective, targeted therapies against cancer would revolutionize the way people recover from this devastating illness. Gone would be the lingering side effects of the current non-specific treatments and in their place would be faster recovery times, better quality of life both during and after treatment, and less ambiguity about whether or not treatment was effective. This concept will elude modern medicine until treatments can be tailored to the patient's individual and unique disease. This concept of a transient, targeted, and tailored vehicle aimed at cancer cells lends itself to the use of replication deficient retroviral gene therapy vectors with …

Studies Of Entry, Reverse Transcription, And Regulation Of Splicing In Retroviruses, Timothy A. Sullivan

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The study of retroviruses and their lifecycle has contributed immensely to our knowledge of the world of biology and medicine. The central dogma of the basic flow of genetic information was shattered when the discovery that retroviruses copy their RNA genome into DNA was made. The same enzyme that performs this step, reverse transcriptase (RT), also revolutionized molecular biology when it was used as a tool to generate full length cDNA clones of expressed genes. The impact of retroviruses on the medical field has been extremely exciting as the ideas of using retroviral vectors to deliver genes providing long term …