Digital Commons Network^™

Estimating Software Effort Using An Ann Model Based On Use Case Points, Ali Bou Nassif, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Danny Ho

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

In this paper, we propose a novel Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict software effort from use case diagrams based on the Use Case Point (UCP) model. The inputs of this model are software size, productivity and complexity, while the output is the predicted software effort. A multiple linear regression model with three independent variables (same inputs of the ANN) and one dependent variable (effort) is also introduced. Our data repository contains 240 data points in which, 214 are industrial and 26 are educational projects. Both the regression and ANN models were trained using 168 data points and tested using …

Object Oriented Implementation Of The Parallel Toolkit Library, Sandhya Vinnakota

Computer Science Graduate Projects and Theses

With manufacturing efficiencies and technological innovation the computing power of commodity machines has been increasing accompanied by decreasing costs. With the very favorable price/performance ratio the computing community has shifted from monolithic machines to networked machines.

This has created the need for software to manage the parallelism of the network. One such work has been the Parallel Toolkit Library. The Parallel Toolkit Library provides support for common design functionalities used throughout parallel programs.

This work extends the PTK C library for C++ parallel programs. The motivation for the current project stems from the need to let parallel programs reap the …

Continuing Professional Development Program On Second-Generation Antipsychotics For Psychiatric-Mental Health Staff Nurses, Brenda Lee Phillips

Doctoral Projects

The lack of continuous professional development education regarding second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) at a regional state acute care psychiatric hospital limits the ability of psychiatric-mental health (PMH) staff nurses to provide care for patients with or at risk for metabolic syndrome and other medical problems. The goals of the evidence-based program were to (1) examine PMH staff nurses’ knowledge of treatment guidelines for schizophrenia and SGAs; (2) provide education on schizophrenia, SGAs, and metabolic syndrome; and (3) provide continuous professional development training modules on schizophrenia and SGAs electronically for PMH staff nurses in an acute care mental health hospital. The effectiveness …

Identification And Prevention Of Secondary Traumatic Stress In Mental Health Professionals Who Work With Child Sexual Abuse Victims, Abby Duckworth Mcneil

Doctoral Projects

Secondary traumatic stress (STS) is an issue that may be experienced by mental health professionals who are exposed to clients' trauma materials and become and become at risk of becoming traumatized themselves. Mental health professionals working with sexually abused children are more vulnerable to STS due to their empathic engagement and level of exposure to trauma. The impact of STS can result in poor productivity, increase in illness, and turnover rates for mental health professionals. Cumulative effects of STS make awareness and early intervention imperative. Research has shown that members of the helping profession suffer emotional and physical illness more …

The Debt Structure Of Smes: An Optimization Model, Andrea Moro, Mike R. Lucas, Uwe G. Grimm

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

The existing finance literature is inadequate with respect to its coverage of the debt structure of small and medi-um sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, the role of trust in accessing finance for such enterprises is under-investigated. This paper presents a mathematical model for optimizing the debt structure of SMEs that, since SMEs are often equity constrained, focuses on optimizing debt structure by minimizing its cost. The model is then extended by incorporating the level of trust that suppliers and bank managers have in the enterprise. The extended model, suggests that the higher the level of trust that bank managers and …

"If It Ain't Broke, Break It": How Corporate Journalism Killed The "Arkansas Gazette", Donna Lampkin Stephens

Dissertations

Ownership is an increasingly critical issue for newspapers as they face the latest threats to the industry’s survival. Local, engaged, enlightened ownership is preferable to that of a distant corporation, but economic realities have decreed that corporate ownership has become the norm. The Arkansas Gazette was one of the most honored newspapers of twentieth-century American journalism under independent local family ownership, having provided brave leadership during the Little Rock Central Crisis, but its wounds from one of the country’s final fierce newspaper wars — against another local owner, Walter Hussman and his Arkansas Democrat — in the 1980s, combined with …

The R Journal (December 2012) 4(2): Complete Issue, The R Foundation

The R Journal

Contributing Articles

What's in a Name? Paul Murrell

It's Not What You Draw, It's What You Don't Draw, Paul Murrell

Debugging grid Graphics, Paul Murrell and Velvet Ly

frailtyHL: A Package for Fitting Frailty Models with H-likelihood, Il Do Ha, Maengseok Noh, and Youngjo Lee

influence.ME: Tools for Detecting Influential Data in Mixed Effects Models, Rense Nieuwenhuis, Manfred te Grotenhuis and Ben Pelzer

The crs Package: Nonparametric Regression Splines for Continuous and Categorical Predictors, Zhenghua Nie and Jeffrey S. Racine

Rfit: Rank-based Estimation for Linear Models, John D. Kloke and Joseph W. McKean

Graphical Markov Models with Mixed Graphs in …

Cultural Intelligence In Foreign Language Classes, Daniela Báez

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Multi-Color Observations Of Short Grb Afterglows: 20 Events Observed Between 2007 And 2010, A. Nicuesa Guelbenzu, S. Klose, J. Greiner, D. A. Kann, T. Krühler, A. Rossi, S. Schulze, P. M. J. Afonso, J. Elliott, R Filgas, Dieter H. Hartmann, A Kupcu Yoldas, S Mcbreen, M Nardini, F Olivares E., A Rau, S Schmidl, P Schady, V Sudilovsky, A C. Updike, A Yoldas

Publications

We report on follow-up observations of 20 short-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs; T90 <2 >s) performed in g'r'i'z' JHKs with the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) between mid-2007 and the end of 2010. This is one of the most compre-hensive data sets on GRB afterglow observations of short bursts published so far. In three cases, GROND was on target within less than 10 min after the trigger, leading to the discovery of the afterglow of GRB 081226A and its faint underlying host galaxy. In addition, GROND was able to image the optical afterglow and follow the light curve evolution in five …

Whole-School Inclusive Reform: "It's What's Best For Kids”, Nicole M. Declouette

Teaching and Leadership - Dissertations

This qualitative case study investigates a school and university inclusive reform project, called the All Means All Project, and how it is understood and experienced by teachers and administrators at Kennedy School, a K-8 school in the northeast United States. The All Means All Project began when two university professors called into question the practice of placing students with disabilities in segregated special classrooms. Their goal was to create a collaborative, multi-dimensional approach to providing all students with access to rigorous academic instruction and promoting a sense of belonging through students' full-time membership in general education classrooms. This reform was …

Silica Nanoparticle-Based Coatings With Superhydrophilic And Superhydrophobic Properties, Robert Andrew Fleming

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic surfaces have potential for implementation into a variety of fields, including self-cleaning surfaces, anti-fogging transparent materials, and biomedical applications. In this study, sandblasting, oxygen plasma treatments, silica nanoparticle films, and a low surface energy fluorocarbon film were employed to change the natural surface wettability of titanium, glass, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates, with an aim to produce superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic behavior. The effects of these surface modifications are characterized by water contact angles (WCAs), surface wetting stability, surface morphology and roughness, surface elemental composition, and optical transmittance measurements. The results show that stable superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic surfaces …

Development Of Mems-Based Corrosion Sensor, Feng Pan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is to develop a MEMS-based corrosion sensor, which is used for monitoring uniform, galvanic corrosion occurring in infrastructures such as buildings, bridges. The corrosion sensor is made up of the composite of micro/nano metal particles with elastomers. The mechanism of corrosion sensor is based on the mass transport of corrosive species through the sensor matrix. When the metal particles in the matrix corrode, the electrical resistivity of the material increases due to increasing particle resistances or reduction of conducting pathways. The corrosion rate can be monitored by detecting the resistivity change in sensing elements. The life span of …

Prehistoric Human Ecodynamics In The Rub Al-Khali Desert: Results Of Remote Sensing And Excavations In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Jason T. Herrmann

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological investigations in the Emirate of Dubai, UAE conducted by the Dubai Department of Archaeology and the University of Arkansas demonstrate that the desert inland of the Oman Peninsula was occupied not only during the Arabian Neolithic (8000-4400 BC), when the region experienced a moist period referred to as the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO), but also during the more arid millennia following the decline of the HCO into the Christian Era. During this period, desert settlement clustered near a band of oases, in contrast to the more widespread spatial distribution of remains of nomadic pastoralists from the Neolithic. Excavations at …

Applications Of Cobb-Douglas Production Function In Construction Time-Cost Analysis, Ashkan Hassani

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Cobb-Douglas Production Function was widely used in economics and productivity studies across many sectors. The function’s quantitative modeling of resource inputs and production outputs is appealing to the research domain of construction management. In this thesis we explored this function’s application in construction schedule crashing and project risk analysis related to duration of construction projects. Existing research on construction time-cost tradeoff issues rarely explore the origin of the crashing cost which is defined as the cost needed to shorten the project to the desired duration. In the existing literature crashing cost function was either assumed without much justification, or came …

Automatic Social Group Organization And Privacy Management, Anna Squicciarini, Dan Lin, Sushama Karumanchi, Nicole Desisto

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

With the dramatic increase of users on social network websites, the needs to assist users to manage their large number of contacts as well as providing privacy protection become more and more evident. Unfortunately, limited tools are available to address such needs and reduce users' workload on managing their social relationships. to tackle this issue, we propose an approach to facilitate online social network users to group their contacts into social circles with common interests. Further, we leverage the social group practice to automate the privacy setting process for users who add new contacts or upload new data items. We …

Search-Based Refactoring: Towards Semantics Preservation, Ali Ouni, Marouane Kessentini, Houari Sahraoui, Mohamed Salah Hamdi

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Refactoring restructures a program to improve its structure without altering its behavior. However, it is challenging to preserve the domain semantics of a program when refactoring is decided/implemented automatically. Indeed, a program could be syntactically correct, have the right behavior, but model incorrectly the domain semantics. in this paper, we propose a multi-objective optimization approach to find the best sequence of refactorings that maximizes quality improvements (program structure) and minimizes semantic errors. to this end, we use the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) to find the best compromise between these two conflicting objectives. We report the results of our experiments …

Winona Currents Magazine, University Advancement - Winona State University

Winona Currents

This magazine published by Winona State University’s University Advancement was intended to inform WSU Alumni, students, faculty, staff and the greater community about Alumni and the university. The cover theme is: Putting their Degrees to Work: Winona State's Young Alumni.

Doctor's Orders: A New Prescription For Adhd Medication Abuse, Erinn L. Rigney

Notre Dame Law Review

The article focuses on the problems regarding the misuse of medications used in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a neurobehavioral disorder. It discusses that drug Adderall that is prescribed for the patients of ADHD helps in increasing concentration, memory and focus. It also elaborates that in academic institutions, this drug has been misused by healthy people to perform better than others even after strict guidelines.

Conductive Concrete For Electromagnetic Shielding – Methods For Development And Evaluation, Aaron P. Krause

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research investigates the development and evaluation innovative methods for the use of conductive concrete as an electromagnetic shield. New testing methods are developed to determine the best conductive components to use in the design of a concrete mixture for shielding that shows the best promise. The conductive concrete mixture has the potential to provide electromagnetic shielding that is cost-effective in terms of construction, operation, and maintenance compared to conventional approaches. Two testing methods, Small Sample Testing and Large Slab Testing, are developed based on standardized testing methods that have been modified for the testing of conductive concrete mixtures. As …

Protein Nano-Object Integrator (Pronoi) For Generating Atomic Style Objects For Molecular Modeling, Nicholas Smith, Brandon Campbell, Lin Li, Chuan Li, Emil Alexov

Publications

Background

With the progress of nanotechnology, one frequently has to model biological macromolecules simultaneously with nano-objects. However, the atomic structures of the nano objects are typically not available or they are solid state entities. Because of that, the researchers have to investigate such nano systems by generating models of the nano objects in a manner that the existing software be able to carry the simulations. In addition, it should allow generating composite objects with complex shape by combining basic geometrical figures and embedding biological macromolecules within the system.

Results

Here we report the Protein Nano-Object Integrator (ProNOI) which allows for …

Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David Cohen, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

In an effort to examine the causal determinants of performance dynamics for the administrative presidency, we apply empirical public management theory to White House administration to explain managerial performance. Utilizing original survey data that measures the perceptions of former officials from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, we conduct quantitative analyses to determine the extent to which a chief of staff’s background, relationship with the president, and internal as well as external management approaches shape overall perceptions of White House administrative efforts. We find that managerial dimensions matter considerably when explaining the dynamics of White House organizational performance.

Using Technology As A Teacher Differentiation Tool To Increase Students' High Frequency Word Recognition, Shannon Mclaughlin

Education Masters

This research asked, “how does technology, as a teacher assistive differentiation tool, increase students high frequency word recognition?” Research was conducted in Greenville, New York with a group of nine first grade students all classified with a disability. Students were placed in either an iPad or flash card group. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected through questionnaires/interviews, student observations, and assessment. Findings revealed that both the groups increased their word recognition; however, the iPad group revealed a greater percentage increase when compared to the flash card group. The data implies there is a correlation among students with disabilities and using …

A Realistic View Of Returning To The Classroom After Cancer Survival: A Double Entendré, Heidi Suzanne Zimmer

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Returning to work after cancer treatment provides its own set of challenges. The purpose of this research paper is to inform cancer survivors of the reality of returning to work after treatment. From personal experience and hearing others’ stories; I am convinced that getting back to a “normal” life is a large part of the recovery from cancer. Returning to work can be the conclusion to a very long battle and reassures survivors, that they truly have beaten the beast. The literature revealed that it takes time for the body to follow the head and heart when it comes to …

Cloud Technology And Ehr Data Management, Jonathan Tancer, Aparna S. Varde

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Cloud technology today is being leveraged in various aspects of life ranging from entertainment to business. Among its several applications, interesting ones are those in the general field of scientific data management. The data generated here is typically of huge volumes from multiple sources and sharing often becomes imperative for collaboration among professionals and access to users. At the same time, the information involved is usually of a highly sensitive nature posing risks in sharing. In this work, we look closely at the healthcare domain where data was traditionally stored using pen-and-paper and has now shifted to electronic records being …

Sir Walter Scott And Kenilworth Castle: Ruins Restored By Historical Imagination, Rumiko Handa

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

This is a study of how the architectural ruins of Kenilworth Castle contributed to the historical imagination of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and how he forged their literary restoration. The castle, located between Warwick and Coventry, was first constructed in the early twelfth century by Geoffrey de Clinton, the royal chamberlain to King Henry I (r. 1100-1135). Major additions were made by King Henry II (r. 1154-1189); King John (r. 1199-1216); John of Gaunt (1340-1399), son of King Edward III and Duke of Lancaster; and Robert Dudley (1532-1588), Earl of Leicester. The castle played a number of important roles throughout …

Indigenous Peoples And Epistemic Injustice: Science, Ethics, And Human Rights, Rebecca Tsosie

Washington Law Review

This Article explores the use of science as a tool of public policy and examines how science policy impacts indigenous peoples in the areas of environmental protection, public health, and repatriation. Professor Tsosie draws on Miranda Fricker’s account of “epistemic injustice” to show how indigenous peoples have been harmed by the domestic legal system and the policies that guide the implementation of the law in those three arenas. Professor Tsosie argues that the theme of “discovery,” which is pivotal to scientific inquiry, has governed the violation of indigenous peoples’ human rights since the colonial era. Today, science policy is overtly …

Early Permian Seawater From The Delta18o Record Of Fossil Bivalves: Seasonality And A Latitudinal Gradient, James Andrew Beard

Earth & Environmental Sciences - Theses

The transition from a glaciated world to one that was ice-free makes the early Permian a time interval that in many ways mirrors the present, and hence there is great interest in constraining paleoclimate conditions over that transition. A common method for estimating ancient temperatures uses the oxygen isotope composition of marine carbonate, but this approach becomes significantly more complicated prior to the Cretaceous due to uncertainties about diagenesis and the isotopic composition of seawater, which has been hypothesized to be more depleted than during the Cenozoic. I use stable isotope compositions of sequentially microsampled accretionary calcite from fossil bivalves …

The Body Machinic: Technology, Labor, And Mechanized Bodies In Victorian Culture, Jessica Kuskey

English - Dissertations

While recent scholarship focuses on the fluidity or dissolution of the boundary between body and machine, "The Body Machinic" historicizes the emergence of the categories of "human" and "mechanical" labor. Beginning with nineteenth-century debates about the mechanized labor process, these categories became defined in opposition to each other, providing the ideological foundation for a dichotomy that continues to structure thinking about our relation to technology. These perspectives are polarized into technophobic fears of dehumanization and machines "taking over," or technological determinist celebrations of new technologies as improvements to human life, offering the tempting promise of maximizing human efficiency. "The Body …

The X-Ray View Of Ob Star Wind Structure And Dynamics, David H. Cohen

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

High-resolution X-ray grating spectroscopy enables us to measure the kinematics and spatial distribution of the shock-heated wind plasma in O and early B stars, testing the predictions of the embedded wind shock scenario of massive star X-ray production. By fitting models to the resolved, Doppler broadened X-ray emission line profiles measured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory's grating spectrometer, we find an onset radius of X-ray production of roughly Ro = 1.5 R★ for the O supergiants, ζ Pup and HD 93129A. From the profile fitting we also find that the terminal velocity of the X-ray emitting plasma is consistent with …

Ecology Of Zoonoses: Natural And Unnatural Histories, William B. Karesh, Andy Dobson, James O. Lloyd-Smith, Juan Lubroth, Matthew A. Dixon, Malcolm Bennett, Stephen Aldrich, Todd Harrington, Pierre Formenty, Elizabeth H. Loh, Catherine C. Machalaba, Mathew Jason Thomas, David L. Heymann

United States Public Health Resources

More than 60% of human infectious diseases are caused by pathogens shared with wild or domestic animals. Zoonotic disease organisms include those that are endemic in human populations or enzootic in animal populations with frequent cross-species transmission to people. Some of these diseases have only emerged recently. Together, these organisms are responsible for a substantial burden of disease, with endemic and enzootic zoonoses causing about a billion cases of illness in people and millions of deaths every year. Emerging zoonoses are a growing threat to global health and have caused hundreds of billions of US dollars of economic damage in …