Digital Commons Network^™

Project Quality Tool: A Tool For Project Success, Pallavi Srichinta

Computer Science

This paper proposes a solution to the current changing requirements communication problem in an offshore on-site software development model. The proposed model is a web-based tool where the user in a project team can enter the new Requirements, map them to Design, create Test Cases from design, Execute them, and track failed ones by creating Defects. When the requirements change the existing tools available in the market, the changes are not communicated to the entire project team; leaving the Quality Assurance team verifying old (incomplete) requirements which ultimately costs more time, money and delays the project delivery. In this paper, …

Implementation Of A Medical Decision Making Tool, Sudheer Gadiparthi

Computer Science

Nowadays timely medical assistance is necessary for physicians/medical practitioners for decision making. Sometimes it is necessary for physicians to make decisions to diagnose the disease of a patient promptly. ‘Implementation of a Medical Decision Making Tool’, is a software tool was developed by implementing and incorporating efficient data mining techniques. In this project, with the help of WEKA software, which is a collection of classification algorithms for data analysis and feature selection, the decision making tool was implemented for the data preprocessing and classification on collected data sets of patients. Dataset for three kinds of diseases, heart disease, dermatology, and …

Historical Analysis And Estimation Tool For Energy Trading, Sharath Chandra Sambaraju

Computer Science

Many forms of commodities are traded in today’s financial world, the most commonly used commodity, ‘Electricity’, is no exception. Electricity is mostly traded on a day to day basis, where the buyers and suppliers agree on a fixed price for electricity to be generated and dispatched. These allow the markets to adjust themselves to efficient pricing based on the simple supply and demand principle. The objective of this paper is to understand the day ahead market data and collecting historical market data and storing in to a RDBMS database, and design and program a windows-based application using C# programming language, …

Naïve Bayes Classifier: A Mapreduce Approach, Songtao Zheng

Computer Science

Machine learning algorithms have the advantage of making use of the powerful Hadoop distributed computing platform and the MapReduce programming model to process data in parallel. Many machine learning algorithms have been investigated to be transformed to the MapReduce paradigm in order to make use of the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). Naïve Bayes classifier is one of the supervised learning classification algorithm that can be programmed in form of MapReduce. In our study, we build a Naïve Bayes MapReduce model and evaluate the classifier on five datasets based on the prediction accuracy. Also, a scalability analysis is conducted to …

Simian Plus: A Mission Simulation Enhancement Toolkit, Divya Dayala

Computer Science

Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) have the ability to execute missions that include detecting and destroying the targets. The Simian simulator developed at NDSU performs complex motion calculations for moment - moment flight and delivers effective inter-agent communication for all the UAV’s. Scenarios that focus on the strategy plan and perform calculations have been, developed to carry out the mission. The goal of this paper is to address the tasks of starting servers, manually writing the required xml files to describe scenario to the simulator and launch simulation in the existing Simian system. Simian Plus is, designed and implemented to ease …

Investigating The Use Of Model-Based Method For Improving The Quality Of Natural Language Requirements: A Controlled Empirical Study, Munmun Gupta

Computer Science

Requirement engineering is a critical phase in software development that describes the customer needs and specifications for the software. Requirements are gathered through various sources and documented for a software product to be developed, written in Natural Language (NL). NL requirements are fault prone because they can be interpreted in different ways due its inherent imprecision, ambiguity, and vagueness. To address these problems, model-based requirements verification method called NLtoSTD (State Transition Diagram) is proposed. This paper evaluates the ability of NLtoSTD method in detecting faults when used on NL requirements and to improve its cognitive friendliness to the stakeholders. Motivated …

Protein-Function Prediction Using A Graph-Matching Algorithm, Sarjan Shrestha

Computer Science

Proteins are the basic building blocks for biological life. Proteins interact with other proteins or molecules to carry out various functions. The active region in the protein molecule is the functional site. Today, most research work has been done to establish sequence-based, structure-based, and machine-learning approaches for prediction of protein’s functional site. This paper describes a tool for identifying the functional site of protein using a graph-based approach. Each protein structure is represented as a graph. Each protein residue represents a vertex, and the relationship between residues represents the edges of the graph. The tool compares proteins to identify the …

Mapreduce-Enabled Scalable Nature-Inspired Approaches For Clustering, Ibrahim Mithgal Aljarah

Computer Science

The increasing volume of data to be analyzed imposes new challenges to the data mining methodologies. Traditional data mining such as clustering methods do not scale well with larger data sizes and are computationally expensive in terms of memory and time. Clustering large data sets has received attention in the last few years in several application areas such as document categorization, which is in urgent need of scalable approaches. Swarm intelligence algorithms have self-organizing features, which are used to share knowledge among swarm members to locate the best solution. These algorithms have been successfully applied to clustering, however, they suffer …

Dialogues Of Transitional Justice: Keynote Speech, Ruti Teitel

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Cross-Judging Revisited, Robert Howse, Ruti Teitel

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Collective Or Individual Benefits?: Measuring The Educational Benefits Of Race-Conscious Admissions Programs, Deborah N. Archer

Articles & Chapters

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the United States Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities could continue to consider race or ethnicity as one of several factors in an admissions policy that seeks to achieve broad diversity goals. To the relief of proponents of race-conscious admissions programs, the Fisher Court affirmed that the 'educational benefits' that flow from a diverse student body are a compelling government interest under strict scrutiny analysis. The Court further upheld the determination that Grutter mandates 'deference to the University’s conclusion, based on its experience and expertise, that a diverse student body would …

Mainstreaming Critical Disability Studies Towards Undoing The Last Prejudice, Colleen Ann Mcdonald-Morken

Education

According to critical disability studies scholars, disablism may be the fundamental system of unearned advantaging and disadvantaging upon which all other notions of difference-as-deviance are constructed. If so, a deeply critical and intersectional investigation of enabled privilege/disablism prepares a grounding from which seeds of novel and effective approaches to social and educational justice may be cultivated. Whether or not disablism holds this pivotal position, the costs to us all in terms of personal, ethical, professional, and financial losses are too steep, have always been too steep. In this disquisition I begin by arguing for the prioritizing and centering of a …

Qualified Doctor And Medical Students' Use Of Resources For Accessing Information: What Is Used And Why?, Nicola Brennan, Sarah Edwards, Narcie Kelly, Alice Miller, Lucy Harrower, Karen Mattick

Peninsula Medical School

BACKGROUND: Learning to access information using resources such as books and search engines is an important and fast changing challenge for doctors and medical students. Many resources exist to support evidence-based clinical decision-making, but a wide range of factors influences their use. OBJECTIVE: To explore qualified doctor and medical students' use of resources for accessing information and to determine what is used and why. METHODS: A stratified sample of 46 participants was recruited in Devon, UK. Participants kept a self-report diary of resources used over a week. The diaries were then used to stimulate recall within a semi-structured interview. Diary …

Implicit Meaning In 18-Month-Old Toddlers., Luche C Delle, Samantha Durrant, Caroline Floccia, Kim Plunkett

School of Psychology

A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that infants understand the meaning of spoken words from as early as 6 months. Yet little is known about their ability to do so in the absence of any visual referent, which would offer diagnostic evidence for an adult-like, symbolic interpretation of words and their use in language mediated thought. We used the head-turn preference procedure to examine whether infants can generate implicit meanings from word forms alone as early as 18 months of age, and whether they are sensitive to meaningful relationships between words. In one condition, toddlers were presented with lists of …

Manual Choice Reaction Times In The Rate-Domain., Cm Harris, J Waddington, V Biscione, S Manzi

School of Psychology

Over the last 150 years, human manual reaction times (RTs) have been recorded countless times. Yet, our understanding of them remains remarkably poor. RTs are highly variable with positively skewed frequency distributions, often modeled as an inverse Gaussian distribution reflecting a stochastic rise to threshold (diffusion process). However, latency distributions of saccades are very close to the reciprocal Normal, suggesting that "rate" (reciprocal RT) may be the more fundamental variable. We explored whether this phenomenon extends to choice manual RTs. We recorded two-alternative choice RTs from 24 subjects, each with 4 blocks of 200 trials with two task difficulties (easy …

The Sluggs Survey: New Evidence For A Tidal Interaction Between The Early Type Galaxies Ngc 4365 And Ngc 4342, C. Blom, D. Forbes, C. Foster, Aaron Romanowsky, J. Brodie

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We present new imaging and spectral data for globular clusters (GCs) around NGC 4365 and NGC 4342. NGC 4342 is a compact, X-ray luminous S0 galaxy with an unusually massive central black hole. NGC 4365 is another atypical galaxy that dominates the W' group of which NGC 4342 is a member. Using imaging from the MegaCam instrument on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) we identify a stream of GCs between the two galaxies and extending beyond NGC 4342. The stream of GCs is spatially coincident with a stream/plume of stars previously identified. We find that the photometric colours of the stream …

Ultra Compact Dwarfs In The Core Of The Perseus Cluster: Ucd Formation Via Tidal Stripping, S. Penny, D. Forbes, J. Strader, C. Usher, J. Brodie, Aaron Romanowsky

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We present the results of a Keck/DEIMOS survey of Ultra Compact Dwarfs (UCDs) in the Perseus Cluster core. We confirm cluster membership for 14 UCDs, with radial velocities ~5300 km s−1. Two of these confirmed Perseus UCDs have extremely blue colours (B−R<0.6 mag), reside in star forming filaments surrounding NGC 1275, and have likely formed as massive star clusters in the last ~100 Myr. We also measure a central velocity dispersion of a third, UCD13 (σ0=38±8 km s−1), the most extended UCD in our sample. We determine it to have radius Re=85±1.1 pc, a dynamical mass of (2.3±0.8)×108 M⊙, and a metallicity [Z/H]=−0.52+0.33−0.29 dex. UCD13 and the cluster's central galaxy, NGC 1275, have a projected separation of 30 kpc and a radial velocity difference of ~20 km s−1. Based on its size, red colour, internal velocity dispersion, dynamical mass, metallicity and proximity to NGC 1275, we argue that UCD13 is likely the remnant nucleus of a tidally stripped dE, with this progenitor dE having MB≈−16 mag and mass ∼109 M⊙.

Utterance-Final Lengthening Is Predictive Of Infants' Discrimination Of English Accents, Laurence White, Caroline Floccia, Jeremy Goslin, Joseph Butler

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

Shape Shifting: Local Landmarks Interfere With Navigation By, And Recognition Of, Global Shape., Matthew G. Buckley, Alastair D. Smith, Mark Haselgrove

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

English-Learning One- To Two-Year-Olds Do Not Show A Consonant Bias In Word Learning., Caroline Floccia, Thierry Nazzi, Luche C Delle, Silvana Poltrock, Jeremy Goslin

School of Psychology

Following the proposal that consonants are more involved than vowels in coding the lexicon (Nespor, Peña & Mehler, 2003), an early lexical consonant bias was found from age 1;2 in French but an equal sensitivity to consonants and vowels from 1;0 to 2;0 in English. As different tasks were used in French and English, we sought to clarify this ambiguity by using an interactive word-learning study similar to that used in French, with British-English-learning toddlers aged 1;4 and 1;11. Children were taught two CVC labels differing on either a consonant or vowel and tested on their pairing of a third …

Evaluating The Application Of Research-Based Guidance To The Design Of An Emergency Preparedness Leaflet., E. Hellier, J. Edworthy, L. Newbold, K. Titchener, M. Tucker, E. Gabe-Thomas

School of Psychology

UNLABELLED: Guidelines for the design of emergency communications were derived from primary research and interrogation of the literature. The guidelines were used to re-design a nuclear emergency preparedness leaflet routinely distributed to households in the local area. Pre-test measures of memory for, and self-reported understanding of, nuclear safety information were collected. The findings revealed high levels of non-receipt of the leaflet, and among those who did receive it, memory for safety advice was poor. Subjective evaluations of the trial leaflet suggested that it was preferred and judged easier to understand than the original. Objective measures of memory for the two …

The Craving Experience Questionnaire: A Brief, Theory-Based Measure Of Consummatory Desire And Craving, Jon May, Jackie Andrade, David J. Kavanagh, Gerald F.X. Feeney, Mathew J. Gullo, Dixie J. Statham, Jessica Skorka-Brown, Jennifer M. Connolly, Mandy Cassimatis, Ross Mcd Young, Jason P. Connor

School of Psychology

Aims: Research into craving is hampered by lack of theoretical specification and a plethora of substance-specific measures. This study aimed to develop a generic measure of craving based on Elaborated Intrusion (EI) Theory. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) examined whether a generic measure replicated the 3-factor structure of the Alcohol Craving Experience (ACE) scale over different consummatory targets and timeframes. Design: Twelve studies were pooled for CFA. Targets included alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate and food. Focal periods varied from the present moment to the previous week. Separate analyses were conducted for Strength and Frequency forms. Setting: Nine studies included university students, with …

Patient Reports Of The Outcomes Of Treatment: A Structured Review Of Approaches, Helen Lloyd, Crispin Jenkinson, Monica Hadi, Elizabeth Gibbons, Ray Fitzpatrick

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Thickness In Glaucomatous Nepalese Eyes And Its Relation With Visual Field Sensitivity, Safal Khanal, Madhu Thapa, Lyne Racette, Richard Johnson, Pinakin Gunvant Davey, Mahesh Raj Joshi, Gauri Shankar Shrestha

School of Health Professions

No abstract provided.

A Biological, Latent Variable Model Of Health (Earlybird 68)., Michael E. Hyland, Alison N. Jeffery, Terence J. Wilkin

School of Psychology

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether factor analysis of a set of health-related biomarkers provides evidence of an underlying common dimension of variation, and to explore the relationship between this dimension of variation with positive and negative affect. METHOD: Twelve health-related metabolic, immune and body-composition biomarkers at ages 5, 7, 9, 11, 14 and 16years were obtained from the EarlyBird longitudinal cohort of 347 children and supplemented by positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) measured at age 16years. RESULTS: At each age, principal factor analysis revealed that nine of the 12 biomarkers consistently loaded on the first extracted factor, accounting for …

Destructive Behavior In A Fragile Public Good Game, Maximilian Hoyer, Nadège Bault, Ben Loerakker, Winden F Van

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

Drive And Tension - Coordinated Care Organization (Cco) Case Studie, K Bruce Bayley, Lauren Broffman, Kristin Brown, Jill Rissi, Lucy Savitz

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

No abstract provided.

A Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial For Evaluating Rates Of Falls Among Inpatients In Aged Care Rehabilitation Units Receiving Tailored Multimedia Education In Addition To Usual Care: A Trial Protocol, Anne-Marie Hill, Nicholas Waldron, Christopher Etherton-Beer, Steven Mcphail, Katharine Ingram, Leon Flicker, Terry P. Haines

Physiotherapy Papers and Journal Articles

INTRODUCTION:

Falls are the most frequent adverse event reported in hospitals. Approximately 30% of in-hospital falls lead to an injury and up to 2% result in a fracture. A large randomised trial found that a trained health professional providing individualised falls prevention education to older inpatients reduced falls in a cognitively intact subgroup. This study aims to investigate whether this efficacious intervention can reduce falls and be clinically useful and cost-effective when delivered in the real-life clinical environment.

METHODS:

A stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial will be used across eight subacute units (clusters) which will be randomised to one of four …

An Audit Of Antenatal Education Facilitated By Physiotherapists In Western Australian Public Hospitals, Judy Wilson, Richard G. Berlach, Anne-Marie Hill

Physiotherapy Papers and Journal Articles

This paper reports on the delivery of antenatal education by physiotherapists in Western Australia in 2012, including the location of antenatal education providers, number of mothers attending, qualifications of physiotherapists involved, allocation of physiotherapy hours, the content of the education, and strategies used to enhance learning in the classes. A survey was emailed to the physiotherapists in 31 hospitals with maternity services that were funded by the Department of Health Western Australia. Antenatal education facilitated by a physiotherapist was provided at 25/30 (83.3%) hospitals. Four physiotherapists had postgraduate women’s health qualifications and all the antenatal education classes provided information about …

Exploring The Role And Skill Set Of Physiotherapy Clinical Educators In Work Integrated Learning, Susan Edgar, Joanne Connaughton

Physiotherapy Papers and Journal Articles

Clinical educators are under increasing pressures in the workplace to provide quality education of healthcare students within varying supervision frameworks. Along with facilitating the teaching of clinical skills, clinical educators play a support role for students and so require more than expert clinical abilities in their vital position linking institutions and the healthcare environment. Twelve physiotherapy clinical educators attended one of two focus groups exploring their opinions on the role and skill set of clinical educators in work-integrated learning (WIL).Clinical educators described their role, their skills, challenges they faced supporting the needs of students, as well as future training requirements. …