Digital Commons Network^™

Interaction Of Bn-Zro2-Sic Ceramics With Inclusions In Si-Killed Steel, Abhishek Kumar, Vivek Thapliyal, Jeffrey D. Smith

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Boron nitride (BN)-based ceramics are often used as containment refractory in thin-strip steel production. The interaction of this material (BN-ZrO₂-SiC: -MYCROSINT® SO43) was studied using a steel-inclusion system in a laboratory setup. Isothermal interaction tests were performed to evaluate the interaction of inclusions with this refractory. It was determined that corrosion of the BN refractory occurs through a dissolution mechanism and it was more severe in contact with steel compared to slag. A thermodynamic model was developed using FactSage to study the change in liquid steel/slag composition with refractory interaction. Thermodynamic predictions were in agreement with the experimental …

Fully Differential Study Of Interference Effects In The Ionization Of H₂ By Proton Impact, Sachin D. Sharma, T. P. Arthanayaka, Ahmad Hasan, B. R. Lamichhane, J. Remolina, Adolph P. Smith, Michael Schulz

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We have measured fully differential cross sections for ionization of H₂ by 75-keV proton impact. The coherence length of the projectile beam was varied by changing the distance between a collimating slit and the target. By comparing the cross sections measured for large and small coherence lengths pronounced interference effects could be identified in the data. A surprising result is that the phase angle in the interference term is primarily determined by the momentum transfer and only to a lesser extent by the recoil-ion momentum.

Governance Matter: Morningstar Stewardship Grades And Mutual Fund Performance, Jerry X. Cao, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jeremy Goh, Wee Seng Ng

Research Collection School Of Economics

Mutual fund investors have the arduous task of disentangling luck from ability of mutual fund managers’ performance. In this paper we investigate the role of mutual fund corporate governance (measured by Morningstar Stewardship grade) in mutual fund performance. We propose an objective data-driven corporate governance score based on principal components of Morningstar Stewardship Grades. Furthermore, we establish corporate governance scores have Granger Causality on long-term risk-adjusted returns. The findings suggest that corporate governance grades of mutual funds carry information content beyond the usual star rating measures for predicting long-term mutual fund performance and provide an effective tool for selecting funds.

Allocative Efficiency, Mark-Ups, And The Welfare Gains From Trade, Thomas J. Holmes, Wen-Tai Hsu, Sanghoon Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops an index of allocative efficiency that depends upon the distribution of mark-ups across goods and is separable from an index of standard Ricardian gains from trade. It determines how changes in trade frictions affect allocative efficiency in an oligopoly model of international trade, decomposing the effect into the cost-change channel and the price-change channel. Formulas are derived shedding light on the signs and magnitudes of the two channels. In symmetric country models, trade tends to increase allocative efficiency through the cost-change channel, yielding a welfare benefit beyond productive efficiency gains. In contrast, the price-change channel has ambiguous …

Optimal City Hierarchy: A Dynamic Programming Approach To Central Place Theory, Wen-Tai Hsu, Thomas J. Holmes, Frank Morgan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Central place theory is a key building block of economic geography and an empirically plausible description of city systems. This paper provides a rationale for central place theory via a dynamic programming formulation of the social planner's problem of city hierarchy. We show that there must be one and only one immediate smaller city between two neighboring larger-sized cities in any optimal solution. If the fixed cost of setting up a city is a power function, then the immediate smaller city will be located in the middle, confirming the locational pattern suggested by Christaller. We also show that the solution …

Perspectives On Task Ownership In Mobile Operating System Development [Invited Talk], Subhajit Datta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

There can be little contention about Stroustrup's epigrammatic remark: our civilization runs on software. However a caveat is increasingly due, much of the software that runs our civilization, runs on mobile devices today. Mobile operating systems have come to play a preeminent role in the ubiquity and utility of such devices. The development ecosystem of Android - one of the most popular mobile operating systems - presents an interesting context for studying whether and how collaboration dynamics in mobile development differ from conventional software development. In this paper, we examine factors that influence task ownership in Android development. Our results …

Organizing Video Search Results To Adapted Semantic Hierarchies For Topic-Based Browsing, Jiajun Wang, Yu-Gang Jiang, Qiang Wang, Kuiyuan Yang, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Organizing video search results into semantically structured hierarchies can greatly improve the efficiency of browsing complex query topics. Traditional hierarchical clustering techniques are inadequate since they lack the ability to generate semantically interpretable structures. In this paper, we introduce an approach to organize video search results to an adapted semantic hierarchy. As many hot search topics such as celebrities and famous cities have Wikipedia pages where hierarchical topic structures are available, we start from the Wikipedia hierarchies and adjust the structures according to the characteristics of the returned videos from a search engine. Ordinary clustering based on textual information of …

Generative Modeling Of Entity Comparisons In Text, Maksim Tkachenko, Hady W. Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Users frequently rely on online reviews for decision making. In addition to allowing users to evaluate the quality of individual products, reviews also support comparison shopping. One key user activity is to compare two (or more) products based on a specific aspect. However, making a comparison across two different reviews, written by different authors, is not always equitable due to the different standards and preferences of individual authors. Therefore, we focus instead on comparative sentences, whereby two products are compared directly by a review author within a single sentence. We study the problem of comparative relation mining. Given a set …

In The Shadow Of Tolerance: The Discursive Context Of Dutch-Born Muslim Youth, Mayida Zaal

Department of Secondary and Special Education Scholarship and Creative Works

Despite a public discourse on tolerance, anxiety about immigrants, Islam and the preservation of Dutch values has amplified fear of Muslim youth in the Netherlands. In this context, Dutch-born Muslim youth endure social and systemic discrimination that affects all aspects of their futures, including available educational opportunities and eventually their prospects for employment. ased on a one-year qualitative study conducted in Amsterdam, this article explores the lived experience of Dutch-born Muslim youth caught at the intersection of national policies and local realities. Grounded in critical literature originating in the Netherlands and in Europe, this inquiry triangulates participant observations, focus groups …

The Future Now: Canada's Libraries, Archives, And Public Memory, Patricia Demers, Guylaine Beaudry, Pamela Bjornson, Michael Carroll, Carol Couture, Charlotte Gray, Judith Hare, Ernie Ingles, Eric Ketelaar, Gerald Mcmaster, Ken Roberts

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Our title boldly asserts that the future must be acknowledged. We are not assuming the role of prophets, but rather of alert communicators. The library and archive sector needs institutional reform to improve efficiencies, foster more effective collaboration, and provide clearer, more reliable leadership. The Report synthesizes what we have heard and learned from Canadians. It conveys verbal and visual snapshots of transformative, energetic, forceful cultural institutions, either already flourishing or in planning stages. It also underlines the urgency of the present moment when disregard or neglect must be challenged and countered. First and foremost, in the digital era, libraries …

Gammatone And Mfcc Features In Speaker Recognition, Wison Burgos

Theses and Dissertations

The feature analysis component of an Automated Speaker Recognition (ASR) system plays a crucial role in the overall performance of the system. There are many feature extraction techniques available, but ultimately we want to maximize the performance of these systems. From this point of view, the algorithms developed to compute feature components are analyzed. Current state-of-the-art ASR systems perform quite well in a controlled environment where the speech signal is noise free. The objective of this thesis investigates the results that can be obtained when you combine Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Gammatone Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (GFCC) as feature components …

Tiers 1 & 2 Intervention: Before & After School Programs, Jenna Strawhun, Natalie Hoff, Elisabeth J. Kane, Kenneth Parnell, Reece L. Peterson

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Conclusion

Millions of children and adolescents are unsupervised after school, often because their parents need to work during those hours. When these students are unsupervised, they are at risk for involvement in inappropraite inappropriate behaviors. After-school programs are a potential solution to this problem because they provide students with supervised, safe activities that may also increase academic or social skills. They also provide opportunities for academic tutoring, and social mentoring. Despite the fact that research has thus far been unable to categorically support the positive effects of afterschool programs, the general consensus is that the programs are helpful and have …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Undocumented Latino Students To Enroll In And Persist At A Four-Year Public Hispanic-Serving Institution In Texas, Angela C. Stuart-Carruthers

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Undocumented students in the United States are trapped in a myriad of completing federal, state, and local laws that impact their lives daily. While approximately 60,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year, the college going rate for this population is substantially lower than their documented peers. Since President Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order, undocumented students have gained national attention. Despite this new focus on undocumented students few studies have been conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the live experiences of these students.

Framed by Tinto’s (1993) Theory of Student Departure and Latino …

Localization Of Near-Field Radio Controlled Unintended Emitting Sources In The Presence Of Multipath Fading, Nurbanu Guzey, Hao Xu, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Localization of near-field unintended emitting radio controlled (RC) devices under a multipath environment is considered in this paper using a uniform linear array (ULA). Since received signals are dependent on both angle of arrival (AoA) and distance from the RC devices to the ULA in the near-field scenario, traditional localization schemes based on received signal strength indicator, time difference in arrival, which only estimate either AoA or distance, are unsuitable. Therefore, a novel smooth 2-D multiple signal classification (MUSIC) near-field localization scheme is developed to locate RC devices under a multipath environment with a possible location error of 0.5 m. …

An Automatic Similarity Detection Engine Between Sacred Texts Using Text Mining And Similarity Measures, Salha Hassan Muhammed Qahl

Theses

Is there any similarity between the contexts of the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran, and can this be proven mathematically? The purpose of this research is using the Bible and the Quran as our corpus, we explore the performance of various feature extraction and machine learning techniques. The unstructured nature of text data adds an extra layer of complexity in the feature extraction task, and the inherently sparse nature of the corresponding data matrices makes text mining a distinctly difficult task. Among other things, We assess the difference between domain-based syntactic feature extraction and domain-free feature extraction, and then …

Particle Moment Canting In Cofe2O4 Nanoparticles, K. Hasz, Yumi Ijiri, Kathryn L. Krycka, Julie A. Borchers, R.A. Booth, Samuel D. Oberdick, Sara A. Majetich

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Polarization-analyzed small-angle neutron scattering methods are used to determine the spin morphology in high crystalline anisotropy, 11 nm diameter CoFe2O4 nanoparticle assemblies with randomly oriented easy axes. In moderate to high magnetic fields, the nanoparticles adopt a uniformly canted structure, rather than forming domains, shells, or other arrangements. The observed canting angles agree quantitatively with those predicted from an energy model dominated by Zeeman and anisotropy competition, with implications for the technological use of such nanoparticles.

Validity And Reliability Of An Arabic Version Of The Modified Dental Anxiety Scale In Saudi Adults, Maha A. Bahammam, Mona H. Hassan

Saudi Medical Journal

OBJECTIVES: To test the reliability and validity of an Arabic version of the modified dental anxiety scale (MDAS), and to correlate it with other demographic data. METHODS: The original English version of the MDAS was translated into Arabic, and then translated back into English by experienced bilingual professionals. Four hundred and seventy-four patients referred to dental clinics for treatment at the Faculty of Dentistry Hospital, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from November 2012 to June 2013 participated in the study. The assessment tool included questions regarding demographic characteristics, frequency of dental visits, the Arabic version of the MDAS, and the …

Malignant Transformation Of Persistent Endometriosis After Hysterectomy, Naif A. Bawazeer, Hatim M. Al-Jifree, Abdulrahim M. Gari

Saudi Medical Journal

The malignant transformation of persistent endometriotic implants into endometrioid adenocarcinoma is rare, especially after remote hysterectomy and salpingo-oophorectomy (TAH-BSO), and there are few cases reported in the English language literature. Patients receiving estrogen replacement therapy are common among the reported cases. We present a case that demonstrates the possibility of malignant transformation in a 53-year-old female, known case of endometriosis, who underwent total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy with no evidence of malignancy in the final pathology report. After 9 years, she presented with lower abdominal mass, and histopathological studies confirmed the diagnosis of well-differentiated endometrioid adenocarcinoma. The possibility of …

Does Cesarean Section Have An Impact On The Successful Initiation Of Breastfeeding In Saudi Arabia?, Afnan A. Albokhary, Jennifer P. James

Saudi Medical Journal

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether the type of birth influenced breastfeeding outcomes. METHODS: This study used a quantitative descriptive correlation design study in a sample of 60 primigravida mothers. Participants were recruited over a 2-month period from June to July 2011 in the postnatal ward at King AbdulAziz University Hospital (KAUH) in Jeddah city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). RESULTS: The results of the study indicated that women who gave birth vaginally were more likely to breastfeed within the first hour, and at 24 hours after birth than those who had a cesarean section. The mothers who had cesarean section stated …

Regulating Aerial Photography And Videography Proportionately: Some Thoughts On The Sal Seminar “Droning On About Journalism – Remotely Piloted Aircraft, Newsgathering, And Law”, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The concept and practice of aerial photography and videography have been around for some time. But it was only in the last few years that such media production via remote means has achieved mainstream use. The convergence of cutting-edge technological developments in gyroscopic gimbals, far-range wireless transmissions, GPS-enablement in stabilisation, compact devices producing digital image quality and so forth has led to the proliferation of affordable camera-carrying “drones” that even hobbyists can pilot reasonably well with ease. Thus far, there have not been any reports of serious mishaps involving the use of these rotor-propelled copters. However, the controversial appellation inaccurately …

Nudging Users Towards Cross-Border Mediation: Is It Really About Harmonised Enforcement Regulation?, Nadja Alexander

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this paper the author challenges her audience to think in different ways about creating the shift needed to make cross-border mediation practice a reality rather than rhetoric. Within Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore and other centres are positioning themselves as regional leaders in cross-border mediation. Statistically though, there is not an enormous amount of cross-border mediation going on. Despite the apparent advantages of mediation and the international regulatory activity outlined above, cross-border commercial mediation practice has been slow to develop. At dispute resolution conferences and other get-togethers, mediators and other ADR advocates ask themselves, “Why”? While there is little empirical …

Risk Sharing In An Asymmetric Environment, Eric Fesselmeyer, Leonard J. Mirman, Marc Santugini

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

We study the effect of an asymmetric environment on risk sharing. In our model, entrepreneurs consider undertaking risky projects in the real sector as well as selling part of their projects to investors. To capture the idea of an asymmetric environment, the returns on the alternative risk-free investment are allowed to differ between the entrepreneurs and the investors, i.e., agents have different opportunity costs of participating in the risky projects. We first show that the presence of asymmetric options establishes links between the risk-free and risky sectors as well as between the real and financial sectors. In particular, an asymmetric …

The Spatial Turn Of Social And Cultural History: A Review Of The Current Field, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In 2010 Ralph Kingston highlighted how history’s ‘rediscovery of space and place’was firmly on the agenda for the twenty-first century. 1 Four years on this article asks whether Kingston’s claim is still valid or whether historians’ passion for all things spatial has run its course. This article reviews five recent collections of essays connected by themes of urban space and place, and asks how far the exploration of space as a way of understanding the past is still proving an embryonic and constructive way of approaching the past.

Do Away With Race-Based Annual Academic Data, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law and former Nominated Member of Parliament Eugene Tan urged for the Ministry of Education to stop publishing race-based academic data for national examinations. This includes the Primary School Leaving Examination, and the GCE O- and A-Levels. He felt that at a time when the Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others racial classification is less relevant, with more inter-racial and international marriages, we must do away with racial stereotypes or notions of cultural deficits, because they undermine the very students we seek to help.

Conducting Scaffolds For Liver Tissue Engineering, Armin Tahmasbi Rad, Naushad Ali, Hari Shankar R. Kotturi, Mostafa Yazdimamaghani, Jim Smay, Daryoosh Vashaee, Lobat Tayebi

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

It is known that there is a correlation between a cell membrane potential and the proliferation of the cell. The high proliferation capacity of liver cells can also be attributed to its specific cell membrane potential as liver cell is recognized as one of the most depolarized of all differentiated cells. We hypothesized that this phenomenon can be emphasized by growing liver cells in conducting scaffolds that can increase the electrical communication among the cells. In this article, using tissue engineering techniques, we grew hepatocyte cells in scaffolds with various compositions. It was found that the scaffolds containing conducting polymer …

Wills, Trusts, And Estates, J. William Gray Jr., Katherine E. Ramsey

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Labor In Faith: A Comparative Analysis Of Hosanna-Tabor V. Eeoc Through The European Court Of Human Rights' Religious Employer Jurisprudence, Francesca M. Genova

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note uses the European Court of Human Rights’ framework to analyze the Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which recognizes a “ministerial exception” for religious organizations as a defense to certain employment claims. It argues that the unanimous Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor examines factors similar to those of its European counterpart, but protects religious liberties more robustly by avoiding some of the European Court’s preoccupations. Yet, the European Court’s assessment anticipates the difficulties of applying the “ministerial exception” in future cases.

Adobe Medicus 2014 6 November-December, Health Sciences Library And Informatics Center

adobe medicus

No abstract provided.

Semantics-Aware Android Malware Classification Using Weighted Contextual Api Dependency Graphs, Mu Zhang, Yue Duan, Heng Yin, Zhiruo Zhao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The drastic increase of Android malware has led to a strong interest in developing methods to automate the malware analysis process. Existing automated Android malware detection and classification methods fall into two general categories: 1) signature-based and 2) machine learning-based. Signature-based approaches can be easily evaded by bytecode-level transformation attacks. Prior learning-based works extract features from application syntax, rather than program semantics, and are also subject to evasion. In this paper, we propose a novel semantic-based approach that classifies Android malware via dependency graphs. To battle transformation attacks, we extract a weighted contextual API dependency graph as program semantics to …

Combining Multiple Kernel Methods On Riemannian Manifold For Emotion Recognition In The Wild, M. Liu, R. Wang, S. Li, S. Shan, Zhiwu Huang, X. Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we present the method for our submission to the Emotion Recognition in the Wild Challenge (EmotiW 2014). The challenge is to automatically classify the emotions acted by human subjects in video clips under realworld environment. In our method, each video clip can be represented by three types of image set models (i.e. linear subspace, covariance matrix, and Gaussian distribution) respectively, which can all be viewed as points residing on some Riemannian manifolds. Then different Riemannian kernels are employed on these set models correspondingly for similarity/distance measurement. For classification, three types of classifiers, i.e. kernel SVM, logistic regression, …