Digital Commons Network^™

Mining The Web And Literature To Discover New Knowledge About Diabetes, Farhi Marir, Huwida Said, Feras Al-Obeidat

All Works

© 2016 The Authors. Social Networks are powerful social media for sharing information about various issues and can be used to raise awareness and collect pointers about associated risk factors and preventive measures in chronical disease like diabetes. Since the olden times, knowledge in medicine was established through recording and analysing human experiences. This paper presents the results of text mining techniques of more than five hundred thousands of texts retrieved from social networks, blogs, forums, and also research papers from MEDLINE database to discovering new knowledge related to diabetes disease covering symptoms and treatments. The text mining approach consists …

An Innovative Approach To Assessing Professional Skills Learning Outcomes: A Uae Pilot Study, Kevin Schoepp, Maurice Danaher

All Works

This paper describes a pilot project in a computing college at a UAE university that was conducted to determine the feasibility of adapting a US-developed innovative approach to program level assessment of generic skills, 21st century, or general education learning outcomes. These learning outcomes are thought to comprise critical thinking, problem solving, global perspective, teamwork, and communication- ones that cross all disciplinary boundaries. The method of assessment utilized was an online discussion forum built around an open-ended computing scenario. Results indicated that this approach proved to be a success and demonstrated very clearly where the students' strengths and weaknesses resided. …

Associations Of Apolipoprotein A, High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein And Fasting Plasma Insulin In Obese Children With And Without Family History Of Cardiovascular Disease, Zacharoula Karabouta, Dimitrios Papandreou, Areti Makedou, Israel Rousso, Fani Athanassiadou

All Works

BACKGROUND: The worldwide prevalence of childhood obesity has increased from 4.2% to 6.7% during the last two decades. Pediatric obesity is a major health problem, which is dramatically increasing in Greece. A variety of inflammatory variables have been also found to associate with cardiometabolic (CV) risk in obese children. The purpose of this study was to identify and examine the effects of possible CV risk factors in obese and non-obese children with and without family history (FH) of cardiovascular disease (CVD). METHODS: Sixty-eight (68) healthy children and adolescents aged 7 - 13 years participated in the study. Anthropometrical and biochemical …

Universities And Innovation In A Factor-Driven Economy: The Performance Of Universities In Egypt., Hala Elhadidi, David A. Kirby

Business Administration

In the modern knowledge-based global economy, universities are being required to operate more entrepreneurially, commercialising the results of their research and spinning out new knowledge-based enterprises. In this article, the third in the series (El Hadidi and Kirby, 2015a and b), case studies are presented of activities in 3 Egyptian universities in order to demonstrate what is being done and the challenges Egyptian universities are facing when attempting to collaborate with industry and contribute to the innovation process. The results reveal that the initiatives are often the result of external influences and are not embedded within the core strategic planning …

Comparative Efficiency Study Between Islamic And Traditional Banks, Mohamed Rashwan, Heba Ehab

Business Administration

Islamic banking caught attention due to its resilience to the significant shocks that hit the economy in late 2008. This research aims to evaluate the efficiency of a sample of 66 banks including both Islamic and traditional banks in various countries ranging from Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Emirates, Sudan, Turkey, Bahrain and Jordan throughout 2009-2014. This research aims at identifying which banking regime proves to be more efficient and its significance using Financial Ratio Analysis (FRA), composed of cost efficiency, revenue efficiency and profit efficiency ratios along with the One-way ANOVA test. The impact of efficiency …

The Impact Of Corporate Governance On Stock Price And Trade Volume, Wafaa Salah, May Elewa

Business Administration

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether corporate governance is associated with stock prices and trade volume for 62 publicly traded firms on the Egyptian Stock Exchange during 2007-2014. The authors hypothesize that firms with strong corporate governance have a significant impact on stock prices and trade volume. To examine the associations, a multiple regression analysis is used. Consistent with the first hypothesis, this study finds firms with strong corporate governance have a significant impact on stock prices while has no significant impact on trade volume. Findings indicate that the quality of corporate governance can affect firms' stock …

Examining The Relationship Between Customer Service, Efficiency And Financial Performance: An Application On The Egyptian Public Sector Banks, Madiha Metawie, Dalia Ahmed Elmosalamy

Business Administration

A sound, well-functioning banking system has an essential role in the economic development and sustained growth of any country. Egypt has faced two unexpected shocks; the global financial crisis at the end of 2008 and the recent 2011, January revolution. The Egyptian banking system in general and public banks in specific have shown resilience to the unexpected shocks in terms of solvency and liquidity. This study is important, examining the banking sector in an emerging Arab market that is rarely studied despite its growth potential and in a period of rapid political and economic changes. It tends to investigate empirically …

Elderly Medication Adherence With The Internet Of Things, Xiaoping Toh, Hwee Xian Tan, Hwee-Pink Tan, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the growth in elderly population in Singapore, healthcare expenditure and prevalence of age-related illnesses are expected to increase. Non-adherence among the elderly is a common issue that leads to adverse health complications, particularly among those with chronic conditions. However, existing studies typically focus on identifying predictors of medication adherence, and provide neither user-friendly nor actionable solutions that can be easily adopted by the elderly. In this paper, we use the Internet of Things to monitor medication adherence and detect changes in medication consumption patterns among the elderly, thus enabling timely interventions by caregivers to take place. Sensor-enabled medication boxes …

Insights From Machine-Learned Diet Success Prediction, Ingmar Weber, Palakorn Achananuparp

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To support people trying to lose weight and stay healthy, more and more fitness apps have sprung up including the ability to track both calories intake and expenditure. Users of such apps are part of a wider “quantified self“ movement and many opt-in to publicly share their logged data. In this paper, we use public food diaries of more than 4,000 long-term active MyFitnessPal users to study the characteristics of a (un-)successful diet. Concretely, we train a machine learning model to predict repeatedly being over or under self-set daily calories goals and then look at which features contribute to the …

Salient Pairwise Spatio-Temporal Interest Points For Real-Time Activity Recognition, Mengyuan Liu, Hong Liu, Qianru Sun, Tianwei Zhang, Runwei Ding

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Real-time Human action classification in complex scenes has applications in various domains such as visual surveillance, video retrieval and human robot interaction. While, the task is challenging due to computation efficiency, cluttered backgrounds and intro-variability among same type of actions. Spatio-temporal interest point (STIP) based methods have shown promising results to tackle human action classification in complex scenes efficiently. However, the state-of-the-art works typically utilize bag-of-visual words (BoVW) model which only focuses on the word distribution of STIPs and ignore the distinctive character of word structure. In this paper, the distribution of STIPs is organized into a salient directed graph, …

We Can Hear You With Wi-Fi!, Guanhua Wang, Yongpan Zou, Zimu Zhou, Kaishun Wu, Lionel M. Ni

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent literature advances Wi-Fi signals to “see” people’s motions and locations. This paper asks the following question: Can Wi-Fi “hear” our talks? We present WiHear, which enables Wi-Fi signals to “hear” our talks without deploying any devices. To achieve this, WiHear needs to detect and analyze fine-grained radio reflections from mouth movements. WiHear solves this micro-movement detection problem by introducing Mouth Motion Profile that leverages partial multipath effects and wavelet packet transformation. Since Wi-Fi signals do not require line-of-sight, WiHear can “hear” people talks within the radio range. Further, WiHear can simultaneously “hear” multiple people’s talks leveraging MIMO technology. We …

Demo: Towards Immersive And Interactive Gym Exercises, Fazlay Rabbi, Taiwoo Park, Biyi Fang, Mi Zhang, Youngki Lee, Rajiv Ranganathan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We demonstrate JARVIS, a novel virtual coaching system based on virtual reality (VR) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. It creates a truly immersive gym exercising experience for machine-based strength training and guides users in a highly interactive manner. With these unique advantages, we believe that JARVIS has a potential to revolutionize personal fitness experiences.

Using Online Controlled Experiments To Examine Authority Effects On User Behavior In Email Campaigns, Lim Kwan Hui, Ee-Peng Lim, Binyan Jiang, Achananuparp Palakorn

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Authority users often play important roles in a social system. They are expected to write good reviews at product review sites; provide high quality answers in question answering systems; and share interesting content in social networks. In the context of marketing and advertising, knowing how users react to (quails and messages from authority senders is important, given the prevalence of email in our everyday life. Using a real-life academic event, we designed and conducted an online controlled experiment to determine how email senders of different types of authority (department head, event organizer and a general email account) affect the range …

Data Analytics On Consumer Behavior In Omni-Channel Retail Banking, Card And Payment Services, Geng Dan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Innovations in financial services have created challenges for banks that Information Systems (IS) research can address. My interests involve transaction cost theory, substitution and complementarity theory, and consumer informedness theory to understand consumer behavior and firm performance in the omni-channel world of digital banking. At a high level, my research inquiry asks: How can financial institutions take advantage of the deep insights that data analytics and management science modeling create on consumer behavior and channel management decision-making? And how can changes in payments and services in retail banking be understood in spatial and temporal terms? I am working on three …

Online Arima Algorithms For Time Series Prediction, Chenghao Liu, Hoi, Steven C. H., Peilin Zhao, Jianling Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) is one of the most popular linear models for time series forecasting due to its nice statistical properties and great flexibility. However, its parameters are estimated in a batch manner and its noise terms are often assumed to be strictly bounded, which restricts its applications and makes it inefficient for handling large-scale real data. In this paper, we propose online learning algorithms for estimating ARIMA models under relaxed assumptions on the noise terms, which is suitable to a wider range of applications and enjoys high computational efficiency. The idea of our ARIMA method is to …

Ambiguityvis: Visualization Of Ambiguity In Graph Layouts, Yong Wang, Qiaomu Shen, Zhiguang Zhou, Min Zhu, Sixiao Yang, Qu Huamin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Node-link diagrams provide an intuitive way to explore networks and have inspired a large number of automated graph layout strategies that optimize aesthetic criteria. However, any particular drawing approach cannot fully satisfy all these criteria simultaneously, producing drawings with visual ambiguities that can impede the understanding of network structure. To bring attention to these potentially problematic areas present in the drawing. this paper presents a technique that highlights common types of visual ambiguities: ambiguous spatial relationships between nodes and edges, visual overlap between community structures, and ambiguity in edge bundling and metanodes. Metrics, including newly proposed metrics for abnormal edge …

An Extended Study On Addressing Defender Teamwork While Accounting For Uncertainty In Attacker Defender Games Using Iterative Dec-Mdps, Eric Shieh, Albert Xin Jiang, Amulya Yadav, Pradeep Varakantham, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Multi-agent teamwork and defender-attacker security games are two areas that are currently receiving significant attention within multi-agent systems research. Unfortunately, despite the need for effective teamwork among multiple defenders, little has been done to harness the teamwork research in security games. The problem that this paper seeks to solve is the coordination of decentralized defender agents in the presence of uncertainty while securing targets against an observing adversary. To address this problem, we offer the following novel contributions in this paper: (i) New model of security games with defender teams that coordinate under uncertainty; (ii) New algorithm based on column …

Investigating The Influence Of Offline Friendship On Twitter Networking Behaviors, Young Soo Kim, Felicia Natali, Feida Zhu, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We investigate the influence of offline friendship in three specific areas of Twitter networking behaviors: (a) network structure, (b) Twitter content and (c) interaction on Twitter. We observe some interesting findings through the empirical analysis of 2193 pairs of users who are online friends. When these pairs of users know each other offline, they are more likely to (1) respond to the online gesture of friendship from their friend, (2) share mutual online friends, (3) distribute and gather information in their friend’s Twitter network, (4) pay attention to their friend’s tweets, (5) post tweets that might be of interest to …

Transitions In Interface Objects: Searching Databases, Tim Gamble, Jon May

School of Psychology

Two experiments demonstrate that a list-like database interface which benefits from the persistence of contextual information does not show the same degree of benefit of collocating objects over display changes that has been previously observed in a map-searching study. This provides some support for the claim that the nature of the task must be taken into account in choosing how to design dynamic displays. We discuss the benefit of basing design principles on theoretical models derived from film cutting methods used in cinematography, so that they can be extended to novel design situations.

Preference For Different Relaxation Techniques By Copd Patients: Comparison Between Six Techniques, David M.G. Halpin, Michael E. Hyland, Sue Blake, D Seamark, Margaret Pinnuck, David Ward, Ben Whalley, Colin J. Greaves, Adam L. Hawkins, C Seamark

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

Proactive Strategies In Personal Dose Monitoring, Prevention And Mitigation, Manish Kumar Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

"At certain threshold, nuclear radiation (like x-rays and gamma-rays) may adversely impact the health of living tissues. The exposure to these radiations in nuclear facilities is measured by devices called dosimeters. The devices are generally worn on the torso and are monitored by health physics division to report the radiation dose received by the personnel. However, this approach is not proactive--since the dosimeters reflect the dose that has already been absorbed in the body of the wearer.

This work presents a scheme to proactively avoid large dose acquisition at radiation-prone facilities. The work was divided into three major segments: (i) …

Palynological Studies Of Holocene Lake Sediments In The Missouri Ozarks, Robert D. Haselwander

Doctoral Dissertations

"Five small lakes in southeast Missouri (Frisco, Pine Forest, and Bray Area lakes [Phelps County], and Cypress and Blue ponds [Bollinger County]) were cored for paleolimnological studies. Cores were evaluated for their sedimentology, palynology, and geochemistry. In two of these lakes (Bray Area and Pine Forest lakes) the planktonic algae were also studied in the water column, along with ecological parameters. Algae in the sediments were compared to algae in the water to understand the resistance of different species to decay, and a suggested methodology for this work is described. Reconstructions of the past environments around each lake were created …

Determinants Of Fdi Into Developing Countries, Hang Bich Phung

Mark A. Israel '91 Endowed Summer Research Fund in Economics

Overall, the incentives for foreign direct investment (FDI) vary vastly across time periods and regions. A preliminary analysis suggests that since 1990, investors tend to look for countries which can provide them with advantages in services and knowledge – capital intensive manufacturing industries. These advantages include the human capital stock and market size of the host country. On the other hand, considering a longer period, from 1980 to 2014, the more predominant advantages are natural resources and labor force. In this paper, we study two questions regarding what drives FDI to developing countries. First, what are the determinants that make …

Territory Folks Should All Be Pals: Qualitative Use Of Search Logs To Improve Confidence In And Communication About A Library Discovery Service, Jimmy Ghaphery, Mark Baggett, Thomas Mcnulty, Emily Owens

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

The efficacy of library discovery tools can be a contentious topic within libraries. This presentation will describe the use of Primo search logs as a vehicle to encourage constructive conversations across departments in two different university research libraries (University of Tennessee and Virginia Commonwealth University). In particular this project aimed to bring together systems and public service librarians in order to improve communication across departments and the library discovery system itself. Results from each institution will be presented and compared along with ideas for future research.

Claiming A Seat At The Table: Inclusive Paths To Leadership In Academic Libraries And Beyond, Megan Hodge, Patricia Sobczak

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

The topic of leadership development in academic libraries is recent area of interest for the profession. There is nascent scholarship in the areas of how to prepare librarians to advance into a first formal management position as well as in the area of leadership capacity-building for librarians and library organizations. This poster combines two independent research projects with the common theme of leadership development in academic libraries. It is not often that separate scholarship integrates effectively and cogently, but these studies coalesced in such an impactful way that all parties felt the need to share the content as well as …

Acceptance Of Uncertainty: Uncertainty As A Heuristic Tool Applied To The Issue Of Medical Errors, Angelika Potempa

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This is an exploration of uncertain certainties and certain uncertainties with reference to, mainly, systemic approaches to medical errors.

K. Cairns And J. Johnston, 2015, Food And Femininity, Jm Parsons

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Geomorphological Effects Of Ungulate Exclosures On High Elevation Streams In The Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico, Ryan Kelly

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

A catchment-scale approach to the connection between the terrestrial environment and aquatic ecosystems is important because of the context that it provides into stream form and function. A streams physical and chemical qualities are often delineated, in large part, by the surrounding catchment's terrestrial properties and features, such as geology, soils, vegetation and topography (Van Horn et al. 2012). For example, losses in catchment vegetation can result in a change in terrestrial organic carbon inputs into streams (Bunn et al. 1999). Four important dimensions of connection exist when describing the physical, chemical, and energetic interactions between the stream itself and …

Effects Of The Ground Heat Flux On Snowpack Ablation In A Semi-Arid Mountain Climate, Chad Mickschl

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

In anticipation of warmer temperatures, receding snowlines, and increasing water demands, it will be important for water managers to understand how changes in snowpack depth and distribution will affect available runoff. Mountain snowpacks make up the largest component of runoff in mountain regions generating water supply for a host of downstream users. As climate warming persists, mountainous areas with traditionally deeper snowpacks will shift towards a shallower, more transitional regime. Transitional lower elevation snowpacks will begin to experience an increasing number of melt-off and ripening periods throughout the course of a winter. To better predict changes in water resources, it …

Letter From The Chair, Unm Department Of Orthopaedic Surgery

UNM Orthopaedic Research Journal

No abstract provided.