Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Ethnic/Racial Classroom Dynamics In The Learning Environment And Mathematics Achievement, Christina Stephens

Open Access Master's Theses

In the U.S., ethnic and racial disparities in education persist throughout K-12 education. Empirical research has linked classroom ethnic/racial structures and achievement, and the learning environment and achievement. However, few studies have considered the complex manner in which ethnicity/race may interact with the learning environment and its relation to student success across diverse groups. The current study investigated the role that ethnic/racial congruence between the student, teacher, and classroom could have on the learning environment and mathematics achievement. A multilevel regression approach examined if these factors predicted academic achievement. Secondary data were from The National Center for Teacher Effectiveness, collected …

Ugv Direction Control By Human Arm Gesture Recognition Via Deterministic Learning, Xiaotian Chen

Open Access Master's Theses

With the recent development of machine learning and neural networks, different applications have been developed to improve the intelligence of unmanned robotic systems. In this thesis, we present a novel method for controlling an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) by using a new machine learning technique, called deterministic learning [1], to learn and recognize four specifically designed body language, which represent four corresponding moving directions (i.e., left, right, up, and down) of the controlled UGV. The Microsoft Kinect sensor is employed to collect the human body skeleton data, including (x, y, z) coordinates of the human arm …

Effects Of Incorporating Inertial Measurements On The Localization Accuracy Of The Seaglider Auv, Wendy Snyder

Open Access Master's Theses

The Kongsberg Seaglider M1 is a commercially available autonomous under- water vehicle (AUV) primarily used as a platform for oceanographic measurements of salinity, temperature, and oxygen. The Seaglider currently uses two different dead-reckoned solutions, the glide slope model (GSM) and the hydrodynamic model (HDM), to provide a localization solution for each dive. While the accuracy of these solutions was not previously known explicitly, for the purposes of oceanographic profiling they were generally deemed sufficient. As the platform matures, there has been a growing interest in expanding its application and measurement capabilities. With some of the desired new applications, such as …

Polyethylene Passive Sampler Method Development For Fluorotelomer Alcohols And Other Neutral Perfluorinated Alkyl Substances, Erik R. Dixon-Anderson

Open Access Master's Theses

Fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOHs) and other poly- and per-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs) are common and ubiquitous by-products of various industrial telomerization processes. This class of volatile and semi-volatile compounds has been shown to degrade into a wide variety of perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs) including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), persistent organic pollutants. Recent atmospheric studies have shown fluorotelomer alcohols and their degradation products present in high concentrations spreading out from point sources in North America, Europe, and Asia. This study developed a method for measuring fluorotelomer alcohols through the use of polyethylene (PE) passive samplers coupled to their analysis …

Identification Of 15 Phthalate Esters In Commercial Cheese Powder Via Cyclodextrin-Promoted Fluorescence Detection, Benjamin B. Cromwell

Open Access Master's Theses

Human exposure to toxicants such as environmental pollutants, carcinogens, and endocrine disruptors occurs via a variety of mechanisms, including through the use of commercial products that contain these toxicants. Among such commercial products, many classes of food products have been found to contain toxicants, including phthalate and phthalate esters, which have traditionally been detected using mass spectrometry-based techniques. Reported herein is the use of gas chromatography mass spectrometry and cyclodextrin-promoted fluorescence detection to accomplish the sensitive (0.124µM limits of detection) detection of 15 phthalate esters in commercial cheese powder used in macaroni and cheese products. These results highlight the versatility …

Investigating Lava Balloon Formation: New Exploration Of The 1993 Submarine Vent Site At Socorro Island, Mexico, Megan Lubetkin

Open Access Master's Theses

The third of five known lava balloon eruptions occurred January 1993 to March 1994 west of Socorro Island, Mexico. Large highly-vesicular basaltic scoria rose to the sea surface in pulses. Buoyant samples were collected and studied, but the submarine vent was never precisely located. New multibeam mapping and remotely operated vehicle exploration in 2017 by E/V Nautilus located and sampled the 1993 vent site, a volcaniclastic cone at 250 m depth with pillow lava and large scoria blocks. An active, low-temperature hydrothermal system (0.2°C above ambient) with white filamentous bacteria and yellow microbial mats occurs over the roughly 4000 m …

Dredging For Environmental Benefit: Models Of Circulation And Flushing Dynamics In The Providence River Estuary, Grace Elizabeth Medley

Open Access Master's Theses

In estuarine dynamics, circulation in the form of mixing and exchange have a direct link to the water quality. Edgewood Shoals is a highly anthropogenically impacted region of the Providence River bordered by three cities, and receives the outfall from six wastewater treatment facilities. Edgewood Shoals also has low dissolved oxygen levels during the summer months. The Shoal is classified as a circulation-restricted zone, where hydrodynamic exchange is limited due to the steep bathymetric gradient created by an adjacent federal shipping channel. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is in the process of determining if there are options for …

Localization Of A Drifting Underwater Vehicle Using A Terrain-Based Particle Filter, Emanuele Raggi

Open Access Master's Theses

In this paper we present a terrain-aided particle filter to localize a freely drifting underwater vehicle. The vehicle is a bottom imaging Lagrangian float used for habitat classification, monitoring and fish abundance. During operation the vehicle captures down looking images at a controlled altitude above the bottom. Direct navigation information is often, but not always, recorded with a ultra short baseline (USBL) acoustic system. The presented methodology provides an alternate method for georeferencing when USBL is unavailable. The implemented particle filter utilizes a background bathymetry map and visual odometry as a motion mode. The particle filter is implemented using the …

Exploring Typology Categorizations Of Male Perpetrators: A Methodology Study, Emilyl N. Weber, Ashely R. Taylor, Arturo L. Cantos, Barbara G. Amado, K. Daniel O'Leary

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators were categorized based on whether they were generally violent (GV) or family only violent (FO) using self-report or arrest records. Classification criteria to assess recidivism in perpetrators of IPV were evaluated herein to determine the incremental validity of using a perpetrator’s criminal history in addition to their self-report information for categorization purposes. The concordance rates for categorizing subtypes of male perpetrators were compared for two methods, namely, self-report versus criminal history data. Categorizations were made based on self-reported history of violence and federal criminal records separately. Between measures consistency was defined as whether or not …

Online Symptom Checker Diagnostic And Triage Accuracy For Hiv And Hepatitis C, A. C. Berry, B. D. Cash, B. Wang, M. S. Mulekar, A. B. Van Haneghan, Kyle Yuquimpo, A. Swaney, M. C. Marshall, W. K. Green

Student Publications

We sought to address the prior limitations of symptom checker accuracy by analysing the diagnostic and triage feasibility of online symptom checkers using a consecutive series of real-life emergency department (ED) patient encounters, and addressing a complex patient population - those with hepatitis C or HIV. We aimed to study the diagnostic and triage accuracy of these symptom checkers in relation to an emergency room physician-determined diagnosis. An ED retrospective analysis was performed on 8363 consecutive adult patients. Eligible patients included: 90 HIV, 67 hepatitis C, 11 both HIV and hepatitis C. Five online symptom checkers were utilised for diagnosis …

Eyelid Cosmetic Enhancements And Their Associated Ocular Adverse Effects, Maliha Masud, Majid Moshirfar, Tirth J. Shah, Aaron T. Gomez, Michele R. Avila, Yasmyne C. Ronquillo

School of Medicine Publications

Numerous cosmetic enhancements and augmentations to the natural appearance of the periorbital area are readily available today. Due to the increasing popularity of these cosmetic procedures, it is important for ophthalmologists to be aware of their potential risks, complications and adverse effects. The aim of this literature review was to introduce some of the most common ocular cosmetic enhancements and provide a comprehensive overview of their associated adverse effects reported in various medical journals. PubMed, Embase, and Google Scholar were used to identify articles related to the following ocular cosmetic procedures; eyelash extensions, permanent eyelid tattooing, and eyelash dyeing. The …

Academic Experiences In Policy Development: A Grounded Theory Study Across Three Higher Education Institutions, Marie Brennan

Irish Journal of Academic Practice

The National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030 (Hunt Report, 2011) suggested that a framework should be put in place to facilitate institutional mergers. Subsequently, three institutes of technology in Dublin signed a memorandum of understanding establishing the Technological University for Dublin Alliance (Dublin Institute of Technology, the Institute of Technology Tallaght and the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown.) The presidents from each institute formed a steering group that consisted of a team of staff from across the three campuses. The role of this team was to launch the foundation themes that were necessary for designation. One of these themes was …

Place Recognition In Challenging Conditions, Saravanabalagi Ramachandran, John Mcdonald

Session 2: Deep Learning for Computer Vision

Place recognition in a visual SLAM system helps build and maintain a map from multiple traversals of the same environment while closing loops to correct drift accumulated over time. Despite the marked success in visual place recognition research over the past decade, it remains a challenging problem in the context of variations caused due to different times of the day, weather, lighting and seasons. In this paper, we address this problem by progressively training convolutional neural networks in a siamese fashion to generate embeddings that encode semantic and visual features for sequence-aligned image pairs taken at different timescales and viewpoints. …

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks For Estimating Lens Distortion Parameters, Sebastian Lutz, Mark Davey, Aljosa Smolic

Session 2: Deep Learning for Computer Vision

In this paper we present a convolutional neural network (CNN) to predict multiple lens distortion parameters from a single input image. Unlike other methods, our network is suitable to create high resolution output as it directly estimates the parameters from the image which then can be used to rectify even very high resolution input images. As our method it is fully automatic, it is suitable for both casual creatives and professional artists. Our results show that our network accurately predicts the lens distortion parameters of high resolution images and corrects the distortions satisfactory.

Principles Or Templates? The Antecedents And Performance Effects Of Cross-Border Knowledge, James B. Oldroyd, Shad Morris, Jeff P. Dotson

Faculty Publications

Managers understand the importance of knowledge management systems for project-based work. Efforts are often made to ensure knowledge is codified and disseminated throughout the firm so employees can draw upon them to complete their projects. Unfortunately, however, such efforts often lead to stockpiles of information that remain untapped and underutilized. This study seeks to answer two questions. First, how can managers influence workers to utilize different types of codified knowledge in the first place? Second, do different types of codified knowledge have differential effects on performance? We find that increased individual experience drives the use of knowledge principles while workers …

On-Road Remote Sensing Of Automobile Emissions In The Chicago Area: Fall 2018, Gary A. Bishop

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

Monitoring Melanoma Recurrence With Circulating Tumor Dna: A Proof Of Concept From Three Case Studies, Ashleigh C. Mcevoy, Michelle R. Pereira, Anna Reid, Robert Pearce, Lester Cowell, Zeyad Al-Ogaili, Muhammad A. Khattak, Michael Millward, Tarek M. Meniawy, Elin S. Gray, Melanie R. Ziman

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: A significant number of melanoma patients experience recurrence to distant sites, despite having had surgical treatment of the primary lesion, with curative intent. Monitoring of patients for early evidence of disease recurrence would significantly improve management of the disease, allowing timely therapeutic intervention. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is becoming a well-recognized biomarker for monitoring malignancies and has, in a few studies, been shown to signify disease recurrence earlier than conventional methods.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of plasma ctDNA using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) in 30 primary melanoma patients with tumors harboring BRAF, NRAS or TERT promoter mutations. …

Rethinking Global-Regulation: World’S Law Meets Artificial Intelligence, Nachshon Sean Goltz, Addison Cameron-Huff, Giulia Dondoli

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This article takes a critical look at Machine Translation of legal text, especially global legislation, through the discussion of Global-Regulation, a state of the art online search engine of the world’s legislation in English. Part 2 explains the rationale for an online platform such as Global-Regulation. Part 3 provides a brief account of the history of the development of machine translation, and it describes some of the limits of the use of statistical machine translation for translating legal texts. Part 4 describes Neural Machine Translation (NMT), which is a new generation of machine translation systems. Finally, Parts 5 and 6 …

Association Between Preseason Training And Performance In Elite Australian Football, Callum J. Mccaskie, Warren B. Young, Brendan B. Fahrner, Marc Sim

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose: To examine the association between preseason training variables and subsequent in-season performance in an elite Australian football team.

Methods: Data from 41 elite male Australian footballers (mean [SD] age = 23.4 [3.1] y, height =188.4 [7.1] cm, and mass = 86.7 [7.9] kg) were collected from 1 Australian Football League (AFL) club. Preseason training data (external load, internal load, fitness testing, and session participation) were collected across the 17-wk preseason phase (6 and 11 wk post-Christmas). Champion Data© Player Rank (CDPR), coaches’ ratings, and round 1 selection were used as in-season performance measures. CDPR and coaches’ ratings were examined …

Climate Change From A Distance: An Analysis Of Construal Level And Psychological Distance From Climate Change, Susie Wang, Mark J. Hurlstone, Zoe Leviston, Iain Walker, Carmen Lawrence

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The public perception of climate change as abstract and distant may undermine climate action. According to construal level theory, whether a phenomenon is perceived as psychologically distant or close is associated with whether it is construed as abstract or concrete, respectively. Previous work has established a link between psychological distance and climate action, but the associated role of construal level has yet to be explored in depth. In two representative surveys of Australians (N = 217 and N = 216), and one experiment (N = 319), we tested whether construal level and psychological distance from climate change predicted …

Vegetable Nitrate Intakes Are Associated With Reduced Self-Reported Cardiovascular-Related Complications Within A Representative Sample Of Middle-Aged Australian Women, Prospectively Followed Up For 15 Years, J.K. Jackson, Amanda J. Patterson, Lesley K. Macdonald-Wicks, Peta M. Forder, Lauren C. Blekkenhorst, Catherine P. Bondonno, Jonathan M. Hodgson, Natalie C. Ward, Carl Holder, Christopher Oldmeadow, Julie E. Byles, Mark A. Mcevoy

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Nitric oxide (NO) facilitates anti-atherosclerotic effects. Vegetables are a major source of dietary nitrate. Experimental data indicates that dietary nitrate can significantly reduce major risk factors for atherosclerosis and subsequent cardiovascular disease (CVD), as nitrate can be metabolized to produce NO via the nitrate-nitrite-NO pathway. The purpose of this study was to prospectively investigate the association between habitual dietary nitrate intakes and the incidence of self-reported CVD-related complications within a representative sample of middle-aged Australian women (1946–1951 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health). Women free from disease at baseline who had completed the food frequency questionnaire data …

Weight Management Among School-Aged Children And Adolescents: A Quantitative Assessment In A Ghanaian Municipality, Daniel Gyamfi, Christian Obirikorang, Emmanuel Acheampong, Evans A. Asamoah, Bernard Berko Sampong, Emmanuella Nsenbah Batu, Enoch O. Anto

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

BACKGROUND: Childhood and adolescent overweight, obesity and underweight have become an issue of grave concern to both the developed and developing countries in context of global burden of non-communicable diseases. Unhealthy weight status is a significant public health issue for developing countries, of which Ghana is not excluded. This study evaluated the prevalence of overweight, obesity and underweight and its related factors among school-aged children and adolescents.

METHODS: A total of 1004 participants were randomly selected from six schools. A structured questionnaire on demography and socioeconomic status of students' parents/guardians was completed by the selected students. Anthropometric parameters were measured, …

Fake News And Propaganda: Trump’S Democratic America And Hitler’S National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, David E. Allen, Michael Mcaleer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper features an analysis of President Trump’s two State of the Union addresses, which are analysed by means of various data mining techniques, including sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the messages contained, the degree to which they differ, and their potential implications for the national mood and state of the economy. We also apply Zipf and Mandelbrot’s power law to assess the degree to which they differ from common language patterns. To provide a contrast and some parallel context, analyses are also undertaken of President Obama’s last State of the Union address …

Entropy Analysis Of High-Definition Transcranial Electric Stimulation Effects On Eeg Dynamics, Diego C. Nascimento, Gabriela Depetri, Luiz H. Stefano, Osvaldo Anacleto, Joao P. Leite, Dylan J. Edwards, Taiza E. G. Santos, Francisco Louzada Neto

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

A foundation of medical research is time series analysis—the behavior of variables of interest with respect to time. Time series data are often analyzed using the mean, with statistical tests applied to mean differences, and has the assumption that data are stationary. Although widely practiced, this method has limitations. Here we present an alternative statistical approach with sample analysis that provides a summary statistic accounting for the non-stationary nature of time series data. This work discusses the use of entropy as a measurement of the complexity of time series, in the context of Neuroscience, due to the non-stationary characteristic of …

"I Love Being A Midwife; It's Who I Am": A Glaserian Grounded Theory Study Of Why Midwives Stay In Midwifery, Dianne Bloxsome, Sara Bayes, Deborah Ireson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Aims and objectives: To understand why Western Australian (WA) midwives choose to remain in the profession.

Background: Midwifery shortages and the inability to retain midwives in the midwifery profession is a global problem. The need for effective midwifery staff retention strategies to be implemented is therefore urgent, as is the need for evidence to inform those strategies.

Design: Glaserian grounded theory (GT) methodology was used with constant comparative analysis.

Methods: Fourteen midwives currently working clinically area were interviewed about why they remain in the profession. The GT process of constant comparative analysis resulted in an overarching core category …

Cannabis Consumption Patterns Explain The East-West Gradient In Canadian Neural Tube Defect Incidence: An Ecological Study, Albert Stuart Reece, Gary Kenneth Hulse

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

While a known link between prenatal cannabis exposure and anencephaly exists, the relationship of prenatal cannabis exposure with neural tube defects (NTDs) generally has not been defined. Published data from Canada Health and Statistics Canada were used to assess this relationship. Both cannabis use and NTDs were shown to follow an east-west and north-south gradient. Last year cannabis consumption was significantly associated (P < .0001; cannabis use–time interaction P < .0001). These results were confirmed when estimates of termination for anomaly were used. Canada Health population data allowed the calculation of an NTD odds ratio) of 1.27 (95% confidence interval = 1.19-1.37; P < 10⁻¹¹) for high-risk provinces versus the remainder with an attributable fraction in exposed populations of 16.52% (95% confidence interval = 12.22-20.62). Data show a robust positive statistical association between cannabis consumption as both …

Hordein Accumulation In Developing Barley Grains, Gregory J. Tanner, Michelle L. Colgrave, Malcolm J. Blundell, Crispin A. Howitt, Antony Bacic

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The temporal pattern of accumulation of hordein storage proteins in developing barley grains was studied by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), western blot and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Hordein accumulation was compared to the pattern seen for two abundant control proteins, serpin Z4 (an early accumulator) and lipid transferase protein (LTP1, a late accumulator). Hordeins were detected from 6 days post-anthesis (DPA) and peaked at 30 DPA. Changes in fresh weight indicate that desiccation begins at 20 DPA and by 37 DPA fresh weight had decreased by 35%. ELISA analysis of hordein content, expressed on a protein basis, increased …

A Corrective Justice Justification For Considering The Response Of The Hypothetical Person Of An “Ordinary Level Of Susceptibility” When Assessing Reasonable Foreseeability In Cases Involving Negligently Inflicted Psychiatric Injury, Martin Allcock

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The law has long been concerned with limiting recovery for pure psychiatric injury in negligence in order to prevent liability to plaintiffs who are unusually susceptible to this type of injury. The justifications provided by courts for this concern have often centred on the idea that holding a defendant liable to such a plaintiff will be unreasonable. However, there is a gap in the reasoning of the courts and in the scholarly literature as to the potential theoretical justifications for measuring the reasonableness of the defendant’s conduct against the effect of that conduct on the hypothetical person of an “ordinary …

Essays: Color-Blind Or Race-Conscious Policies, Gus Castro, Hannah Lyons, Anna Eager, Jonathan Panton

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

The debate between advocates color blind and race conscious policies has been perennial in the United States since Reconstruction and has recently been resuscitated in the popular press with the publication of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness (2010). Alexander’s book provided support for the race conscious side and students read Nathan Glazer’s Affirmative Discrimination: Ethnic Inequality and Public Policy (1975) for a defense of the color blind side. The debate was framed in an even-handed manner by a selection from Desmond King and Rogers M. Smith’s Still a House Divided: Race …

Tackling Social Media Data Analysis: Comparing And Contrasting Qsr Nvivo And Leximancer, Violetta Wilk, Geoffrey N. Soutar, Paul Harrigan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose

This paper aims to offer insights into the ways two computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) applications (QSR NVivo and Leximancer) can be used to analyze big, text-based, online data taken from consumer-to-consumer (C2C) social media communication.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used QSR NVivo and Leximancer, to explore 200 discussion threads containing 1,796 posts from forums on an online open community and an online brand community that involved online brand advocacy (OBA). The functionality, in particular, the strengths and weaknesses of both programs are discussed. Examples of the types of analyses each program can undertake and the visual output available …