Digital Commons Network^™

Training And Source Code Generation For Artificial Neural Networks, Brandon Winrich

Open Access Master's Theses

he ideas and technology behind artificial neural networks have advanced considerably since their introduction in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts. However, the complexity of large networks means that it may not be computationally feasible to retrain a network during the execution of another program, or to store a network in such a form that it can be traversed node by node. The purpose of this project is to design and implement a program that would train an artificial neural network and export source code for it so that the network may be used in other projects.

After discussing …

Effects Of Intensive Speech Treatment For An Individual With Spastic Dysarthria Secondary To Stroke, Charlotte Purcell

Open Access Master's Theses

Objective: This study investigated the impact of an intensive speech treatment on listener-rated communication success and functional outcome measures of communication for an individual with spastic dysarthria secondary to stroke.

Method: A single-subject A-B-A-A experimental design was used to measure the effects of an intensive speech treatment that incorporated principles of motor learning to drive activity-dependent changes in neural plasticity. The primary dependent variables were listener-rated communication success (comprehensibility transcription in two conditions and listener perceptual ratings of speech and voice), and functional outcome measures as rated by the participant and his spouse. Secondary dependent variables included acoustic …

Flourescence-Based Detection Of Pesticides Via Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticles, William Talbert

Open Access Master's Theses

The use of synthetic pesticides has played a large role in increasing crop yields throughout the world, but their adverse effects on humans and non-target animals is of major concern due to their toxicity and persistence in the environment. Some of the more persistent examples are organochlorine pesticides, particularly dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its metabolites. Reported herein is the development of a detection scheme using organic nanoparticles for the fluorescence detection of a range of pesticides. The nanoparticles were fabricated from a synthetic conjugated fluorescent polymer, and fluorescence experiments were performed using both nanoparticle solutions and polymer thin films.

The large …

Take A Deep Breath: How Yoga Postures And Breathing Techniques Can Impact Ptsd Symptoms, Sophia E. Armington

Scripps Senior Theses

Yoga postures (asana) and yoga breathing techniques (pranayama) could be an effective method of treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This study investigates the importance of the style of yoga treatment (pranayama, asana, or both) and the frequency with which these interventions are conducted (two or five times per week). The participants in this study will be military personnel with diagnosed PTSD who are currently receiving CBT and pharmaceutical treatment. All participants will have their PTSD symptoms assessed before the study begins, and then once a week each of the 12 weeks of the study. Structured interviews will be administered …

A Call For Bioregional Governance In Cascadia: Shaping An Ecological Identity In The Land Of Falling Waters, Molly D. Freed

Scripps Senior Theses

In recent years, as globalization has taken a toll on North Americans’ “sense of place,” there has been a swelling interest in the identification of bioregions: spaces delineated by their natural borders and shaped by the cultures that arise within them. Bioregionalism, the movement that arose from this scalar shift, emphasizes the “reinhabitation” of bioregions through a deep understanding and attachment between residents and their watershed and habitat. This thesis argues for a shift to bioregional-scale environmental governance in the Cascadian bioregion (the Pacific Northwest) via an interstate compact. Using the Great Lakes bioregion as a comparable case …

Queer Content In Science Fiction Allegory And Analogue: Is It In Disguise?, Anna C. Marburger

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis performs a textual analysis of two for-profit science fiction texts in which the authors implanted queer content: Bryan Singer's X-Men films and James Robert's Transformers comic series, "More Than Meets the Eye". The argument incorporates queer (referring to attraction and gender variance) media representation and western identity politics lenses into its critique.

By interrogating reality through the masquerade of an impossible universe, science fiction affects how subversive a text can be. When authors designate the natural and the unnatural in a strange universe, they designate what and who belongs in our society. Whatever they imagine has an effect …

A Bayesian Zero-Inflated Generalized Growth Mixture Model For Adolescent Health Risk Behaviors, Si Yang

Open Access Master's Theses

Using longitudinal data to model change patterns of behaviors is a major interest in the field of developmental psychology and behavioral science. As het- erogeneity often exists in the population, researchers are more and more interested in a topological representation of the growth trajectories. That is, to identify distinct trajectories depending on their individual characteristics. Latent class models(LCM) are flexible methods of modeling unobserved heterogeneity in a population and it has been recently extended to analyzing longitudinal data. Latent class growth models(LCGM) assume individuals come from a finite number of latent classes and individuals share the same growth trajectory within …

Adaptable Monsters: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Vampire Narrative As A Metaphor For Marginalized Groups, Alexa Wei

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis paper gives a brief history of the vampire narrative and its role in representing the collective anxieties of an age as well as serving as a metaphor for oppressed peoples. It uses Bram Stoker’s Dracula and J. Sheridan le Fanu’s Carmilla as historical examples of how the vampire adapts to suit issues of the day such as reverse colonization and female sexuality, respectively. The latter part of this paper speculates on the future role of the vampire in literature and proposes that the vampire could be used to discuss transgender issues as well as challenge the gender binary. …

The Germ Theory Of Dystopias: Fears Of Human Nature In 1984 And Brave New World, Clea D. Harris

Scripps Senior Theses

This project is an exploration of 20^th century dystopian literature through the lens of germ theory. This scientific principle, which emerged in the late 19^th century, asserts that microorganisms pervade the world; these invisible and omnipresent germs cause specific diseases which are often life threatening. Additionally, germ theory states that vaccines and antiseptics can prevent some of these afflictions and that antibiotics can treat others. This concept of a pervasive, invisible, infection-causing other is not just a biological principle, though; in this paper, I argue that one can interpret it as an ideological framework for understanding human existence …

Shared Genetic Variance Between Obesity And White Matter Integrity In Mexican Americans, Elena A. Spieker, Peter Kochunov, Laura M. Rowland, Emma Sprooten, Anderson M. Winkler, Rene L. Olvera, Laura Almasy, Ravi Duggirala, Peter T. Fox, John Blangero, David C. Glahn, Joanne E. Curran

School of Medicine Publications

Obesity is a chronic metabolic disorder that may also lead to reduced white matter integrity, potentially due to shared genetic risk factors. Genetic correlation analyses were conducted in a large cohort of Mexican American families in San Antonio (N = 761, 58% females, ages 18–81 years; 41.3 ± 14.5) from the Genetics of Brain Structure and Function Study. Shared genetic variance was calculated between measures of adiposity [(body mass index (BMI; kg/m2) and waist circumference (WC; in)] and whole-brain and regional measurements of cerebral white matter integrity (fractional anisotropy). Whole-brain average and regional fractional anisotropy values for 10 major …

Army Support Of Military Cyberspace Operations: Joint Contexts And Global Escalation Implications, Jeffrey L. Caton Mr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

View the Executive Summary

Military cyberspace operations have evolved significantly over the past 2 decades and are now emerging into the realm of military operations in the traditional domains of land, sea, and air. The goal of this monograph is to provide senior policymakers, decisionmakers, military leaders, and their respective staffs with a better understanding of Army cyberspace operations within the context of overall U.S. military cyberspace operations. It examines the development of such operations in three major sections. First, it looks at the evolution of Department of Defense cyberspace operations over the past decade to include the founding of …

Attaining Automaticity In The Visual Numerosity Task Is Not Automatic, Craig P. Speelman, Katrina L. Muller-Townsend

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This experiment is a replication of experiments reported by Lassaline and Logan (1993) using the visual numerosity task. The aim was to replicate the transition from controlled to automatic processing reported by Lassaline and Logan (1993), and to examine the extent to which this result, reported with average group results, can be observed in the results of individuals within a group. The group results in this experiment did replicate those reported by Lassaline and Logan (1993) ; however, one half of the sample did not attain automaticity with the task, and one-third did not exhibit a transition from controlled to …

Apoe Ε4 Moderates Abnormal Csf-Abeta-42 Levels, While Neurocognitive Impairment Is Associated With Abnormal Csf Tau Levels In Hiv+ Individuals - A Cross-Sectional Observational Study, Cysique A. Lucette, Timothy Hewitt, Juliana Croitoru-Lamoury, Kevin Taddei, Ralph Martins, Constance S. Chew, Nicholas N. Davies, Patricia J. Price, Bruce J. Brew

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers Aβ1-42, t-tau and p-tau have a characteristic pattern in Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Their roles in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND) remains unclear. Methods: Adults with chronic treated HIV disease were recruited (n = 43, aged 56.7 ± 7.9; 32% aged 60+; median HIV duration 20 years, >95% plasma and CSF HIV RNA /mL, on cART for a median 24 months). All underwent standard neuropsychological testing (61% had HAND), APOE genotyping (30.9% carried APOE ε4 and 7.1% were ε4 homozygotes) and a lumbar puncture. Concentrations of Aβ1-42, t-tau and p-tau were assessed in the CSF using commercial …

Leadership Skills For Nursing Unit Managers To Decrease Intention To Leave, Michael R. Roche, Christine M. Duffield, Sofia Dimitrelis, Belinda Frew

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Aim: To examine specific elements of nursing leadership linked to intention to leave, in public acute care hospitals. Background: Nurse turnover is a global issue receiving widespread attention due to prolonged and projected workforce shortages. Nurse management and leadership qualities have been associated with intention to leave and turnover of nurses. The role of the nurse unit managers in the retention of nurses is becoming increasingly important, particularly because of their strong influence on the quality and stability of the work environment. Methods: Data were collected from 6 2 medical, surgical, and mixed units across eleven public acute care hospitals …

Believe It Or Not: Examining The Case For Intuitive Logic And Effortful Beliefs, Stephanie Howarth

School of Psychology Theses

The overall objective of this thesis was to test the Default Interventionist (DI) account of belief-bias in human reasoning using the novel methodology introduced by Handley, Newstead & Trippas (2011). DI accounts focus on how our prior beliefs are the intuitive output that bias our reasoning process (Evans, 2006), whilst judgments based on logical validity require effortful processing. However, recent research has suggested that reasoning on the basis of beliefs may not be as fast and automatic as previous accounts claim. In order to investigate whether belief based judgments are resource demanding we instructed participants to reason on the basis …

The Effects Of Out-Of-Regime Guidance On Auditor Judgments About Appropriate Application Of Accounting Standards, H. Scott Asay, Tim Brown, Mark W. Nelson, T. Jeffrey Wilks

Faculty Publications

Accountants making judgments with respect to a particular set of standards are increasingly aware of standards from other reporting regimes that offer additional or conflicting guidance. In fact, IFRS encourages reliance on out-of-regime standards when IFRS lacks guidance. This paper reports the results of two experiments which provide evidence that auditors in such circumstances are vulnerable to contrast effects, whereby reporting judgments under IFRS are systematically influenced away from the accounting treatment supported by standards from another regime (U.S. GAAP). Contrast effects are observed (1) when out-of-regime standards are considered before making a reporting judgment under IFRS and (2) when …

Engineering Identities: Section Introduction, Mike Murphy, Tony Marjoram

Books/Book chapters

No abstract provided.

Personalized Contact Strategies And Predictors Of Time To Survey Completion: Analysis Of Two Sequential Randomized Trials, Victor D. Dinglas, Minxuan Huang, Kristin A. Sepulveda, Mariela Pinedo, Ramona O. Hopkins, Elizabeth Colantuoni, Dale M. Needham

Faculty Publications

Background

Effective strategies for contacting and recruiting study participants are critical in conducting clinical research. In this study, we conducted two sequential randomized controlled trials of mail- and telephone-based strategies for contacting and recruiting participants, and evaluated participant-related variables’ association with time to survey completion and survey completion rates. Subjects eligible for this study were survivors of acute lung injury who had been previously enrolled in a 12-month observational follow-up study evaluating their physical, cognitive and mental health outcomes, with their last study visit completed at a median of 34 months previously.

Methods

Eligible subjects were contacted to complete a …

Does Pornography Consumption Increase Participation In Friends With Benefits Relationships?, Scott R. Braithwaite, Sean C. Aaron, Krista Joy Dowdle, Kersti A. Spjut, Frank D. Fincham

Faculty Publications

Friends with benefits (FWB) relationships integrate two types of relationships—friendship and a relationship that includes sexual intimacy but without an expectation of commitment. These relationships are often seen as less risky than other casual sexual behaviors, but they still pose a high risk of contracting an STI. Pornography consumption has been connected to increases in risky sexual behavior in other types of casual sex. In two studies (Study 1 N = 850; Study 2 N = 992), we examined the hypothesis that pornography use influences FWB behaviors, specifically through the mechanism of sexual scripts. Our results demonstrate that more frequent …

Visual Analog Rating Of Mood By People With Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Katarina L. Haley, Jennifer L. Womack, Sharon W. Williams

Faculty Publications

Background:

Considerable attention has been given to the identification of depression in stroke survivors with aphasia, but there is more limited information about other mood states. Visual analog scales are often used to collect subjective information from people with aphasia. However, the validity of these methods for communicating about mood has not been established in people with moderately to severely impaired language.

Objective:

The dual purposes of this study were to characterize the relative endorsement of negative and positive mood states in people with chronic aphasia after stroke and to examine congruent validity for visual analog rating methods for people …

Bidirectional Interference Between Speech And Nonspeech Tasks In Younger, Middle-Aged, And Older Adults, Christopher Dromey, Dallin J. Bailey

Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine divided attention over a large age range by looking at the effects of 3 nonspeech tasks on concurrent speech motor performance. The nonspeech tasks were designed to facilitate measurement of bidirectional interference, allowing examination of their sensitivity to speech activity. A cross-sectional design was selected to explore possible changes in divided-attention effects associated with age. Method: Sixty healthy participants were separated into3 groups of 20: younger (20s), middle-aged (40s), and older (60s) adults. Each participant completed a speech task (sentence repetitions) once in isolation and once concurrently with each of 3 …

Sibling Snapshots: Living With Youth Who Have Autism Or Down Syndrome, Tina M. Taylor, Jessica L. Rosemann, Aimee L. Latta Palicharla, Tammy Rampton, Barbara Mandleco, Donna Freeborn

Faculty Publications

This study used photography to capture important symbols in the lives of 14 siblings of 13 youth with autism (ASD) and 16 siblings of 15 youth with Down syndrome (DS), and then determine if there were differences in photographs taken according to type of developmental disability, age, and gender of the sibling. Photographs were divided into two categories: photographs of people, including family and non-family members, and non-people, including personal items/objects, animals, and buildings/scenery. Siblings of youth with DS took a higher percent age of photographs of people and family members than siblings of youth with ASD. There were also …

Introducing New Engineering Students To Mechanical Concepts Through An “Energy Cube” Project, Shannon Chance, Micheal O'Flaherty, Fionnuala Farrell, Christopher Montague

Conference papers

The objective of this paper is to describe a problem based learning module, called the “Energy Cube”, offered by Dublin Institute of Technology that is designed to teach mechanical, building services and manufacturing engineering concepts to first year engineering students.

The Energy Cube project gives students hands-on experience in areas ranging from heat transfer, lighting and energy efficiency to industrial and product design. In the Energy Cube, students design and construct (using cardboard, clear plastic, and glue) a model of a building that admits as much daylight as possible while being energy efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

The students, working in …

Spatial Brightness, Horizontal Illuminance And Mean Room Surface Exitance In A Lighting Booth, James Duff, Kevin Kelly, C. Cuttle

Articles

This paper presents a pilot study that has investigated the suitability of mean room surface exitance as a predictor of spatial brightness and compared these results with how horizontal illuminance predicts spatial brightness under the same conditions. The experiment took a group of 26 participants and, using a scaled booth, exposed each participant to three levels of mean room surface exitance, each delivered with three different light distributions and three different surface reflectances, resulting in a total of 27 light scenes. Results demonstrated that, under the range of conditions to which participants were exposed, a systematic relationship existed between mean …

Controls And The Asymmetric Stickiness Of Norms, Scott A. Emett, Ronald N. Guymon, William B. Tayler, Donald Young

Faculty Publications

This study investigates how formal control systems and the behavior of peers influence behavior in accounting settings. We manipulate formal controls and peer behavior (social norms) in a laboratory experiment, allowing us to precisely investigate the interactive effect of these two factors on behavior. We provide evidence that weak controls lead to more socially-interested behavior, while strong controls lead to more self-interested behavior. We also provide evidence that individuals conform more to social norms that conflict with the behavior that formal controls induce. Finally, we find that individuals preferentially attend and conform to the self-interested actions of peers (as opposed …

From Soul To Mind: A History Of An Idea, Michael Punt

School of Art, Design and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Development Of Australian Clinical Practice Outcome Standards For Graduates Of Critical Care Nurse Education, Fenella J. Gill, Gavin D. Leslie, Carol Grech, Duncan Boldy, Jos M. Latour

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Aims and objectivesTo develop critical care nurse education practice standards.BackgroundCritical care specialist education for registered nurses in Australia is provided at graduate level. Considerable variation exists across courses with no framework to guide practice outcomes or evidence supporting the level of qualification.DesignAn eDelphi technique involved the iterative process of a national expert panel responding to three survey rounds.MethodsFor the first round, 84 statements, organised within six domains, were developed from earlier phases of the study that included a literature review, analysis of critical care courses and input from health consumers. The panel, which represented the perspectives of four stakeholder groups, …

Online Assessment Of Negotiation Skills Through 3d Role Play Simulation, D Pacella, A Di Ferdinando, E Dell'aquila, D Marocco

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The lack of standardised technological tools to assess psychological characteristics allows traditional tests to be still widely used, though these tests require double processing and expensive procedures. ENACT is both a serious game for a standardised assessment of the user negotiation skills and an Intelligent Tutoring System, which makes use of the data collected during the interaction in order to generate a tailored environment for the user to experience and improve their skills and be guided through learning.

Embodied Cognition And Circular Causality: On The Role Of Constitutive Autonomy In The Reciprocal Coupling Of Perception And Action., D Vernon, R Lowe, S Thill, T Ziemke

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The reciprocal coupling of perception and action in cognitive agents has been firmly established: perceptions guide action but so too do actions influence what is perceived. While much has been said on the implications of this for the agent's external behavior, less attention has been paid to what it means for the internal bodily mechanisms which underpin cognitive behavior. In this article, we wish to redress this by reasserting that the relationship between cognition, perception, and action involves a constitutive element as well as a behavioral element, emphasizing that the reciprocal link between perception and action in cognition merits a …

Posture Affects How Robots And Infants Map Words To Objects., Af Morse, Vl Benitez, T Belpaeme, A Cangelosi, Lb Smith

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

For infants, the first problem in learning a word is to map the word to its referent; a second problem is to remember that mapping when the word and/or referent are again encountered. Recent infant studies suggest that spatial location plays a key role in how infants solve both problems. Here we provide a new theoretical model and new empirical evidence on how the body - and its momentary posture - may be central to these processes. The present study uses a name-object mapping task in which names are either encountered in the absence of their target (experiments 1-3, 6 …