Digital Commons Network^™

Building A Versatile Deduplication System, Zhichao Yan

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

With the development of the Internet and information technology, a large amount of unstructured data is generated and stored in various storage systems. In particular, data reduction techniques such as compression and deduplication have become an effective way to address the combined challenges of explosive growth in data volume but lagging network bandwidth growth to increase the space and bandwidth efficiency of various storage systems. However, we have found that existing deduplication systems cannot effectively process compressed data and image data because existing deduplication systems only analyze the hash value of the bitstream to detect redundant data. At the same …

Use Of Rubric In Assessment To Support Learning, Dennis Odhiambo Ogollah

Master of Education

The study involved an intervention on use of rubrics in assessment with an aim of empowering teachers and students with skills and knowledge that would facilitate implementation of assessment for learning strategies to promote student engagement in learning. This was conducted by adopting quasi experimental design and quantitative approach that involved administering of pretest and posttest to the treatment and control group and the results analyzed using t-test analysis to establish the effect of intervention. A total of 40 students from two form three classes that formed treatment and control group by random selection, participated in the research, with control …

Critical Search: A Procedure For Guided Reading In Large-Scale Textual Corpora, Jo Guldi

History Faculty Publications

Q: What happens when the good, old-fashioned virtues of Liberal Arts education, e.g. "Critical Thinking," enter the age of big data?

A: We teach "Critical Search," a model process for approaching big data research. Critical Search models a way of engaging humanities question, textuality, secondary literature, data, and tools. It is suitable to both the statistician who wishes to make meaning from the past as well as the traditional humanist who browses library catalogs through keywords.

This article presents the concept of "critical search" and offers an exposition of its application to a search for the history of eviction in …

Qed: The Research Annual Of The Uta Honors College 2018, Uta Honors College

QED: The Research Annual of the UTA Honors College - Archive

No abstract provided.

Structural Safety Of Bridge Decks With Variable Rebar Cover, Prem Egade

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Construction defects are common and are difficult to avoid completely. This arises due to improper workmanship, inspection, drawing and specification. On bridge decks, achieving the desired cover is necessary since inadequacy can cause accelerated corrosion in steel and for the most part spalling and delamination which ultimately led to failure. Tolerance provided by different standards and specification also restrict the amount of rebar. So, construction is more focused on increasing cover undermining the loss of strength as consequence. The objective of this research is to check the safety of decks by analyzing bridges for reduction in capacity due to cover …

Minimizing Structural Jitter In Optical Sensor Systems Using Parametric Dynamic Response Optimization, Richard Lynn Scott

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Deployed in manned and unmanned aircraft, military and commercial ground vehicles, and security and monitoring systems, optical sensor systems are ubiquitous. Developing an optical sensor system includes calculating image motion due to structural dynamics—hereafter, “structural jitter”—and adjusting system design to reduce structural jitter and meet requirements. The current process for adjusting the structural design to reduce structural jitter is manual, labor intensive, and driven mostly by engineering judgment. This paper proposes a well-defined optimization process that provides a more explicit approach to the structural design and likely will reduce labor as the process matures. This project focuses on employing dynamic …

Foil Thrust Bearing With Pocket Grooves And Tailored Bump Stiffness Distribution For Improved Static Performance, Nguyen Thao Latray

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Gas foil thrust bearing is one of few axial bearing options for high speed turbomachinery systems. Its advantages include low cost, light weight, generous allowance for component mis-alignment and runout. However, the bearing has low load carrying capacity comparing to other types such as rigid gas bearing and magnetic bearing. This work explores two non-traditional design aspects to improve gas foil thrust bearing’s static performance. The bearing bump foil is redesigned to tailor to the bearing pressure profile; hence induces a more uniform gas film thickness. Simulation using independent elastic foundation model predicts the new tailored bump foil thrust bearing …

Smartphone And Social Media Use And Its Health Associations, Cory Newell

Psychology Theses - Archive

While mobile phones offer users communication, information, and entertainment almost instantaneously, there is a growing concern about the impact smartphone and social media use has on mental and physical health. This study addressed gaps in the literature by simultaneously measuring objective and subjective smartphone use rather than relying on subjective reports alone, and then assessed how they were differentially related to health. Generally, it was predicted that measures of smartphone use would be reliable and valid, and that higher use would predict worse health. Overall, a diverse sample (39% White, 22.1% Asian, and 16.9% African American) of 136 young adults …

Examining Nurses’ Behavior And Attitudes Regarding Opioid Medications And Opioid Educational Resources, Jacqueline Kirby

2018 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Nurses are responsible for the pain assessment and the administration of opioids for their patients. Nurses use pain assessment tools and non-verbal indicators to ascertain the necessity of pain-relieving drugs. To further understand nurses’ behavior and attitudes regarding opioid medications and the resources nurses use to aid them in clinical decisions regarding opioids, a survey was administered to graduate nursing students at a large university. Subjects (n = 332) most commonly reported non-verbal cues and patient requests specific to drug names and doses as significant indicators of drug-seeking behavior. While most of the participants reported that they administer opioids in …

Online Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry Methods For Analysis Of Small And Large Biomolecules Using One- And Two-Dimensional Liquid Chromatography, Yehia Zakaria Baghdady

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

In recent years, the innovation in biomarkers and biotherapeutics has increased the demand for state-of-the-art analytical platforms to achieve reliable and accurate discoveries and quantitative analysis methods. The challenges in their determinations are not limited to the large number of small and large biomolecules but also involve the great heterogeneity in chemical properties and abundance of those analytes. Liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry have advanced significantly to be the most common platform for analyzing biological samples. However, there are still many unmet challenges that that require application of novel bioanalytical methods to fill many gaps in online sample preparation, chromatographic …

Fundamental Studies On Ultrafast Separations And Development Of Geopolymer Based Base-Stable Stationary Phase Media, Rasangi Madhumali Wimalasinghe K.K.D.G.

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

This thesis consists of two sections. In the first section fundamentals of ultrafast separations is discussed. Ultrafast chromatography is an emerging area of separation science due to its applicability in high-throughput separations and purifications. State of the art superficially porous particles packed short and ultrashort columns are utilized to obtain the amenable speed and chromatographic efficiency required in ultrafast chromatography. Modifications to state of the art HPLC and UHPLC instrumentation required in cases where ultrafast separations are needed. Sub-second liquid chromatographic separations and ultrafast separations of biomolecules and complex mixtures are demonstrated. Fundamentals behind the analytical chromatographic column packing are …

Defending Neural Networks Against Adversarial Examples, Armon Barton

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Deep learning is becoming a technology central to the safety of cars, the security of networks, and the correct functioning of many other types of systems. Unfortunately, attackers can create adversarial examples, small perturbations to inputs that trick deep neural networks into making a misclassification. Researchers have explored various defenses against this attack, but many of them have been broken. The most robust approaches are Adversarial Training and its extension, Adversarial Logit Pairing, but Adversarial Training requires generating and training on adversarial examples from any possible attack. This is not only expensive, but it is inherently vulnerable to novel attack …

The Evolution Of Vertebrate Brain Architecture In Response To Divergent Natural Selection: Concerted Vs. Mosaic Evolution?, Sara Stearns

2018 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Extensive variation in the size and structure of the vertebrate brain is well documented. How the architecture of the brain evolves in response to divergent selection remains an open question. One theory states brain structures evolve in concert; a competing theory states components evolve independently in a mosaic pattern. Tests within a single species are nonexistent. A killifish (Rivulus hartii) is found in localities that differ in the presence and absence of fish predators on the island of Trinidad. We showed previously that decreased predation is associated with evolution of a larger overall brain size in male Rivulus. Here we …

Service Learning Education Intervention: Survey Of Knowledge On Parasitic Worms And Hand Hygiene In Northern Belize Adolescents Ages 10-18, Tiffany Kim

2018 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The purpose of this project is to assess if there is a knowledge barrier concerning hand hygiene and the contraction of parasitic worms in the northern districts of Belize. In countries around the world, hygiene maintenance is an issue. This issue is complicated by factors such as deficient knowledge, poor implementation of hand hygiene, and minimal access to clean water or soap. This lack of consistent hand hygiene practice often leads to higher infection rates. The most prominent infection observed in communities of Belize is of parasitic worms. Hand hygiene and its effect upon infection rates by parasitic worms requires …

Underdamped Motion Of A Microbead In Optical Tweezer And Its Relationship With The Reynolds Number, Vatsal Asitkumar Joshi

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Optical tweezers can hold and manipulate microscopic objects with the use of a highly focused laser beam. The radiation pressure acting on the object is generally in the range of piconewtons and can be attractive or repulsive based on the reflective indexes of the object and the surrounding medium. Though the advances in the field of Optical tweezers have been enormous in the past few years, only the object's planer motion can be analyzed with the motion capture technology available today. Due to the wide applications of Optical tweezers in the field of biology and physics, the ability to simulate …

Mindset As It Relates To Implementation Of Mobile Devices For Instruction, Mark Anthony Martinez

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Dissertations - Archive

Teachers who become frustrated with the use of new mobile technology may have a predisposition toward the use for classroom instruction. The teacher’s mindset may be an indicator of whether they choose to implement new mobile instructional technology and see it through, or simply revert to familiar teaching models with which they feel more comfortable at the first signs of difficulty. The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare the relationships between 145 elementary teachers’ mindsets and their openness to instructional technology. In addition, mindset and attitudes toward instructional technology were measured in terms of gender, age and years …

Data Science Applications In Health An Social Care, Maryuri Ariela Quintero

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Theses - Archive

Health and social care are areas of concern worldwide nowadays. Chronic diseases such as cancer and social problems such as tobacco consumption are leading risks of deaths in many countries, and preventive efforts are urgently needed to decrease the negative impact that those problems cause. Technology has made available an unprecedent amount of data in the health and social care fields, which scientists are using to achieve a better understanding of many problems that are a burden for the health and social systems globally. Although previous studies have provided approaches to analyze data, more efficient and accurate methods are needed …

Super Unleaded Malbec? A Case Study In Flawed International Standard Setting At The Codex Alimentarius, Justin Schwegel

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) provides rules on the adoption and enforcement of SPS measures. It also presumes that food safety regulations adopted by WTO Members that conform to relevant international standards are consistent with the SPS Agreement. The relevant international standard setting body for food safety is the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which conducts most of its food safety risk management work through subsidiary bodies such as the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Food (CCCF). CCCF establishes maximum limits for food contaminants and codes of practice for reducing food …

Low-Precision Linear Algebra For Neural Networks, Frost Bennion Mitchell

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Neural networks have been widely responsible for recent advances in machine learning, powering technologies such as digital assistants and AR photography. LPLANN (Low-Precision Linear Algebra for Neural Networks) is a cross-platform library written in C++ used for implementing neural networks. The software allows users to set specific levels of precision for calculations. Low-precision calculations use advanced parallelization techniques (SIMD, SWAR) to run neural networks at faster rates than full-precision calculations. This library is lightweight enough to run on embedded systems, only relies on OpenMP as a dependency, and is portable to any operating system. LPLANN also includes optimizations to provide …

Frederic Lindley Morgan : Gentleman Architect And Reluctant Modernist., Lisa Grace Carpenter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Frederic Lindley Morgan, a major architect in Louisville,Kentucky, was born in Loda,Illinois in 1889. Morgan, in partnerships with other architects throughout his career, designed a variety of projects including homes, schools, churches, commercial buildings and even an airport. Morgan worked up until he died, in 1970, in Louisville. What makes Mr.Morgan's work distinctive is not the timelessness of his designs, nor the fact he was dubbed "Louisville's society architect," nor his lengthy 50 plus year career. Morgan had the ability to take his training, in combination with his talent and savvy business sense, and work successfully in a variety of …

The History And Signification Of The Navicella Mosaic At St. Peter's Basilica, Rome., Eston Dillon Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Navicella mosaic is most famously an artwork created by Giotto di Bondone. Evidence for the appearance and dating of this giant mural is discussed in this dissertation with the conclusion that it was made in 1298 and its composition is best recorded in a Parri Spinelli drawing preserved in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, France. It was admired by untold numbers of worshipers who visited the grand Constantinian basilica of Old St. Peter’s in the Vatican in Rome. The Navicella was located on the façade of Santa Maria in the Towers, an important chapel as well as the gatehouse …

Innate Immunity, The Hepatic Extracellular Matrix, And Liver Injury: Mathematical Modeling Of Metastatic Potential And Tumor Development In Alcoholic Liver Disease., Shanice V. Hudson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overarching goals of the current work are to fill key gaps in the current understanding of alcohol consumption and the risk of metastasis to the liver. Considering the evidence this research group has compiled confirming that the hepatic matrisome responds dynamically to injury, an altered extracellular matrix (ECM) profile appears to be a key feature of pre-fibrotic inflammatory injury in the liver. This group has demonstrated that the hepatic ECM responds dynamically to alcohol exposure, in particular, sensitizing the liver to LPS-induced inflammatory damage. Although the study of alcohol in its role as a contributing factor to oncogenesis and …

Student Voices: African American High School Seniors' Perception Of Culturally Responsive Teaching., Whitney M. Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examined African-American high school seniors’ perceptions of culturally responsive teaching in one public high school within a large urban public-school district in the southeastern region of the United States. It begins with a brief historical overview on the plight of African-Americans in the US public education system and how public school educators have failed to leverage Afrocultural learning orientations as an asset to educate and increase the academic achievement of African-American students in classrooms. The Philosophical Aspects of Cultural Difference Framework (Nichols, 1986, 1995) will guide this dissertation study. The latter part of the dissertation reveals that a …

Exploring The Knowledge Of Algebra For Teaching., Jonathan David Watkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For the past few decades, researchers in mathematics education have been exploring the concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)—or knowledge related to teaching content—and applying it to various areas of mathematics, such as algebra. Research related to teacher knowledge of algebra is critical because researchers (e.g., Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005) have found correlations between some types of teacher knowledge and student achievement in mathematics; students from around the world are outperforming U.S. students on international assessments of mathematics, including algebra (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2014, 2016); and algebra plays an integral role in the K-12 mathematics curriculum …

Microaggressions In Lgb Individuals: The Protective Role Of Positive Lgb Identity., Ghazel Tellawi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to examine LGB identity from a multidimensional approach in the context of microaggressions. The aims of the study were as follows: 1) to examine whether positive and negative facets of LGB identities are correlated; 2) to determine whether positive LGB identity facets served as protective factors against the negative impact of microaggressions; 3) to explore the unique contribution of having a positive LGB identity against the negative impact of microaggressions when compared to other protective factors (social support and outness). Participants were 135 undergraduate students recruited through the University of Louisville’s research participant …

Evaluation Of The Predictive Ability Of A Screening Instrument Used To Diagnose Co-Occurrence Of Anxiety In Children With High-Functioning Autism., Austin Zachary

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety has shown to have a high co-occurrence in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but has been difficult to co-diagnose. This study analyzed the ability of the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) to predict positive ASD screenings of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS). Parents and children ages 8 to 18 years (N = 100) were screened for anxiety using the SCARED and autism using the SRS. Moderate correlation was found between parent-reported SCARED and positive screening of the SRS (r = .579), with weak correlation found in the child-reported SCARED (r = .105). LASSO regression was conducted …

Counter Narratives: A Phenomenological Study Of High Achieving African American Male High School Students., De'nay Lanise Speaks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examined the contributing factors to the success of high achieving African American male high school students who attend an all-male, predominantly Black, college-preparatory academy. The study took place in an urban, Midwestern school district and highlighted the lived experience and perspectives of students who have at least a 3.0 grade point average. Through the lens of Critical Race Theory, this study was an effort to bring attention to counter narratives to the otherwise deleterious image portrayed of African American males. The history and plight of the African American male is included to provide a comprehensive understanding of the …

Public Policy And Strategies To Support Institutional And Technological Innovations In The New Water Economy: The Example Of Innovation Technology Clusters In Developing And Diffusing Water Technologies., Craig Francis Barham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A long list of water technologies has been central to human development throughout history. From the well in ancient times to desalination in the contemporary period, water technologies are needed to produce, distribute and treat water to support human life, industry, agriculture, and environmental health. As human development puts intense pressure on the planet's limited fresh water supplies, society is turning to increasingly innovative water technologies to close the supply-demand gap. The water economy represents a significant share of total economic output it its own right, while at the same time water directly or indirectly underpins all other economic activity. …

Student Perception Of The Effects Of Out Of School Suspension On Academic Motivation., Dawn Boone Roseberry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historically, the response to rule violations and misbehavior in schools was to punish students by using methods such as exclusionary discipline. Exclusionary discipline may lead to poor academic outcomes for the student, increased likelihood of dropping out of school, and an introduction to the criminal justice system (Cueller and Markowitz, 2015). Being suspended from school also increases the chances a student will feel disconnected, intensify conflict with adults, and impact a youth’s choice to engage in criminal activities (Skiba et al., 2006). Researchers have concluded that suspension is also a predictor of future suspensions, not a deterrent (Rafaele & Mendez, …

Furthering Understanding Of Forensic Units: A Detailed Examination Of Knoxville Police Department's Crime Scene Unit., Cassandra Christina Rausch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the past three decades, the criminal justice system has decidedly employed new technologies for the purposes of establishing guilt or innocence. Forensic science, with its synthesis of scientific methodology and investigative considerations of law enforcement, ushered in the development of DNA profiling and forever changed the process of crime scene investigation.This shift in focus also led to a shift in the individuals involved in investigation, producing the widespread formation of stand-alone crime scene units. Utilizing both civilian and sworn employees of a law enforcement agency, these units became responsible for the documentation, collection, and preservation of evidence that would …