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Newsroom, Georgia Southern University

Newsroom (2006-2023)

• Georgia Southern University honors two outstanding faculty members in College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
• Operation Move-In to give on-campus residents smooth start to year
• Georgia Southern University Welcomes New Faculty Members
• Georgia Southern University Holds Fall Convocation

Defining A Fire Year For Reporting And Analysis Of Global Interannual Fire Variablility, Luigi Boschetti, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

The interannual variability of fire activity has been studied without an explicit investigation of a suitable starting month for yearly calculations. Sensitivity analysis of 37 months of global MODIS active fire detections indicates that a 1-month change in the start of the fire year definition can lead, in the worst case, to a difference of over 6% and over 45% in global and subcontinental scale annual fire totals, respectively. Optimal starting months for analyses of global and subcontinental fire interannual variability are described. The research indicates that a fire year starting in March provides an optimal definition for annual global …

Duts: Targeted Case Studies, Hui Nee Chin, Sebastian Elbaum, Matthew B. Dwyer, Matthew Jorde

School of Computing: Technical Reports

Our previous studies of DUTs addressed research questions of effectiveness, efficiency, and robustness with respect to one software artifact, Siena, and we believe the findings generalize to similar artifacts. Still, we realize that existing studies suffer from threats to validity. Specifically, the selected artifact provided limited exposure to CR in the presence of deeper heap structures, extensive software changes, and high number of methods invocations. We start to address those threats to the validity of our findings by investigating the performance of CR in the presence of such settings.
The findings in this report reveal that the performance of the …

Novel Implementation Of Conditional Co-Regulation By Graph Theory To Derive Co-Expressed Genes From Microarray Data, Arun Rawat, Georg J. Seifert, Youping Deng

Faculty Publications

Background

Most existing transcriptional databases like Comprehensive Systems-Biology Database (CSB.DB) and Arabidopsis Microarray Database and Analysis Toolbox (GENEVESTIGATOR) help to seek a shared biological role (similar pathways and biosynthetic cycles) based on correlation. These utilize conventional methods like Pearson correlation and Spearman rank correlation to calculate correlation among genes. However, not all are genes expressed in all the conditions and this leads to their exclusion in these transcriptional databases that consist of experiments performed in varied conditions. This leads to incomplete studies of co-regulation among groups of genes that might be linked to the same or related biosynthetic pathway.

Results …

High-Level, Product Type-Specific Programmatic Operations For Streamlining Associative Computer-Aided Design, Nathan W. Scott

Theses and Dissertations

Research in the field of Computer Aided Design (CAD) has long focused on reducing the time and effort required of engineers to define three dimensional digital product models. Parametric, feature-based modeling with inter-part associativity allows complex assembly designs to be defined and re-defined while maintaining the vital part-to-part interface relationships. The top-down modeling method which uses assembly level control structures to drive child level geometry has proved valuable in maintaining these interfaces. Creating robust parametric models like these, however, is very time consuming especially since there can be hundreds of features and thousands of mathematical expressions to create. Even if …

Independent- Aug. 12, 2008, Lenny Ocasio

The Independent (1988-present)

No abstract provided.

Multi-Class Classification For Identifying Jpeg Steganography Embedding Methods, Benjamin M. Rodriguez Ii

Theses and Dissertations

Over 725 steganography tools are available over the Internet, each providing a method for covert transmission of secret messages. This research presents four steganalysis advancements that result in an algorithm that identifies the steganalysis tool used to embed a secret message in a JPEG image file. The algorithm includes feature generation, feature preprocessing, multi-class classification and classifier fusion. The first contribution is a new feature generation method which is based on the decomposition of discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients used in the JPEG image encoder. The generated features are better suited to identifying discrepancies in each area of the decomposed …

Metamodeling Techniques To Aid In The Aggregation Process Of Large Hierarchical Simulation Models, June F. D. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates how aggregation is currently conducted for simulation of large systems. The purpose is to examine how to achieve suitable aggregation in the simulation of large systems. More specifically, investigating how to accurately aggregate hierarchical lower-level (higher resolution) models into the next higher-level in order to reduce the complexity of the overall simulation model. The focus is on the exploration of the different aggregation techniques for hierarchical lower-level (higher resolution) models into the next higher-level. We develop aggregation procedures between two simulation levels (e.g., aggregation of engagement level models into a mission level model) to address how much …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Teacher Variables And Student Achievement Scores In Hamblen County, Tennessee., Anne Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between teacher variables and the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) student annual scores in reading and mathematics for students in grades 3 through 8 in Hamblen County, Tennessee. The teacher variables included number of days absent, Praxis II Principles of Learning and Teaching (PLT) scores, and years of experience. The population of the study was limited to 3rd- through 8th grade reading and mathematics teachers employed by the Hamblen County school district during the 2006-2007 school year. Raw scores from the 2006-2007 TCAP criterion-referenced assessment were used as …

A Spectroscopic Analysis Of Hd 134439 And Hd 134440, Yu Chen

All Theses

We analyze elemental abundances of the common proper motion pair HD 134439 and HD 134440 to understand their formation history. This pair of metal-poor ([Fe/H]$\sim -1.50$) halo dwarfs are known, from previous studies, to exhibit abnormally low [$\alpha$/Fe] ratios compared to typical Galactic halo stars. Some have attributed this to planetesimal accretion; others believe these stars formed in the dusty part of a dwarf spheroidal galaxy and were later captured by our Galaxy. To investigate this anomaly, we measure carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen abundances for HD 134439 and HD 134440 from near-UV molecular features using high-resolution spectra obtained with Keck …

Students' Reasoning About The Concept Of Limit In The Context Of Reinventing The Formal Definition, Craig Alan Swinyard

Dissertations and Theses

Many researchers (Artigue, 2000; Bezuidenhout, 2001; Cornu, 1991; Dorier, 1995) have noted the vital role limit plays as a foundational concept in analysis. The vast majority of topics encountered in calculus and undergraduate analysis are built upon understanding the concept of limit and being able to work flexibly with its formal definition (Bezuidenhout, 2001). The purpose of this study was to: (1) Develop insight into students' reasoning about limit in relation to their engagement in instruction designed to support their reinventing the formal definition of limit, and; (2) Inform the design of principled instruction that might support students' attempts to …

Erosion And Trail Building: A Case Study Of The East Tennessee State University Trail System., Joshua Callahan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Natural and accelerated erosion from trail users affects the sustainability of trail systems. Designing and building sustainable trail systems will greatly decrease the effect that erosion has on a trail. Trails that allow multiple types of users, such as hiking and mountain biking, must be able to sustain both groups. At East Tennessee State University the trail system was originally designed for hiking. Mountain bikers have become the main user group on the trail system leading to erosion problems on certain areas of the trail due to trail design flaws. The study seeks to identify the problem areas of trail …

College Student Vulnerability To Harmful Religious Groups Based On Perceptions., Kevin Clark Dreher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted in an attempt to understand which, if any, groups of college students are susceptible to cult influence based on false perceptions. Religion is a powerful practice that, if used for the wrong reasons, can influence a person to dissolve social and financial relationships with family, friends, and the surrounding community. Surveys were given to randomly selected cluster samples of students currently enrolled at the university. These surveys consisted of demographic questions and a scale designed to measure perceptions. Also devised was a scale to measure traits of depression. Both bivariate and multivariate analysis showed that the …

Etsu Gearup: The Design And Development Of An Alternative Energy Greenhouse., Garth Ross Ghearing

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

East Tennessee State has partnered with David Crockett High School through the Federal Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. This year's project is an alternative energy greenhouse, which incorporates solar panels and a wind turbine. The focus is on familiarizing students with control systems including programmable logic controllers and power management. There is also an emphasis on the importance of green engineering.

The high school's students have been involved in the design and development of every aspect of the system. The development of the system is ongoing and will be further integrated into classes in the fall semester. …

Modeling The Progression Of Discrete Paired Longitudinal Data., Jonathan Wesley Hicks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is our intention to derive a methodology for which to model discrete paired longitudinal data. Through the use of transition matrices and maximum likelihood estimation techniques by means of software, we develop a way to model the progression of such data. We provide an example by applying this method to the Wisconsin Epidemiological Study of Diabetic Retinopathy data set. The data set is comprised of individuals, all diabetics, who have had their eyes examined for diabetic retinopathy. The eyes are treated as paired data, and we have the results of the examination at the four unequally spaced time points …

Classroom Organizational Structures As Related To Student Achievement In Upper Elementary Grades In Northeast Tennessee Public Schools., Darrell Wayne Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Interval Estimation For The Ratio Of Percentiles From Two Independent Populations., Pius Matheka Muindi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Percentiles are used everyday in descriptive statistics and data analysis. In real life, many quantities are normally distributed and normal percentiles are often used to describe those quantities. In life sciences, distributions like exponential, uniform, Weibull and many others are used to model rates, claims, pensions etc. The need to compare two or more independent populations can arise in data analysis. The ratio of percentiles is just one of the many ways of comparing populations. This thesis constructs a large sample confidence interval for the ratio of percentiles whose underlying distributions are known. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate …

Contraction-Expansion Protocols., Nadine Katia Njoya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An approach to a new class of compounds known as bridgehead dienone is described. The route is based on a tandem contraction-expansion event in which the contraction triggers the expansion. The two steps involved are a palladium-catalyzed Favorskii contraction and a cis-divinyl cyclopropanone rearrangement. Progress towards these goals is reported.

Reliability Generalization Of The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test., Chandni Patel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) is a brief screening instrument for assessing alcohol use problems among adults. This instrument is widely used and continued evaluation of its psychometric performance is needed. Reliability and validity are the primary psychometric characteristics of interest when evaluating psychological instruments. The focus of the present study is on reliability, which reflects the consistency or repeatability of the scores produced by a given instrument. Using meta-analytic methods, results showed that approximately 65% of previously published studies using the AUDIT did not appropriately report reliability estimates. Among the remaining studies, weighted reliability estimate centered on …

Learning Differences In E-Commerce I Online Classes In Public Secondary Schools In North Carolina., Pamela S. Pitman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to measure differences in learning styles in an online E-Commerce I class in public secondary schools in North Carolina. Students' observations and achievements were evaluated by gender, grade level, course of study, online experience, and expected grade. This type of study could identify relationships between the online model and the four areas evaluated. This information may aid designers of online curricula as well as the teachers.

The literature review covered several topics including technology, online learning, gender-based education, learning styles, maturity, and expectations. Each topic was related to the success of students in an …

Monitoring Metal Containing Particulates Distribution On A College Campus Using Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale) Leaves As Receptors., Suresh Chandra Regmi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to determine the distribution of particulates carrying heavy metals at selected sites on a college campus using dandelion leaves as collectors. As a comparison, sites far away from the campus surrounding Bristol Motor Speedway Car Racing Stadium were also monitored. To reduce the probability of memory effects from the long-term atmospheric deposition or absorption of metals from soil a seasonal plant, dandelion, was used to monitor the metal contents. The metals monitored are cadmium, calcium, copper, chromium, iron, lead, and zinc. Fourteen sites were monitored and samples were collected once a week initially (growing time of the …

Comparing Science Instruction Methods In The High School Classroom Setting: A Case Study In Inquiry-Based Methods., Sarah Sawyers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The science education system currently in place in the United States does not adequately prepare students to compete well with international students. The development of new teaching methods is essential to ensure improvement of the system and provide its students with better scholastic achievements and employment opportunities. Various methods have been studied, with one implemented in a high school classroom to compare the results of the new method with the traditional method of instruction. Rather than the traditional lecture-based approach, Honors Chemistry students learned the theory of the gas laws using inquiry-based methods and hands-on activities. The students were then …

Estimating The Difference Of Percentiles From Two Independent Populations., Romual Eloge Tchouta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We first consider confidence intervals for a normal percentile, an exponential percentile and a uniform percentile. Then we develop confidence intervals for a difference of percentiles from two independent normal populations, two independent exponential populations and two independent uniform populations. In our study, we mainly focus on the maximum likelihood to develop our confidence intervals. The efficiency of this method is examined via coverage rates obtained in a simulation study done with the statistical software R.

Synthesis Towards Fulminic Acid And Its Derivatives In 1, 3-Dipolar Cycloaddition Reactions., Ophilia Ndi Toh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A new approach to fulminic acid cycloadditions has been developed. At reduced temperatures, fulminic acid is generated in situ and undergoes 1, 3-diploar cycloaddition reactions with dipolarophiles to form isoxazolines and/or its dimers. This procedure represents a novel, safe general method for the one-step generation of fulminic acid, which complements existing potentially explosive protocols.

Double Domination Of Complementary Prisms., Lamont D. Vaughan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The complementary prism of a graph G is obtained from a copy of G and its complement G̅ by adding a perfect matching between the corresponding vertices of G and G̅. For any graph G, a set D ⊆ V (G) is a double dominating set (DDS) if that set dominates every vertex of G twice. The double domination number, denoted γ_×2(G), is the cardinality of a minimum double dominating set of G. We have proven results on graphs of small order, specific families and lower bounds on γ_{×2 …}

Finding Edge And Vertex Induced Cycles Within Circulants., Trina Marcella Wooten

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Let H be a graph. G is a subgraph of H if V (G) ⊆ V (H) and E(G) ⊆ E(H). The subgraphs of H can be used to determine whether H is planar, a line graph, and to give information about the chromatic number. In a recent work by Beeler and Jamison [3], it was shown that it is difficult to obtain an automorphic decomposition of a triangle-free graph. As many of their examples involve circulant graphs, it is of particular interest to find triangle-free subgraphs within circulants. As …

The Challenges Of Developing An Operational Nanosatellite, David Homan, Quinn Young

Small Satellite Conference

Recent nanosatellite programs and studies of nanosatellites for operational missions have highlighted challenges that are unique to this spacecraft category. While each small satellite class has peculiar design challenges, nanosatellite development challenges are compounded by the unique niche that nanosatellites occupy and the current perception of hardware maturity levels available to support nanosatellite spacecraft. Recent experimental successes with microsatellite systems are allowing such spacecraft to rapidly move toward operational systems. This has produced a false perception that the same small, high TRL operational components and subsystems used in microsatellites will transition easily into the smaller nanosatellite designs. At the same …

Trading Bias For Precision: Decision Theory For Intervals And Sets, Kenneth M. Rice, Thomas Lumley, Adam A. Szpiro

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Interval- and set-valued decisions are an essential part of statistical inference. Despite this, the justification behind them is often unclear, leading in practice to a great deal of confusion about exactly what is being presented. In this paper we review and attempt to unify several competing methods of interval-construction, within a formal decision-theoretic framework. The result is a new emphasis on interval-estimation as a distinct goal, and not as an afterthought to point estimation. We also see that representing intervals as trade-offs between measures of precision and bias unifies many existing approaches -- as well as suggesting interpretable criteria to …

Low-Fluence Electron Yields Of Highly Insulating Materials, Ryan Hoffmann, John R. Dennison

All Physics Faculty Publications

Electron-induced electron yields of high-resistivity, high-yield materials - ceramic polycrystalline aluminum oxide and the polymer polyimide (Kapton HN), - were made by using a low-fluence, pulsed incident electron beam and charge neutralization electron source to minimize charge accumulation. Large changes in energy-dependent total yield curves and yield decay curves were observed, even for incident electron fluences of

General Report — Session 1: Analysis, Design, Testing And Performance Of Foundations, Rodrigo Salgado, Sanjeev Kumar, Dipanjan Basu, Gloria Maria Estrada Alvarez, Kenneth Gavin, Syed Faiz Ahmad

International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering

No abstract provided.