Digital Commons Network^™

Neuromorphic Learning Systems For Supervised And Unsupervised Applications, Qiuwen Chen

Dissertations - ALL

The advancements in high performance computing (HPC) have enabled the large-scale implementation of neuromorphic learning models and pushed the research on computational intelligence into a new era. Those bio-inspired models are constructed on top of unified building blocks, i.e. neurons, and have revealed potentials for learning of complex information. Two major challenges remain in neuromorphic computing. Firstly, sophisticated structuring methods are needed to determine the connectivity of the neurons in order to model various problems accurately. Secondly, the models need to adapt to non-traditional architectures for improved computation speed and energy efficiency. In this thesis, we address these two problems …

The Role Of Icts In Social Movements: The Case Of The Honduran National Front Against The 2009 Coup, Fatima K. Espinoza Vasquez

Dissertations - ALL

There is an important academic conversation happening about how social movements adopt, use, and configure Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for political participation. This dissertation contributes to that conversation by taking a holistic look at ICTs, throughout a social movement's emergence and development, while considering its context, its organizational structures and sense-making processes.

I explore the case of the Honduran National Front Against the Coup (NFAC), a relevant case due to its similarities with other movements, like the use of social media, the support from the international community and its geographically dispersed networks; but also, particular in its political and …

Selective Dynamic Analysis Of Virtualized Whole-System Guest Environments, Andrew William Henderson

Dissertations - ALL

Dynamic binary analysis is a prevalent and indispensable technique in program analysis. While several dynamic binary analysis tools and frameworks have been proposed, all suffer from one or more of: prohibitive performance degradation, a semantic gap between the analysis code and the execution under analysis, architecture/OS specificity, being user-mode only, and lacking flexibility and extendability. This dissertation describes the design of the Dynamic Executable Code Analysis Framework (DECAF), a virtual machine-based, multi-target, whole-system dynamic binary analysis framework. In short, DECAF seeks to address the shortcomings of existing whole-system dynamic analysis tools and extend the state of the art by utilizing …

Parameters That Affect Parallel Processing For Computational Electromagnetic Simulation Codes On High Performance Computing Clusters, Hongsik Moon

Dissertations - ALL

What is the impact of multicore and associated advanced technologies on computational software for science? Most researchers and students have multicore laptops or desktops for their research and they need computing power to run computational software packages. Computing power was initially derived from Central Processing Unit (CPU) clock speed. That changed when increases in clock speed became constrained by power requirements. Chip manufacturers turned to multicore CPU architectures and associated technological advancements to create the CPUs for the future. Most software applications benefited by the increased computing power the same way that increases in clock speed helped applications run faster. …

A Mediterranean Connection: French Ambassadors, The Republic Of Venice, And The Construction Of The Louisquatorzien State, 1662-1702, Sherrod Brandon Marshall

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

Historians of Louis XIV’s reign have debated evolutions in the king’s administration. Such studies, despite heterogenous conclusions, better define our understanding of absolutist authority in the ancien régime as manifested through a process of so-called bureaucratic centralization. Scholars debate to what extent the monarchy achieved centralization amid the interests of individuals and corporations suspended in traditional hierarchies and socio-cultural expectations. Recently, scholars have posited that Louis’s government accommodated the concerns of its ministers through gratifications and social advancement compelling obedience to the Bourbon dynastic state. This dissertation considers for the first time how a politics of accommodation characterized the …

The Pace And Timing Of Changing Landscapes As Viewed Through Cosmogenic Radionuclides: Synthetic And Real Examples From The Central Andes And Amazonia, Pedro Val

Dissertations - ALL

In the past three decades, the use of cosmogenic radionuclides revolutionized research in geomorphology. Cosmogenic radionuclides, such as 10Be and 26Al, accumulate within quartz crystals at a relatively well-constrained rate due to the bombardment of the Earth’s atmosphere by cosmic rays. Since the early 90’s, many studies utilized 10Be and 26Al to determine the pace and timing of vertical changes, or absence thereof, to the uppermost meters of the Earth’s surface. In particular, the ability to simply collect a bag of sand from the bottom of a stream and, after extracting the quartz from it, determine the average rate of …

Studies Of Cell Motility And Differentiation In Complex 3d In Vitro Microenvironment, Jing Wang

Dissertations - ALL

Cell behaviors, such as motility and differentiation, which are highly regulated by the complex 3D in vivo microenvironment, have been extensively studied in the past decades to better understand the mechanisms of development, disease, and healing. Due to the highly complex nature of the in vivo environment and limited resources and access to study cell behaviors in vivo, great efforts have been made to develop in vitro systems to mimic the in vivo microenvironment for a better understanding of cell-microenvironment interactions. However, most of the commonly used in vitro systems are static, which cannot mimic the dynamics of the microenvironment …

Robust Kullback-Leibler Divergence And Its Applications In Universal Hypothesis Testing And Deviation Detection, Pengfei Yang

Dissertations - ALL

The Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence is one of the most fundamental metrics in information theory and statistics and provides various operational interpretations in the context of mathematical communication theory and statistical hypothesis testing. The KL divergence for discrete distributions has the desired continuity property which leads to some fundamental results in universal hypothesis testing. With continuous observations, however, the KL divergence is only lower semi-continuous; difficulties arise when tackling universal hypothesis testing with continuous observations due to the lack of continuity in KL divergence.

This dissertation proposes a robust version of the KL divergence for continuous alphabets. Specifically, the KL divergence …

Trichloroacetimidates As Alkylating Reagents In C-N Bond Formation And Synthesis Of Aminosteroid And Quinoline Inhibitors Of Src Homology 2 Domain-Containing Inositol Phosphatase (Ship), Daniel Ryan Wallach

Dissertations - ALL

Trichloroacetimidates have frequently been used in the formation of glycosidic bonds and other ethers, which is especially useful for the introduction of ether protecting groups. Trichloroacetimidates have also been used as electrophiles in Friedel-Crafts alkylation reactions. The formation of C-N bonds has also been accomplished utilizing trichloroacetimidates. Most frequently C-N bond formation with trichloroacetimidates is associated with sigmatropic rearrangement of an allylic trichloroacetimidate to an allylic trichloroacetamide. This reaction can proceed thermally or through the use of Lewis acid or transition metal catalysts. Recently, the direct substitution of trichloroacetimidates using nitrogen nucleophiles has been accomplished utilizing transition metal catalysts, which …

Improving The Efficiency Of Energy Harvesting Embedded System, Yukan Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

In the past decade, mobile embedded systems, such as cell phones and tablets have infiltrated and dramatically transformed our life. The computation power, storage capacity and data communication speed of mobile devices have increases tremendously, and they have been used for more critical applications with intensive computation/communication. As a result, the battery lifetime becomes increasingly important and tends to be one of the key considerations for the consumers. Researches have been carried out to improve the efficiency of the lithium ion battery, which is a specific member in the more general Electrical Energy Storage (EES) family and is widely used …

Is The Supreme Court Disabling The Enabling Act, Or Is Shady Grove Just Another Bad Opera?, Robert J. Condlin

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Investigating Barriers To Mental Health Care In Law Enforcement Officers, Samantha F. Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The profession of law enforcement is an inherently stressful job. Although the physical stress of the job is often discussed, the mental health impact on officers is often ignored, resulting in poor mental health and increased risk for suicide. The purpose of the current study was to investigate factors related to the reluctance of law enforcement officers (LEOs) to seeking treatment, as well as to gain an understanding of the prevalence rates of disorders in a law enforcement population. Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants (N = 306) across a variety of agencies. Correlation, moderated regression analysis, and structural …

Policing Postsecondary Education: University Police Legitimacy And Fear Of Crime On Campus, Christina N. Barker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Assessing the perceptions that students have of the university police officers charged with ensuring student safety is important to maintaining the overall safety of the campus. The current study sought to assess the relationship between student perceptions of university police and the fear of crime felt by students while on campus. Data collection was conducted through a survey methodology using a convenient sample of students in which a self-report survey was sent to the university email addresses of all students enrolled in a southeastern university (n=260). Through the employment of a scale developed to assess the perceptions of university police …

Enhancing Vegetable Intake In Infants And Toddlers Through Parental Complementary Feeding Education, Sophia Testa

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research project investigated the outcomes of educating parents of infants between the ages of 6 months and 12 months on the importance of including vegetables in complementary feedings on the infant’s vegetable consumption. The efficiency of teaching was measured by comparing physical measurements and quantity of vegetables consumed by infants whose parents received education with the same data from infants whose parents did not receive education on inclusion of vegetable in complementary feedings. The results found contributed to Dr. Shreve’s research on childhood obesity in the Northwest Arkansas population and to the knowledge of parental education with regard to …

Vocational And Life Skills Quarterly Report: Quarter 2 (October-December 2016), Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson, Jordan Clark

Reports

The Vocational and Life Skills Program was created by Nebraska Legislative Bill 907 in 2014 with the goals of reducing recidivism and increasing employment for individuals who are incarcerated, who have been incarcerated within the prior 18 months or who are under parole or probation supervision. Participants must begin programming under these conditions, but they may continue programming as the program sees fit for his or her individual needs. Eight programs were funded in Grant Cycle 2 which runs from July 2016-June 2018. The NCJR evaluation was initiated in May 2016 with the primary goal of identifying types of programming …

Vocational And Life Skills Monthly Data Update: December 2016, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson

Reports

Grantees use an online data management system to submit data on participants served under their Vocational and Life Skills programming. This data is due monthly and reflects all services provided during the previous month to participants. Evaluators at the Nebraska Center for Justice Research work with grantees directly to correct any data errors on an ongoing basis during monthly update calls and site visits.

Data presented below is from the monthly data pulls. Because this data comes for an active database with live data being entered and updated daily, data, including previously submitted information, may fluctuate depending on changes made …

Searches For The Exclusive Higgs And The Charged Higgs Bosons With The Atlas Detector At The Lhc, Last Feremenga

Physics Dissertations - Archive

In this thesis, searches for the exclusive Standard Model (SM) and charged hMSSM Higgs bosons are performed. While observations of the SM Higgs boson in 2012 by ATLAS and CMS collaborations were ground-breaking, several of the SM Higgs boson properties such as its coupling strengths and branching ratios of its decays still carry large systematic uncertainties. Higgs boson candidates from exclusive production could lower these systematic uncertainties due to their cleaner production environment, improving knowledge of the SM Higgs boson sector. Since the charged Higgs boson is not included in the SM, its evidence would clearly indicate physics beyond the …

Challenges Facing First Year Chinese International Students In A California Private School, Shelby Bumgarner

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Mandarin speaking, mainland Chinese secondary students enrolled in grades nine through twelve make up almost 50% of America's international student population (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2015). According to the literature, these students face unique challenges in their education: learning core subjects in a non-native language before they have fully grasped the language, and sitting in classes that are taught by teachers with virtually no training in making the content comprehensible for international students. The purpose of this qualitative study is to acquire an in-depth understanding of the challenges that Mandarin speaking, mainland Chinese, international secondary students face in their …

Digital Citizenship In 21st Century Education, Aimee Green Logan

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Recent Federal Government initiatives have affected equitable public school funding, which prevents many schools from becoming compliant with the California Common Core Standards. Presently, public schools in California must adopt Common Core State standards, which require the integration of technology within the classroom, however, there are no specific standards and or guidelines within the CCCS that address how students should safely conduct themselves online. This has left students and teachers unprepared to adequately support the growing needs of students online, especially without standards addressing digital literacy. Students who go online face cyberbullying, predatory contact, identity theft and other consequences that …

2016 Winter Undergraduate And Graduate Commencement, Belleville Campus, Lindenwood University

Commencement Programs

Lindenwood University, Belleville commencement program.

2016 Winter Graduate & Undergraduate Commencement, Lindenwood University

Commencement Programs

Lindenwood University Commencement program.

Towards An Anthropometric History Of Latin America In The Second Half Of The Twentieth Century, Amílcar E. Challú, Sergio Silva-Castañeda

History Faculty Publications

We examine the evolution of adult female heights in twelve Latin American countries during the second half of the twentieth century based on demographic health surveys and related surveys compiled from national and international organizations. Only countries with more than one survey were included, allowing us to cross-examine surveys and correct for biases. We first show that average height varies significantly according to location, from 148.3 cm in Guatemala to 158.8 cm in Haiti. The evolution of heights over these decades behaves like indicators of human development, showing a steady increase of 2.6 cm from the 1950s to the 1990s. …

Mammographic Density Assessed On Paired Raw And Processed Digital Images And On Paired Screen-Film And Digital Images Across Three Mammography Systems, Anya Burton, Graham Byrnes, Jennifer Stone, Rulla M. Tamimi, John Heine, Celine Vachon, Vahit Ozmen, Ana Pereira, Maria Luisa Garmendia, Christopher Scott, John H. Hipwell, Caroline Dickens, Joachim Schüz, Mustafa Erkin Aribal, Kimberly Bertrand, Ava Kwong, Graham G. Giles, John Hopper, Beatriz Pérez Gómez, Marina Pollán, Soo-Hwang Teo, Shivaani Mariapun, Nur Aishah Mohd Taib, Martín Lajous, Ruy Lopez-Riduara, Megan Rice, Isabelle Romieu, Anath Arzee Flugelman, Giske Ursin, Samera Qureshi, Huiyan Ma, Eunjung Lee, Reza Sirous, Mehri Sirous, Jong Won Lee, Jisun Kim, Dorria Salem, Rasha Kamal, Mikael Hartman, Hui Miao, Kee-Seng Chia, Chisato Nagata, Sudhir Vinayak, Rose Ndumia, Carla H. Van Gils, Johanna O. P. Wanders, Beata Peplonska, Agnieszka Bukowska, Steve Allen, Sarah Vinnicombe, Sue Moss, Anna M. Chiarelli, Linda Linton, Gertraud Maskarinec, Martin J. Yaffe, Norman F. Boyd, Isabel Dos-Santos-Silva, Valerie A. Mccormack

Imaging & Diagnostic Radiology, East Africa

Background: Inter-women and intra-women comparisons of mammographic density (MD) are needed in research, clinical and screening applications; however, MD measurements are influenced by mammography modality (screen film/ digital) and digital image format (raw/processed). We aimed to examine differences in MD assessed on these image types.

Methods: We obtained 1294 pairs of images saved in both raw and processed formats from Hologic and General Electric (GE) direct digital systems and a Fuji computed radiography (CR) system, and 128 screen-film and processed CR-digital pairs from consecutive screening rounds. Four readers performed Cumulus-based MD measurements (n = 3441), with each image pair read …

North Mississippi Vista Project Seeks Recruits, Staff Report

University of Mississippi News

Sixth year of community-building program begins in January 2017

Lesley University Library Newsletter, Vol. 1(3), Office Of The Dean Of The Library

Library Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Alaska Army National Guard Construction Planning Process Improvement, Jeremy Nielson

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

The Alaska Army National Guard (AKARNG) is a jointly funded agency run under a cooperative agreement between the federal and state governments. Recognized as a state agency, the AKARNG reports to the governor for domestic response and trains for federal missions. With this relationship, the AKARNG receives funds from the National Guard Bureau (NGB) and the Alaska State Legislature for the execution of construction projects. Under the cooperative agreement, the AKARNG follows state procedures and uses the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT/PF) to manage projects. The AKARNG Construction and Facilities Maintenance Officer (CFMO) ensures federal oversight of …

Relationships Between Pitch-Matching And Grade Level, Gender, Ethnicity, And Classroom Teachers’ Use Of Music In Grades K-3,, Shelly C. Cooper, Jere T. Humphreys

Music Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between pitch-matching and grade level, sex, ethnicity, and classroom teachers’ use of music among K-3 students (N = 289) taught by the same general music teacher. Portions of the data from a pitch-matching exercise that functioned as the music teacher’s roll-taking procedure during the 2005-06 school year were treated as pre- and posttests. There were no significant pretest differences between ethnic groups (Hispanic, White, Other). There were significant pretest differences among classes taught by different classroom teachers, as well as the female students scoring significantly higher than males. Covariance analysis (pretest …

Formation Flight For Fuel Saving In Coronet Missions Of Kc-135r And F-15c/E, Christopher Allen Kniffin

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

The fuel saving benefit of formation flight has been demonstrated through theoretical and computational analyses, simulation, wind tunnel and flight tests. When an aircraft flies in a specific region in the wake of another aircraft, it experiences upwash, which results in reduced drag and thus reduced thrust requirement. One specific USAF mission that can potentially benefit from formation flight is coronet missions. In a coronet mission, fighter aircraft are escorted and refueled, as needed, by tanker aircraft over a long range. During the flight, the receiver aircraft fly in formation with the tanker but outside of the wake of the …

Sensitivity To The Ferguson Effect: The Role Of Managerial Organizational Justice, Justin Nix, Scott E. Wolfe

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Purpose

We argue that the police have been adversely impacted by Ferguson-related negative publicity in ways beyond the supposed increase in crime (e.g., reduced motivation and increased perception of danger). Further, we suggest that organizational justice is a key factor that influences officers' sensitivity to such Ferguson Effects.

Methods

We used a sample of 510 sheriff's deputies surveyed 6 months after the incident in Ferguson. We explored whether organizational justice is associated with deputies' sensitivity to several manifestations of the Ferguson Effect using OLS and ordered logistic regression models.

Results

The results demonstrated that deputies who believed their supervisors were …

Annual Estimates Of The Resident Population For The United States, Regions, States, And Puerto Rico: April 1, 2010 To July 1, 2016, United States Census Bureau

Past Publications

No abstract provided.