Digital Commons Network^™

From Juvenile Court To The Adult Criminal Justice System: An Examination Of Judicial Waiver, Sheri Lu Jenkins Cruz

Dissertations

This project was concerned with how extra legal factors impact juvenile court judge‟s decisions to waive juveniles to the adult criminal court. This study had both a general and a specific purpose. Generally, it sought to identify and examine the perceptions of juvenile court judges regarding judicial waiver based on previous positions held and on the state in which the juvenile judge resides. Specifically, this study sought to examine the relationship between individual characteristics of juvenile court judges and their perceptions regarding judicial waiver. Based on the research questions, ten hypotheses were developed and tested. The population for this study …

State-Based Techniques For Designing, Verifying And Debugging Message Passing Systems, Rajaa Khaled Alqudah

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Dissertations

Message passing systems support the applications of concurrent events, where independent or semi-independent events occur simultaneously in a nondeterministic fashion. The nature of independence, random interactions and concurrency made the code development of such applications complicated and error-prone. Conventional code development environments or IDEs, such as Microsoft Visual Studio, provide little programming support in this regard. Furthermore, ensuring the correctness of a message passing system is a challenge. Typically, it is important to guarantee that a system meets its desired specifications along its construction process. Model checking is one of the techniques used in software verification which has proven to …

The Extended Preferred Ordering Theorem For Radar Tracking Using The Extended Kalman Filter, Donald Leskiw

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Dissertations

A certain problem in nonlinear estimation exists in radar tracking. Usually radar detections provide instantaneous position measurements in radar (polar) coordinates at discrete times, while tracks (estimated positions and motions over continuous time) are determined in rectangular coordinates; and the linear Kalman filter (LKF) is used as the estimator. Less common, the LKF is used to determine the tracks in radar coordinates, which are then converted into rectangular coordinates. Rarely is the extended Kalman filter (EKF) used, where the tracks are directly determined in rectangular coordinates from the radar detections via a local linearization. And so most radar tracks tend …

Effects Of Calcium Addition On Structure And Bioavailability Of Soil Organic Matter, Ankit Balaria

Civil and Environmental Engineering - Dissertations

The northeastern USA has a long history of acid rain, which has impacted soil fertility and raised concerns about the sustainability of the forests in the region. To facilitate recovery of these forests, calcium addition, in the form of wollastonite, was evaluated as a remedial tool at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forests in New Hampshire, USA. In order to study the effects of these amendments on soil organic matter and soil microbes, I characterized the structural chemistry of soil organic matter (SOM) and its hot-water extractable organic matter (HWEOM) fraction for Hubbard Brook soils and studied the changes in the structure …

Synthesis And Biosynthesis Of Polyketide Natural Products, Atahualpa Pinto

Chemistry - Dissertations

Traditionally separate disciplines of a large and broad chemical spectrum, synthetic organic chemistry and biochemistry have found in the last two decades a fertile common ground in the area pertaining to the biosynthesis of natural products. Both disciplines remain indispensable in providing unique solutions on numerous questions populating the field. Our contributions to this interdisciplinary pursuit have been confined to the biosynthesis of polyketides, a therapeutically and structurally diverse class of natural products, where we employed both synthetic chemistry and biochemical techniques to validate complex metabolic processes. One such example pertained to the uncertainty surrounding the regiochemistry of dehydration and …

Read Leadership Books. Become A Leader., Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Leadership books, be it biographies or self-help books, often present "leadership" as something achievable by any common person through diligence, skills, and, of course, luck, if only to sell the hope and magic that such power can sometimes come out of nothing. In 'How to Lead', author Jo Owen frames this 'luck' as 'context' – a meeting of 'skills' and 'performance' at the right place and at the right time.

Youth Internet Safety Study (Yiss): Methodology Report., Kimberly J. Mitchell, Lisa M. Jones

Crimes Against Children Research Center

The Youth Internet Safety Surveys (YISS‐1, YISS‐2, and YISS‐3) were conducted in order to quantify and detail youth experiences with unwanted or problematic Internet experiences including sexual solicitations, harassment, and unwanted exposure to pornography on the Internet. YISS‐3 collected additional information about youth produced sexual images (YPSI) or “sexting.” The YISS‐1, YISS‐2 and YISS‐3 studies were conducted in 2000, 2005 and 2010, respectively, providing important comparative information on changes in the numbers of youth reporting unwanted or problematic Internet experiences at 5‐year intervals since 2000. This is a critical timeframe for observation given the sharp rise in the use of …

Opportunities And Challenges For The Asset Management Industry, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Singapore, with its open economy and stable business environment, is host to some of the world's largest asset management companies. It has been observed, however, that local asset management firms are lagging far behind; somehow unable to capitalise on the same opportunities available to the global giants. Speaking at a conference organised by SMU's Centre for Asset Securitisation and Management in Asia, a panel of industry experts shared their views on what it would take to get both local and Asia-based firms into the big league.

Rethinking The Intersection Of Inheritance And The Law Of Tenancy In Common, Sarah E. Waldeck

Notre Dame Law Review

The article discusses the rules of tenancy and standard doctrine in relation to identity property. It explains the result for property law and suggests reforms that would decrease conflict among heirs to identity property to successfully own and manage the property. It states that co-tenants receive a proportional share of rents and profits earned and should pay taxes and mortgages. It informs that steps could be taken to encourage the interest of co-tenants.

Missouri S&T Magazine Winter 2011, Missouri S&T Marketing And Communications Department, Miner Alumni Association

Missouri S&T Magazine

No abstract provided.

Hegemonic Masculinity And Counter-Hegemonic Feminist Discourses For Peace, Marta B. Rodríguez-Galán

Sociology Faculty/Staff Publications

Utilizing a pacifist feminist position, this paper looks at the relationship between ideas of masculinity and war, militarism and peacekeeping intervention. I argue that it is necessary to revise and redefine a pacifist feminist position, especially because, from this viewpoint, the current masculinist war-prone world order may best be combated by attacking its gender biases. In this context, pacifist feminists have often been challenged by non-feminists, but also by non-pacifist feminists who accuse them of drawing on essentialist notions of women as peace –makers. A non-violent attack on oppressive masculinity would need to be successful in disseminating a counter-hegemonic and …

Checkouts By Patron Type: December 2011, Ruth E.. Souto

HELIN Monthly Loan Statistics

Borrowing by patron type - December 2011

Gestation Length, Mode Of Delivery And Neonatal Line Thickness Variation, CléMent Zanolli, Luca Bondioli, Franz Manni, Paola Rossi, Roberto Macchiarelli

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

The transition from an intra- to extra-uterine environment leaves its mark in deciduous teeth (and first permanent molars) as an accentuated enamel incremental ring called the neonatal line (NL). This prominent microfeature separates the enamel formed during intrauterine life from that formed after leaving the womb. However, while the physical structure of this scar is well known, the bases of its formation are still a matter of investigation. In particular, besides the influence of the birth-related abrupt environmental and dietary changes and the role played by physiological factors such as hypocalcaemia, it has been suggested a direct relationship between NL …

The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance And Intolerance In Early America, Adrian Chastain Weimer

History & Classics Faculty Publications

Reviews The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America, edited by Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda.

Bifurcation And Invariant Manifolds Of The Logistic Competition Model, M. Guzowska, Rafael Luís, Saber Elaydi

Mathematics Faculty Research

In this paper we study a new logistic competition model. We will investigate stability and bifurcation of the model. In particular, we compute the invariant manifolds, including the important center manifolds, and study their bifurcation. Saddle-node and period doubling bifurcation route to chaos is exhibited via numerical simulations.

Vol. Xlviii, No. 5: Hal Sirowitz: The Stand-Up Poet King Of Queens, Liz Rosenberg

The Hollins Critic

No abstract provided.

Efficient Approximation For Security Games With Interval Uncertainty, Chris Kiekintveld, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

There are an increasing number of applications of security games. One of the key challenges for this field going forward is to address the problem of model uncertainty and the robustness of the game-theoretic solutions. Most existing methods for dealing with payoff uncertainty are Bayesian methods which are NP-hard and have difficulty scaling to very large problems. In this work we consider an alternative approach based on interval uncertainty. For a variant of security games with interval uncertainty we introduce a polynomial-time approximation algorithm that can compute very accurate solutions within a given error bound.

Assessment Of Functional Impairment In Human Locomotion: A Fuzzy-Motivated Approach, Murad Alaqtash, Thompson Sarkodie-Gyan, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many neurological disorders result in disordered motion. The effects of a disorder can be decrease by an appropriate rehabilitation. To make rehabilitation efficient, we need to monitor the patient and check how well he or she improves. In our previous papers, we proposed a fuzzy-based semi-heuristic method of gauging how well a patient improved. Surprisingly, this semi-heuristic method turned out to be more efficient that we expected. In this paper, we provide a justification for this efficiency.

In the future, it is desirable to combine this fuzzy-assessment approach with results by Alavarez-Alvarez, Trivino, and Cordon who use fuzzy techniques …

Constraint Optimization: From Efficient Computation Of What Can Be Achieved To Efficient Computation Of A Way To Achieve The Corresponding Optimum, Ali Jalal-Kamali, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practically useful cases, we know how to efficiently compute the exact range of a function over given intervals (and, possibly, under additional constraints). In other words, we know how to efficiently compute the minimum and maximum of a given function f(x₁, ..., x_n) on any box. From the practical viewpoint, it is important not only to find the value of the corresponding maximum or minimum, but also to know for what values of the parameters x_i this optimum is attained. We prove a general result: that if we can efficiently compute the optimum, …

Why Bernstein Polynomials Are Better: Fuzzy-Inspired Justification, Jaime Nava, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

It is well known that an arbitrary continuous function on a bounded set -- e.g., on an interval [a,b] -- can be, with any given accuracy, approximated by a polynomial. Usually, polynomials are described as linear combinations of monomials. It turns out that in many computational problems, it is more efficient to represent a polynomial as Bernstein polynomials -- e.g., for functions of one variable, a linear combination of terms (x-a)^k * (b-x)^n-k. In this paper, we provide a simple fuzzy-based explanation of why Bernstein polynomials are often more efficient, and we show how this informal explanation …

Semi-Heuristic Poverty Measures Used By Economists: Justification Motivated By Fuzzy Techniques, Karen Villaverde, Nagwa Albehery, Tonghui Wang, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To properly gauge the extent of poverty in a country or in a region, economists use semi-heuristic poverty measures such as the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) metric. These measures are used because it was empirically shown that they capture the commonsense meaning of the extent of poverty better than previously proposed measures. However, the fact that these measures are better then a few earlier proposed ones does not necessarily mean that these measures are the best possible; so, it is desirable to look for optimal poverty measures. In this paper, we first use fuzzy techniques to provide a commonsense interpretation of FGT …

In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Fuzzy, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Eddies Inside Pores In The Transition From Darcy To Forchheimer Flows, Kuldeep Chaudhary, M. Bayani Cardenas, Wen Deng, Philip C. Bennett

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We studied the role of intra-pore eddies, from viscous to inertial flows, in modifying continuum-scale flow inside pores. Flow regimes spanning Reynolds Number Re ∼ 0 to 1350 are divided into three zones - one zone follows Darcy flow, and the other two zones describe non-Darcy or Forchheimer flow. During viscous flows, i.e., Re < 1, stationary eddies occupy about 1/5 of the pore volume. Eddies grow when Re > 1, and their growth leads to the deviation from Darcy's law and the emergence of Forchheimer flow manifested as a characteristic reduction in the apparent hydraulic conductivity K_a. The reduction in K_a is due to the narrowing of the flow channel which is …

A Survey Of The Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Of Arkansas And The Ozark Mountains, Joseph O'Neill

Horticulture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Ants are among the most abundant animals in most terrestrial ecosystems, yet local fauna are often poorly understood due to a lack of surveys. This study separated and identified ant species from arthropod samples obtained during ongoing projects by the lab of Dr. A.P.G. Dowling, Professor of Entomology at the University of Arkansas. More than 600 ants were prepared, 284 of which were identified to genus and 263 to species. From this collection, 33 species and one morphospecies were identified, comprising 18 genera in total. Additionally, 28 new distributional records were recorded for Benton, Madison, Newton, and Washington Counties in …

Powersearch: Augmenting Mobile Phone Search Through Personalization, Xiangyu Liu

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cell phone has become a fundamental element of people's life. People use it to call each other, browse websites, send text messages, etc. Among all the functionalities, the most important and frequently used is the search functionality. Based on ComScore, in July 2008, Google was estimated to host 235 millions searches per day. However, unlike the search on desktop, the search on cell phone has one critical constrain: battery. Cell phone performing a normal Google search, the battery drains very fast. The reason is that when sending a query to and fetching the results from Google, cell phone keeps communicating …

Webtailor: Internet Service For Salient And Automatic User Interest Profiles, John Anderson

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Website personalization systems seek to give users unique, tailored content and experiences on the Internet. A key feature of these systems is a user profile that represents each user in a way that distinguishes them from others. In current personalization systems, the data used to create these profiles is extremely limited, which leads to a host of problems and ineffectual personalization. The main goal of this thesis is to improve these personalization systems by addressing their lack of data and its poor quality, breadth, and depth. This is accomplished by analyzing and classifying the content of each user's Internet browsing …

How Does The Rural Food Environment Affect Rural Childhood Obesity?, David Hartley Phd, Mha, Nathaniel J. Anderson Ms, Mph, Kimberley Fox Mph, Jennifer D. Lenardson Mhs

Population Health

Objective: Assess the impact of the rural food environment on the eating behaviors and BMI of rural low-income children. Method: Statewide (Maine, 2009) household survey of parents of children on Medicaid (n=1722), oversampled in six rural communities, resulting in n=272 for six target communities. Food environment measured using modified Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores (NEMS-S) for 46 retail food outlets. Multi-variate analysis assessed factors affecting home food environment, child's eating behavior and BMI. Results: Home food behaviors (how often: family eats together, child eats breakfast, vegetables served) and parent food consumption were significantly associated with children's healthy eating behaviors. …

Western News, Dec. 1, 2011 , Western Michigan University

Western News (1972-2018)

Story highlights: WMU named among nation's 'Best for Vets' schools; Efforts to improve area water quality changes WMU landscape; Team turns theory into observable science; On Campus with Tracey Kauppila.

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (12/1/2011), University Of Rhode Island

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (Student Newspaper Archives)

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island school newspaper.

A Cooperative Game Theoretic Approach For Data Replication In Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Dan Hirsch, Sanjay Madria

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The mobile computing environment provides many benefits such as ubiquitous access to computing but include constraints on resources such as: Available bandwidth and battery life. Replication is a widely recognized method for balancing the demands of storage space with bandwidth and battery life. We propose a novel scheme that seeks to strategically balance these constrained resources through a cooperative game-theoretic approach for replication in a mobile environment. Our replication strategy relies on the cooperation of the nodes within the network to make replica caching decisions which are spatiotemporally local-optimal for the network from an energy and bandwidth conservation standpoint. in …