Digital Commons Network^™

Totally Acyclic Complexes, Holly M. Zolt

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

We consider the following question: when is every exact complex of injective modules a totally acyclic one? It is known, for example, that over a commutative Noetherian ring of finite Krull dimension this condition is equivalent with the ring being Iwanaga-Gorenstein. We give equivalent characterizations of the condition that every exact complex of injective modules (over arbitrary rings) is totally acyclic. We also give a dual result giving equivalent characterizations of the condition that every exact complex of flat modules is F-totally acyclic over an arbitrary ring.

Regression Tree Construction For Reinforcement Learning Problems With A General Action Space, Anthony S. Bush Jr

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Part of the implementation of Reinforcement Learning is constructing a regression of values against states and actions and using that regression model to optimize over actions for a given state. One such common regression technique is that of a decision tree; or in the case of continuous input, a regression tree. In such a case, we fix the states and optimize over actions; however, standard regression trees do not easily optimize over a subset of the input variables\cite{Card1993}. The technique we propose in this thesis is a hybrid of regression trees and kernel regression. First, a regression tree splits over …

Does Sharing Information With Friends And Family Cause Men To Adhere More Strongly To Masculine Norms?, Clint E. Johnson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

It is clear that social influence can elicit conformity to norms (e.g., Asch, 1956). It remains unclear, however, how various relationships elicit differential conformity to masculine norms in particular. In this pre-registered experiment, I tested the hypothesis that when men are asked to reveal their responses on the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI; Mahalik et al., 2003), men conform more when sharing that identifiable information with others who know them (i.e., “public” conformity), namely friends and family, as compared to sharing that information anonymously with a random stranger (i.e., the anonymous “private” condition). My convenience sample consisted of participants …

Danger-Aware Resource Management In V2x Network, Tsigigenet Dessalgn

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

IEEE 802.11p is one of the key technologies that enable dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) in intelligent transportation system (ITS) for safety on the road. The main challenge in vehicular communication is the large amount of data to be processed. As vehicle density and velocity increases, the data to be transmitted also increases. We proposed a protocol that reduces the number of data to be transmitted at every second according to the level of danger that the transmitter vehicle experiences. The proposed protocol measures inter-vehicle distance, as the representative of the danger of a vehicle, to determine the priority for transmission. …

The Relationship Between Housing Affordability And Demographic Factors: Case Study For The Atlanta Beltline, Chapman T. Lindstrom

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Housing affordability has been a widely examined subject for populations residing in major metropolitan regions around the world. The relationship between housing affordability and the city’s demographics and its volume of urban development are important to take into consideration. In the past two decades there has been an increasing volume of literature detailing Atlanta Georgia’s large-scale redevelopment project, the Atlanta BeltLine (ABL), and its relationship with Atlanta’s Metropolitan population and housing affordability. The first objective of this paper is to study the relationship between housing affordability at two scales within the Atlanta Metropolitan Area (AMA) for both renters and homeowners. …

Data Patterns Discovery Using Unsupervised Learning, Rachel A. Lewis

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Self-care activities classification poses significant challenges in identifying children’s unique functional abilities and needs within the exceptional children healthcare system. The accuracy of diagnosing a child's self-care problem, such as toileting or dressing, is highly influenced by an occupational therapists’ experience and time constraints. Thus, there is a need for objective means to detect and predict in advance the self-care problems of children with physical and motor disabilities. We use clustering to discover interesting information from self-care problems, perform automatic classification of binary data, and discover outliers. The advantages are twofold: the advancement of knowledge on identifying self-care problems in …

Ifocus: A Framework For Non-Intrusive Assessment Of Student Attention Level In Classrooms, Narayanan Veliyath

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The process of learning is not merely determined by what the instructor teaches, but also by how the student receives that information. An attentive student will naturally be more open to obtaining knowledge than a bored or frustrated student. In recent years, tools such as skin temperature measurements and body posture calculations have been developed for the purpose of determining a student's affect, or emotional state of mind. However, measuring eye-gaze data is particularly noteworthy in that it can collect measurements non-intrusively, while also being relatively simple to set up and use. This paper details how data obtained from such …

Blade Design And Analysis Of Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbine: Cfd And Experimental Investigation Of Blades Design, Relwinde Fabrice Zongo

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The present thesis focuses on the investigations of the computational fluid dynamics analysis and the experimental study of small scales Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) blades. The initial steps are taken; in the process of this research were the selection of the airfoil type to be used in each blade design and the creation of a blade design with high efficiency operating in a low wind speed zone. For the mentioned blade design process, the following airfoils were selected respectively NACA 0010, NACA 0012, NACA 1412, NACA 2412, NACA 2414, NACA 4412 and NACA 6412. This selection intends to provide …

Taking A Canon To The Adjunction Formula, Paul M. Harrelson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In this paper, we show how the canonical divisor of a graph is related to the canonical divisor of its subgraph. The use of chip firing and the adjunction formula for graphs ex- plains said relation and even completes it. We go on to show the difference between the formula for full subgraphs and that of non-full subgraphs. Examples are used to simplify these results and to see the adjunction formula in action. Finally, we show that though the adjunction formula seems simple at first glance, it is somewhat complex and rather useful.

Quantification Of Aqp11 Paralog Expression In The Osmoregulatory Organs Of Anguilla Rostrata, Keith C. Kurt

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Osmoregulation is facilitated by using an assortment of ion and water channels to assist acclimation to changing conditions and to maintain cellular homeostasis. Euryhaline fish can be found in both seawater and freshwater (SW and FW) environments. Expression of ion and water channels have been experimentally demonstrated to change as a fish acclimates to different environmental conditions. Relatively recently, a new group of water channels has been discovered that are primarily intracellular and includes aquaporin 11 (AQP11). Typically, AQPs are located on the cell plasma membrane to allow water to flow in and out of the cell by osmosis to …

Homological Constructions Over A Ring Of Characteristic 2, Michael S. Nelson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

We study various homological constructions over a ring $R$ of characteristic $2$. We construct chain complexes over a field $K$ of characteristic $2$ using polynomials rings and partial derivatives. We also provide a link from the homology of these chain complexes to the simplicial homology of simplicial complexes. We end by showing how to construct all finitely-generated commutative differential graded $R$-algebras using polynomial rings and partial derivatives.

Does Emotion-Regulation Moderate Ostracism And Risk-Taking?, Serena K. Murphy Ms.

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Ostracism, feeling excluded or ignored, has been associated with increased risk-taking behavior on a number of self-report and lab-based measures (Buelow & Wirth, 2017; Duclos, Wan, & Jiang, 2012; Falk et al., 2014; Svetieva et al. 2016). Anger mediates the relationship between ostracism and risk-taking (Svetieva et al., 2016), and it is possible that emotion-regulation strategies to reduce anger may minimize this relationship. However, research has yet to test if emotion-regulation strategies can reduce affective responses following ostracism. The purpose of the current study is to examine the effects of ostracism via Cyberball and emotion-regulation strategies on risk-taking behavior using …

Examining Factors Associated With Minority Turnover Intention In State And Local Public Health Organizations: The Relationship Among Diversity Climate, Career Growth Perception, Job & Organizational Satisfaction And Turnover Intention., Ashley Kennedy Mitchell

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Research shows that a diverse workforce can increase workplace satisfaction, organizational performance, and retention (Konrad, 2006; Choi, 2013; McKay et al., 2007). There is a need to understand governmental public health workforce turnover to ensure the retention of public health minority workers, the capitalization on diversity benefits, and the services needed to provide for a more diverse population. This study aimed to assess the impact of the workforce environment, particularly employee perceptions of the diversity climate, individual career growth, and job and organizational satisfaction, on minority state and local health worker turnover intention. Data were analyzed from the 2017 The …

Synthesis Of N-Heterocyclic Molecules And Their Applicability Towards Ion Sensing: Polymeric Chemosensors, Aikohi M. Ugboya

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Critical to biological and environmental processes are anions because often times their relative concentration in our body can be an indicator of one’s well-being. Therefore, highly sensitive and cost-efficient methods for ions recognition is necessary for human health. In recent times, polymeric chemosensors have become a vital tool for sensing ions because of its higher sensitivity and good mechanical properties compared to their monomeric counterparts. These sensors are designed to produce a measurable response in the presence of a targeted ion such as an electrochemical or optical signal. The unique structure and the photophysical properties of the 1,2,3-triazole core coupled …

Effects Of Climate Variability: A Long-Term Perspective On Leaf Litter Processing In The Ogeechee River, Jose A. Sanchez

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a rise in temperatures and changes to precipitation patterns for the 21^st century. These changes are expected to lead to a higher frequency of extreme events such as drought and floods which lead to the alteration of the hydrology, communities, and processes of freshwater ecosystems. Leaf litter decomposition in stream ecosystems is an important component of the energy and nutrient cycle representing a food source for aquatic organisms. This has made it a tool for assessing long term responses to disturbance due to changes in the assemblage of macroinvertebrates that …

Determining Political Inclination In Tweets Using Transfer Learning, Mehtab Iqbal

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Last few years have seen tremendous development in neural language modeling for transfer learning and downstream applications. In this research, I used Howard and Ruder’s Universal Language Model Fine Tuning (ULMFiT) pipeline to develop a classifier that can determine whether a tweet is politically left leaning or right leaning by likening the content to tweets posted by @TheDemocrats or @GOP accounts on Twitter. We achieved 87.7% accuracy in predicting political ideological inclination.

The Role Of Local Adaptation On Biting Performance In Trinidadian Guppies, Hannah E. Cohen

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Divergent selection pressures in populations that occupy different environments can result in phenotypic differentiation in traits that provide a local fitness advantage. Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) populations are separated by physical barriers such as waterfalls which result in repeated shifts in selective pressures from predator avoidance in high predation environments towards resource competition in low predation environments. Such shifts in selection pressures have previously shown that a range of locally adapted morphological and behavioral traits are changed. However, the role of local adaptation on biting behaviors remains unclear. I analyzed morphological differences such as body length, jaw position, …

Inverse Problems Related To The Wiener And Steiner-Wiener Indices, Matthew Gentry

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In a graph, the generalized distance between multiple vertices is the minimum number of edges in a connected subgraph that contains these vertices. When we consider such distances between all subsets of $k$ vertices and take the sum, it is called the Steiner $k$-Wiener index and has important applications in Chemical Graph Theory. In this thesis we consider the inverse problems related to the Steiner Wiener index, i.e. for what positive integers is there a graph with Steiner Wiener index of that value?

The Subaltern As Surrogate: Identity And Gender In Contemporary Postcolonial Novels, Jackson T. Turner

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Postcolonial novel attempts to reveal the crimes and lasting effects of colonization. By looking at Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, I intend to reveal how the inversion of the typical postcolonial gender dynamic changes the conversation about the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. The male, colonized characters within these works are used as surrogates for something that the colonizer, female has lost or desires. This change in relationship draws attention to the way in which past empires still exert their …

Supply Chain Infrastructure Restoration Calculator Software Tool -- Developer Guide And User Manual, Akhilesh Ojha, Bhanu Kanwar, Suzanna Long, Thomas G. Shoberg, Steven Corns

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This report describes a software tool that calculates costs associated with the reconstruction of supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure in the advent of a catastrophic failure by either outside forces (extreme events) or internal forces (fatigue). This tool fills a gap between search and recover strategies of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (or FEMA) and construction techniques under full recovery. In addition to overall construction costs, the tool calculates reconstruction needs in terms of personnel and their required support. From these estimates, total costs (or the cost of each element to be restored) can be calculated. Estimates are based upon …

Eagle Educator, Georgia Southern University

College of Education: News & Publications (2003-2023)

• Project SEARCH: Real-Life Experiences. Real-Life Differences.
• STEMFest Returns with a Bang, Slime and even an Alpaca
• A look into the partnership with Hesse K-8 School in Savannah
• Using Virtual Classrooms Prepare Students for the Future
• Live and Learn with Fellow COE Majors
• COE Faculty Member Assists with International Research for Spanish-Speaking Youth
• Thompson Receives 2018 Staff Award
• 2018 Jack Miller Award Recipients
• Remembering Jack Miller
• Faculty Awards, Honors and Promotions
• To The Sapient Reading Professor
• Making a Difference, One Book at a Time
• First Generation Immigrant Draws on Experiences to Help Minority Students

Population Data Centre Profile - The Western Australian Data Linkage Branch, Steve Hodges, Tom Eitelhuber, Alexandra Merchant, Janine Alan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Established in 1995, the Western Australian Data Linkage Branch (DLB) is Australia’s longest running data linkage agency. The Western Australian Data Linkage System (WADLS) employs an enduring linkage model spanning over 60 data collections supported by internally developed and supported software and IT infrastructure. DLB has delivered, and continues to deliver, a range of significant data linkage innovations, many of which have been adopted elsewhere. A current restructure within the Western Australian Department of Health (which we will refer to as the Department of Health) will provide an improved funding model geared toward addressing issues with staff retention, capacity and …

Proof-Of-Familiarity: A Privacy-Preserved Blockchain Scheme For Collaborative Medical Decision-Making, Jinhong Yang, Md Mehedi Hassan Hasan Onik, Nam-Yong Lee, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Chul-Soo Kim

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The current healthcare sector is facing difficulty in satisfying the growing issues, expenses, and heavy regulation of quality treatment. Surely, electronic medical records (EMRs) and protected health information (PHI) are highly sensitive, personally identifiable information (PII). However, the sharing of EMRs, enhances overall treatment quality. A distributed ledger (blockchain) technology, embedded with privacy and security by architecture, provides a transparent application developing platform. Privacy, security, and lack of confidence among stakeholders are the main downsides of extensive medical collaboration. This study, therefore, utilizes the transparency, security, and efficiency of blockchain technology to establish a collaborative medical decision-making scheme. This study …

Performance Analysis Of A Thermal-Driven Tubular Direct Contact Membrane Distillation System, Abdellah Sharifian, Mehdi Khiadani, Ataollah Nosrati

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper examines the performance of a thermal-driven tubular direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system theoretically and experimentally. A multi-step mathematical model was developed to predict the freshwater productivity of the tubular DCMD module applicable for both small and large-scale applications by considering the changes in the operational variables along the membrane’s length. The proposed model was verified by building an experimental rig which was tested under different operational conditions. The results showed that keeping the mass flow rates in the hot and cold channels either near the end or beyond the transition range of the flows results in higher …

Neuromeasure: A Software Package For Quantification Of Cortical Motor Maps Using Frameless Stereotaxic Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Michael B. Gerber, Alasdair C. Mclean, Samuel J. Stephen, Alex G. Chalco, Usman M. Arshad, Gary W. Thickbroom, Josh Silverstein, K. Zoe Tsagaris, Amy Kuceyeski, Kathleen Friel, Taiza E. G. Santos, Dylan J. Edwards

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The recent enhanced sophistication of non-invasive mapping of the human motor cortex using MRI-guided Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) techniques, has not been matched by refinement of methods for generating maps from motor evoked potential (MEP) data, or in quantifying map features. This is despite continued interest in understanding cortical reorganization for natural adaptive processes such as skill learning, or in the case of motor recovery, such as after lesion affecting the corticospinal system. With the observation that TMS-MEP map calculation and quantification methods vary, and that no readily available commercial or free software exists, we sought to establish and make …

Knowledge Management Overview Of Feature Selection Problem In High-Dimensional Financial Data: Cooperative Co-Evolution And Map Reduce Perspectives, A. N. M. Bazlur Rashid, Tonmoy Choudhury

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The term "big data" characterizes the massive amounts of data generation by the advanced technologies in different domains using 4Vs volume, velocity, variety, and veracity-to indicate the amount of data that can only be processed via computationally intensive analysis, the speed of their creation, the different types of data, and their accuracy. High-dimensional financial data, such as time-series and space-Time data, contain a large number of features (variables) while having a small number of samples, which are used to measure various real-Time business situations for financial organizations. Such datasets are normally noisy, and complex correlations may exist between their features, …

A Hardware-Deployable Neuromorphic Solution For Encoding And Classification Of Electronic Nose Data, Anup Vanarse, Alexander Rassau, Peter Van Der Made

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In several application domains, electronic nose systems employing conventional data processing approaches incur substantial power and computational costs and limitations, such as significant latency and poor accuracy for classification. Recent developments in spike-based bio-inspired approaches have delivered solutions for the highly accurate classification of multivariate sensor data with minimized computational and power requirements. Although these methods have addressed issues related to efficient data processing and classification accuracy, other areas, such as reducing the processing latency to support real-time application and deploying spike-based solutions on supported hardware, have yet to be studied in detail. Through this investigation, we proposed a spiking …

Disability Transitions And Health Expectancies Among Elderly People Aged 65 Years And Over In China: A Nationwide Longitudinal Study, Chengbei Hou, Yuan Ma, Xinghua Yang, Lixin Tao, Deqiang Zheng, Xiangtong Liu, Xia Li, Wei Wang, Xianghua Fang, Xiuhua Guo

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Disability has become a critical issue among elderly populations, yet limited large-scale research related to this issue has been conducted in China, an aging society. This study explored sex and urban-rural differences in disability transitions and life expectancies among older adults in China. Data were collected from the Chinese Longitudinal Health Longevity Survey (CLHLS), which enrolled people aged 65 and older and was conducted in randomly selected counties and cities across 22 provinces in China. Disability was diagnosed based on basic activities of daily living (BADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Several individual characteristics were assessed, including sociodemographic …

Faculty Handbook, Georgia Southern University

Faculty Handbooks

Faculty Handbook for Georgia Southern University for the 2019-2020 academic year. The Faculty Handbook is published online by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and archived in Digital Commons@Georgia Southern.

Humans: Uniquely Responsible For Causing Conservation Problems, Uniquely Capable Of Solving Them, Michael L. Wilson, Clarence L. Lehman

Animal Sentience

We share Chapman & Huffman’s views on the importance of promoting animal welfare and conservation. We disagree with their implication, however, that reverence for life and concern for the wellbeing of global ecosystems depend on a belief that other living things are similar to humans in any of their capacities. Humans exhibit special traits — language, cumulative culture, extraordinary capacity for cooperation when we are at our best, and ever-advancing technological developments — that enabled them to dominate the planet, resulting in the current conservation crisis. It is precisely the fact that humans have become unique that provides hope for …