Digital Commons Network^™

Self-Referentiality In Constructive Semantics Of Intuitionistic And Modal Logics, Junhua Yu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores self-referentiality in the framework of justification logic. In this framework initialed by Artemov, the language has formulas of the form t:F, which means "the term t is a justification of the formula F." Moreover, terms can occur inside formulas and hence it is legal to have t:F(t), which means "the term t is a justification of the formula F about t itself." Expressions like this is not only interesting in the semantics of justification logic, but also, as we will see, necessary in applications of justification logic in formalizing constructive contents implicitly carried by modal and intuitionistic …

Text Extraction From Natural Scene: Methodology And Application, Chucai Yi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With the popularity of the Internet and the smart mobile device, there is an increasing demand for the techniques and applications of image/video-based analytics and information retrieval. Most of these applications can benefit from text information extraction in natural scene. However, scene text extraction is a challenging problem to be solved, due to cluttered background of natural scene and multiple patterns of scene text itself. To solve these problems, this dissertation proposes a framework of scene text extraction.

Scene text extraction in our framework is divided into two components, detection and recognition. Scene text detection is to find out the …

Dynamics Of Nanoparticles In Fluids And At Interfaces, Weikang Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, we use molecular dynamics simulation to study three basic behaviors or properties of nanoparticles: deposition during droplets evaporation, slip boundary condition and Brownian motion. These three problems address the need for an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of nanoparticles in fluids and at interfaces. In the first problem, evaporation of the droplets dispersed with particles, we investigated the distribution of evaporative flux, inner flow field, density and temperature. And we use these numerical experiments to check on our hydrodynamic theory of the "coffee ring" phenomenon. The simulations reveal the connection between the particle interactions and the deposit …

Dynamic Asset Allocation: A Bayesian Approach, Yalan Feng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The first half of this dissertation consists of two essays addressing dynamic asset allocation problem by exploring time-varying volatility and covariance between different assets.

In the first essay, I propose a time-varying Bayesian approach based on autoregressive models. To allow a parsimonious specification while improving predictive power, I specify a step function that considerably decreases the number of parameters to be estimated. To reduce data dimensionality, I use orthogonal portfolios instead of correlated assets in estimation and forecast. Finally, a Bayesian estimation is applied to dynamically update coefficients and error variance. I combine Bayesian time-varying autoregression with step function restriction …

Synthesis And Evaluation Of Sensitizer Drug Photorelease Chemistry: Micro-Optic Method Applied To Singlet Oxygen Generation And Drug Delivery, Goutam Ghosh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis summarizes a new micro-optic method for singlet oxygen generation and sensitizer drug delivery, which include i) synthesis and evaluation of a first generation device for drug delivery from native and fluorinated silica probe tips, ii) synthesis of PEG conjugated sensitizers to study phototoxicity in ovarian cancer cells, and iii) synthesis and evaluation of tris-PEGylated chlorin conjugated fluorinated silica for its future integration into the device to use as a 2nd generation device. A first generation micro-optic device was developed that works by sparging O2 gas and light generating cytotoxic singlet oxygen that cleaves the covalently attached drug (sensitizer) …

Planetary Improvement: Discourses And Practices Of Green Capitalism In The Cleantech Space, Jesse Adam Goldstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is money to be made in saving the planet. A whole host of actors, such as investors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and policy makers have mobilized around our ecological problems, seeking to innovate new `green' and `clean' technologies that can serve a rapidly changing environment. The presumption that such technologies are both necessary and necessarily profitable anchors visions of a `green' capitalism that can and must be brought into existence.

However, just as free markets have never been all that free, why should we presume that green capitalism would be all that green? Instead of attempting to arbit whether or not …

Representational Implications Of The Phonologization Of Contour Tones, Benjamin Kirkland Macaulay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis bridges accounts of tonogenesis to representations of contour tones in the dominant framework, autosegmental phonology. Accounts of tonogenesis reference phonetic features and structures that are unable to be represented in autosegmental phonology. As these features are required for the phonologization of contour tones, it is argued that they must also receive some representation in the synchrony. This is done under the Evolutionary Phonology framework of sound change. An attempt to reconcile the disparity between perceived phonetic features and synchronic structure is made by discussing the implications of the sequencing of targets within autosegmental contours. This innovation would better …

Selva Simbólica Selva Simbiótica Apuntes Para Una Ecocritica Latinoamericana, Liza Pamela Rosas-Bustos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on Latin America's selvatic territories. It argues for prevailing ecological principles as revealed in the selected works of three twentieth-century Latin American story-writers and poets. They portray rainforests as multisensorial lands that encompass bewildering events from which a principle of local authority emerges. This analysis is based on Francisco Coloane's short stories "Tierra del Fuego" and "Cabo de Hornos," Rosario Castellanos'Balún Canán, and Luis Sepúlveda's Un viejo que leía novelas de amor. Such phenomenology is also present on the environmental poetics from Marosa di Giorgio, Cecilia Vicuña, and Leonel Lienlaf linked to emotions of fear, urgency, …

Systematic Comparison Of Cross-Lingual Projection Techniques For Low-Density Nlp Under Strict Resource Constraints, Joshua Waxman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The field of low-density NLP is often approached from an engineering perspective, and evaluations are typically haphazard - considering different architectures, given different languages, and different available resources - without a systematic comparison. The resulting architectures are then tested on the unique corpus and language for which this approach has been designed. This makes it difficult to truly evaluate which approach is truly the "best," or which approaches are best for a given language.

In this dissertation, several state-of-the-art architectures and approaches to low-density language Part-Of-Speech Tagging are reimplemented; all of these techniques exploit a relationship between a high-density (HD) …

Message Passing Techniques For Statistical Physics And Optimization In Complex Systems, Lin Bo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Optimization problem has always been considered as a central topic in various areas of science and engineering. It aims at finding the configuration of a large number of variables with which the objective function is optimal. The close relation between optimization problems and statistical physics through the probability measure of the Boltzmann type has brought new theoretical tools from statistical physics of disordered systems to optimization problems. In this thesis, we use message passing techniques, in particular cavity method, developed in the last decades within spin glass theory to study optimization problems in complex systems. In the study of force …

Characterization Of Wide Band Gap Semiconductors And Multiferroic Materials, Bo Cai

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Structural, optical and electrical properties of zinc oxide (ZnO), aluminum nitride (AlN), and lutetium ferrite (LuFe₂O4) have been investigated. Temperature dependent Hall Effect measurements were performed between 80 and 800 K for phosphorus (P) and arsenic (As) doped ZnO thin films grown on c-plane sapphire substrate by RF magnetron sputtering. These samples exhibited n-type conductivity throughout the temperature range with carrier concentration of 3.85 × 10 ¹⁶ cm^-3 and 3.65 × 10 ¹⁷ cm^-3 at room temperature for P-doped and As-doped ZnO films, respectively. The Arrhenius plots of free electron concentration of those doped samples showed …

The Essay Industry, Stephanie Owings, Jennifer Nelson

Mountain Plains Journal of Business and Technology

This paper considers the essay industry. The essay industry is an Internet-based collection of firms that provide students with papers, written by others, which satisfy their coursework assignments. We find that the industry is thriving. The firm failure rate is low, profits are high and revenues are, at a minimum, $100 million. Although there are laws in many states prohibiting the sale of essays, we find that these laws are not generally enforced. We review the pricing structure of the industry and the typical compensation rates of their employees. We consider anti-plagiarism software and conclude that it has limited effectiveness …

Thoughts On Teaching The Senior Research Seminar In A Four-Year College: Suggested Protocols, Neal E. Duffy

Mountain Plains Journal of Business and Technology

This is an experiential and philosophical account of teaching the senior research seminar to economics and finance students. This article covers issues involving grading, resources, project selection, accountability, assessment, and class structure as well as the culture shock felt by both students and teacher in an independent study environment. One major point is that greater communication and minimal structure are more effective in creating the atmosphere of a true seminar. Instead of wasting time on research methods and over-assessment, the active exchange of ideas and learning-by-doing should be the focus of the senior seminar.

Water Quality Monitoring Protocol For Wadeable Streams And Rivers In The Northern Great Plains Network, Standard Operating Procedures Version 1.0, Marcia H. Wilson, Stephen K. Wilson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

The Water Quality Monitoring Protocol includes two parts: a Narrative and the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The Water Quality Monitoring Protocol Narrative Version 1.0 describes a general overview of the status of water resources throughout the parks in the National Park Service’s Northern Great Plains Network (NGPN), the objectives, the field methods, and the sampling design selected for this long-term monitoring program. This report includes the detailed SOPs for the NGPN’s Water Quality Monitoring Protocol. All water quality monitoring is conducted by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) through Interagency Agreements. The USGS North Dakota Water Science Center …

Nefdc Exhange, Volume 27, Fall 2014, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

President's message - Deborah J. Clark, Quinnipiac University

Embracing the Changing World: Incorporating Team-Based Learning in an Upper Level General Education Course - Mei-Yau Shih, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Susan Han, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Information Literacy: From Today’s Critical Challenges to Tomorrow’s Critical Thinking Opportunities - Kisha G. Tracy, Fitchurg State University and Jennifer Fielding, Northern Essex Community College

Preparing Future Faculty: By Chance or Design? - Keith Barker, University of Connecticut

Encouraging Crosstalk: What Higher Education Can Learn from the Next Generation Science Standards - Tracie Marcella Addy, Quinnipiac University

Spring 2015 Conference Announcement

The College …

Water Current, Volume 46, No. 4, Fall 2014

Water Current Newsletter

Nebraska Water Center Symposium and Water Law Conference

June Water Tour Heads to Republican River Basin

From The Director

Meet the Faculty

WRAP Hears Slate of Good News at September Meeting

Kuzelka Receives Kremer Award

Nance Joins DWFI as Director of Communications

New Staff Join Daugherty Water for Food

Researchers Probe Climate's Impact on Groundwater

Dating Drought in Nebraska's Sandhills

Water Center Advances Programming

Water Quality Related Extension Publications

UNL Report Outlines Impact of Climate Change

News Briefs

Spring Seminars Began in January

Franz Engages Students with New Cosmic-Ray

Chemistry meets Biology in Kazakhstan

A Literature Review Of The Impact Of Extracurricular Activities Participation On Students' Academic Performance, Poh Sun Seow, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Extracurricular activities (ECA) have become an important component of students’ school life and many schools have invested significant resources on extracurricular activities. The authors suggest three major theoretical frameworks (zero-sum, developmental, and threshold) to explain the impact of ECA participation on students’ academic performance. The authors urge researchers to conduct future research on the impact of ECA participation so as to extend the stream of research in the accounting education literature on determinants of students’ academic performance.

Partisan Sharing: Facebook Evidence And Societal Consequences, Jisun An, Daniele Quercia, Jon Crowcroft

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The hypothesis of selective exposure assumes that people seek out information that supports their views and eschew information that conflicts with their beliefs, and that has negative consequences on our society. Few researchers have recently found counter evidence of selective exposure in social media: users are exposed to politically diverse articles. No work has looked at what happens after exposure, particularly how individuals react to such exposure, though. Users might well be exposed to diverse articles but share only the partisan ones. To test this, we study partisan sharing on Facebook: the tendency for users to predominantly share like-minded news …

Designing An Immersive And Entertaining Pervasive Gameplay Experience With Spheros As Game And Interface Elements, Brennan Jones, Kody Dillman, Setareh Aghel Manesh, Ehud Sharlin, Anthony Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Sphero is a robotic remote-controlled ball capable of rolling around on its own in any direction at multiple speeds. Numerous games have been designed for the Sphero for smartphones and tablets. However, most of these games provide an interface for controlling the Sphero that is far from natural. These games also do not put a strong focus on the physical environment around the Sphero. This work discusses a control scheme used to control a Sphero with another Sphero, and a pervasive game leveraging this scheme that emphasizes physical properties of the environment to create an immersive experience.

Entity Linking On Microblogs With Spatial And Temporal Signals, Yuan Fang, Ming-Wei Chang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Microblogs present an excellent opportunity for monitoring and analyzing world happenings. Given that words are often ambiguous, entity linking becomes a crucial step towards understanding microblogs. In this paper, we re-examine the problem of entity linking on microblogs. We first observe that spatiotemporal (i.e., spatial and temporal) signals play a key role, but they are not utilized in existing approaches. Thus, we propose a novel entity linking framework that incorporates spatiotemporal signals through a weakly supervised process. Using entity annotations1 on real-world data, our experiments show that the spatiotemporal model improves F1 by more than 10 points over existing systems. …

Survey On Wakeup Scheduling For Environmentally-Powered Wireless Sensor Networks, Alvin Cerdena Valera, Wee-Seng Soh, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Advances in energy harvesting technologies and ultra low-power computing and communication devices are enabling the realization of environmentally-powered wireless sensor networks (EPWSNs). Because of limited and dynamic energy supply, EPWSNs are duty-cycled to achieve energy-neutrality, a condition where the energy demand does not exceed the energy supply. Duty cycling entails nodes to sleep and wakeup according to a wakeup scheduling scheme. In this paper, we survey the various wakeup scheduling schemes, with focus on their suitability for EPWSNs. A classification scheme is proposed to characterize existing wakeup scheduling schemes, with three main categories, namely, asynchronous, synchronous, and …

Dynamic Inference Of Change Contracts, Tien-Duy B. Le, Jooyong Yi, David Lo, Ferdian Thung, Abhik Roychoudhury

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Software evolves and thus developers frequently make changes to systems that are logged in version control systems. These changes are often poorly documented -- often commit logs are empty or only contain minimal information. Thus, it is often a challenge to understand why certain changes are made especially if they were introduced many months or even years ago. Understanding these changes is important when pertinent questions are raised during future bug fixing or software evolution efforts. Thus, there is a need for an automated approach that can help developers better document changes with little or minimal effort. To address this …

Competition Between Software-As-A-Service Vendors, Dan Ma, Robert John Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We propose a model of software-as-a-service (SaaS) in a competitive marketplace that brings clarity to the choices that competing vendors must make for pricing and quality strategy. We focus on several features of SaaS competition, including differences in vendor offerings, incomplete information on application functionality, the potential lock-in risk of SaaS clients, and their cost of learning about what it will take to make the vendors’ software work well. Clients can sample the fit costs of adoption, but can switch to another vendor. We obtained several findings through the use of a game-theoretic model. First, a client’s switching cost is …

Optimization Of Scheduling And Dispatching Cars On Demand, Vu Tran

Master's Projects

Taxicab is the most common type of on-demand transportation service in the city because its dispatching system offers better services in terms of shorter wait time. However, the shorter wait time and travel time for multiple passengers and destinations are very considerable. There are recent companies implemented the real-time ridesharing model that expects to reduce the riding cost when passengers are willing to share their rides with the others. This model does not solve the shorter wait time and travel time when there are multiple passengers and destinations. This paper investigates how the ridesharing can be improved by using the …

Strategic Sourcing In The Presence Of Uncertain Supply And Retail Competition, Jianqing Chen, Zhiling Guo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper develops an analytical model to evaluate competing retail firms’ sourcing strategies in the presence of supply uncertainty. We consider a common supplier that sells its uncertain supply to two downstream retail firms engaging in price competition in a horizontally differentiated product market. The focal firm has a dual-sourcing option, while the rival firm can only source from the common supplier. We assess the system-wide effects of supply uncertainty on the focal firm's incentive to pursue the dual-sourcing strategy. We find that the focal firm's dual-sourcing strategy can create a win-win situation that leads to increased retail prices and …

Hippi Care Hospital: Towards Proactive Business Processes In Emergency Room Services, Kar Way Tan, Venky Shankaraman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It was 2.35 am on a Saturday morning. Wiki Lim, process specialist from the Process Innovation Centre (PIC) of Hippi Care Hospital (HCH), desperately doodling on her notepad for ideas to improve service delivery at HCH’s Emergency Department (ED). HCH has committed to the public that its ED would meet the service quality criterion of serving 90% of A3 and A4 patients, non-emergency patients with moderate to mild symptoms, within 90 minutes of their arrival at the ED. The ED was not able to meet this performance goal and Dr. Edward Kim, the head of the ED at HCH, had …

Physics Discipline 3-Year Assessment Plan 2014-2017, Physics Discipline

Assessment of Student Learning Reports

No abstract provided.

Common Data Set 2014-2015, University Of Minnesota, Morris Office Of Institutional Research

Institutional Effectiveness and Research Reports

No abstract provided.

French Discipline 3-Year Assessment Plan 2014-2017, French Discipline

Assessment of Student Learning Reports

No abstract provided.

Mathematics Discipline 3-Year Assessment Plan 2014-2017, Mathematics Discipline

Assessment of Student Learning Reports

No abstract provided.