Digital Commons Network^™

Innovative Business Model For Smart Healthcare Insurance, Maryam Hasan Al Thawadi

Information Security Theses

Information revolution and technology growth have made a considerable contribution to restraining the cost expansion and empowering the customer. They disrupted most business models in different industries. The customer-centric business model has pervaded the different sectors. Smart healthcare has made an enormous shift in patient life and raised their expectations of healthcare services quality. Healthcare insurance is an essential business in the healthcare sector; patients expect a new business model to meet their needs and enhance their wellness. This research develops a holistic smart healthcare architecture based on the recent development of information and communications technology. Then develops a disruptive …

The Power Of Wording: An Evaluation Of Framing Effects, Chelsea Romph

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Management Of Teaching And Learning Resources By Teacher Leaders: A Study Of A Public Primary School In Moshi Municipality, Tanzania, Amoni Sifuni Mrutu

Master of Education

This study investigated how teacher leaders source and manage teaching and learning resources in a public primary school. The study explored the challenges encountered and the strategies teacher leaders used to overcome the management of teaching and learning resources in the context of overcrowded classrooms at Ukunonze public primary school in Moshi municipality-Kilimanjaro. In addressing this purpose, the researcher used a qualitative case study approach to investigate a public primary school. Research participants were the headteacher, academic mistress, seven subject coordinators, and eight subject teachers. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured one on one interviews, focus group discussions and document …

Finite Time Estimation For Time-Varying Systems With Delay In The Measurements, Saeed Ahmed, Michael Malisoff, Frédéric Mazenc

Faculty Publications

We build finite time observers for time-varying nonlinear systems with delays in the outputs, using a dynamic extension that computes fundamental matrices. Our observers achieve finite time convergence when no disturbances are present. When disturbances are present, we provide approximate values for the solutions, which lead to an upper bound on the approximation error after a suitable finite time. We illustrate our work in a class of systems arising in the study of vibrating membranes, where time-varying coefficients can be used to represent intermittent measurements.

Emergent Functional Behaviour Of Humic Substances Perceived As Complex Labile Aggregates Of Small Organic Molecules And Oligomers, Robert L. Cook

Faculty Publications

The structural organisation of humic substances (HS) has been a central question of earth sciences for several decades. The latest experimental results have led to the recognition of HS as complex mixtures of small molecules and oligomers. We investigate the correlation between the chemical composition of HS, perceived as labile aggregates, and the emergent functions. Computational modelling was used to help to understand the processes and mechanisms on the molecular scale that occur in different fractions of the HS, fulvic acids (FA) and humic acids (HA), as they interact with metal ions and organic pollutants. The importance of non-covalent interactions …

Sometimes, Disorder Helps, Martial Longla

Probability & Statistics Seminar

Consider the problem of estimation of the parameters of a system that evolves with possibly long-range dependence. We have observations that are a realization of a stochastic process that exhibits some kind of dependence. We need to estimate in the simplest case the mean and construct some confidence intervals or test hypotheses. In many statistical problems of this kind, the sample mean has a distribution that is complex in general and might not satisfy the central limit theorem for any normalization, or has a complex limiting distribution. Several works have addressed this question over the years. The literature is abundant …

Fsec Meeting Minutes November 1, 2019, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Towards Expendable Robot Teaming In Extreme Environments, M Gianni

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

In this work we introduce the concept of expendable robot teaming and its relevance in domain applications where the magnitude of hazards and risks reach the point that human exposure represents either a direct threat to life or long-term health consequences. We also introduce the main rationale behind this alternative approach to multiple robot deployment in extreme environments with particular attention to nuclear waste management and decommissioning. Finally, we briefly discuss related research challenges and directions.

Broad Substrate-Specific Phosphorylation Events Are Associated With The Initial Stage Of Plant Cell Wall Recognition In Neurospora Crassa, Maria Augusta C. Horta, Nils Thieme, Yuqian Gao, Kristin E. Burnum-Johnson, Carrie D. Nicora, Marina A. Gritsenko, Mary S. Lipton, Karthikeyan Mohanraj, Leandro José De Assis, Liangcai Lin, Chaoguang Tian, Gerhard H. Braus, Katherine A. Borkovich, Monika Schmoll, Luis F. Larrondo, Areejit Samal, Gustavo H. Goldman, J. Philipp Benz

Peninsula Medical School

Fungal plant cell wall degradation processes are governed by complex regulatory mechanisms, allowing the organisms to adapt their metabolic program with high specificity to the available substrates. While the uptake of representative plant cell wall mono- and disaccharides is known to induce specific transcriptional and translational responses, the processes related to early signal reception and transduction remain largely unknown. A fast and reversible way of signal transmission are post-translational protein modifications, such as phosphorylations, which could initiate rapid adaptations of the fungal metabolism to a new condition. To elucidate how changes in the initial substrate recognition phase of Neurospora crassa …

Monopile-Mounted Wave Energy Converter For A Hybrid Wind-Wave System, C. Perez-Collazo, R. Pemberton, D. Greaves, G. Iglesias

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Multipurpose platforms are innovative solutions to combine the sustainable exploitation of multiple marine resources. Among them, hybrid wind-wave systems stand out due to the multiple synergies between these two forms of marine renewable energy. The objective of this work is to develop a hybrid system for monopile substructures, which are currently the prevailing type of substructure for offshore wind turbines, and more specifically to focus on the wave energy converter sub-system, which consists in an oscillating water column. For this purpose, an in-depth experimental campaign was carried out using a 1:40 scale model of the wave energy converter sub-system and …

Low Velocity Impact Behavior Of Interlayer Hybrid Composite Laminates With Carbon/Glass/Basalt Fibres, Dongdong Chen, Quantian Luo, Maozhou Meng, Guangyong Sun

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Measurement Of The Cross Sections For Inclusive Electron Scattering In The E12-14-012 Experiment At Jefferson Lab, M. Murphy, H. Dai, D. Abrams, A. M. Ankowski, B. Aljawrneh, S. Alsalmi, J. Bane, S. Barcus, O. Benhar, V. Bellini, J. Bericic, D. Biswas, A. Camsonne, J. Castellanos, J.-P. Chen, M. E. Christy, K. Craycraft, R. Cruz-Torres, D. Day, S.-C. Dusa, E. Fuchey, T. Gautam, C. Giusti, J. Gomez, C. Gu, T. Hague, J.-O. Hanson, F. Hauenstein, D. W. Higinbotham, C. E. Hyde, C. M. Jen, C. Keppel, S. Li, R. Lindgren, H. Liu, C. Mariani, R. E. Mcclellan, D. Meekins, R. Michaels, M. Mihovilovic, D. Nguyen, M. Nycz, L. Ou, B. Pandey, V. Pandey, K. Park, G. Perera, A. J. R. Puckett, S. N. Santiesteban, S. Širca, T. Su, L. Tang, Y. Tian, N. Ton, B. Wojtsekhowski, S. Wood, Z. Ye, J. Zhang, The Jefferson Lab Hall A Collaboration

Physics Faculty Publications

The E12-14-012 experiment performed at Jefferson Lab Hall A has collected inclusive electron-scattering data for different targets at the kinematics corresponding to beam energy 2.222 GeV and scattering angle 15.54°. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of the collected data and compare the double-differential cross sections for inclusive scattering of electrons, extracted using solid targets (aluminum, carbon, and titanium) and a closed argon-gas cell. The data extend over broad range of energy transfer, where quasielastic interaction, Δ-resonance excitation, and inelastic scattering yield contributions to the cross section. The double-differential cross sections are reported with high precision (∼3%) for all targets …

Collinear Factorization In Wide-Angle Hadron Pair Production In E + E − Annihilation, E. Moffat, T. C. Rogers, N. Sato, A. Signori

Physics Faculty Publications

We compute the inclusive unpolarized dihadron production cross section in the far from back-to-back region of e+ e− annihilation in leading order pQCD using existing fragmentation function fits and standard collinear factorization, focusing on the large transverse momentum region where transverse momentum is comparable to the hard scale (the center-of-mass energy). We compare with standard transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) fragmentation function-based predictions intended for the small transverse momentum region with the aim of testing the expectation that the two types of calculation roughly coincide at intermediate transverse momentum. We find significant tension, within the intermediate transverse momentum region, between calculations done with …

What Temporal Resolution Is Required For Remote Sensing Of Regional Aerosol Concentrations Using The Himawari-8 Geostationary Satellite, Miles Sowden, Ute Mueller, David Blake

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Few studies have directly addressed the question of what temporal resolution is required for air quality studies using geostationary remote sensing data. If timescales are too large, there is a risk that events affecting air quality may be missed; and if too small, there is a possibility that large data files may be processed frequently, at significant computing cost and potentially without concomitant improvements in the monitoring of air quality. The problem is particularly significant in sparsely populated regional areas such as the Pilbara in Western Australia, where air quality issues arising from a range of events, dispersed over a …

Relativistic Particle Beams As A Resource To Solve Outstanding Problems In Space Physics, Ennio R. Sanchez, Andrew T. Powis, Igor D. Kaganovich, Robert Marshall, Peter Porazik, Jay R. Johnson, Michael Greklek-Mckeon, Kailas S. Amin, David Shaw, Micale Nicolls

Faculty Publications

The Sun's connection with the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere is carried out through the exchange of electromagnetic and mass flux and is regulated by a complex interconnection of processes. During space weather events, solar flares, or fast streams of solar atmosphere strongly disturb the Earth's environment. Often the electric currents that connect the different parts of the Sun-Earth system become unstable and explosively release the stored electromagnetic energy in one of the more dramatic expressions of space weather—the geomagnetic storm and substorm. Some aspects of the magnetosphere-ionosphere connection that generates auroral arcs during space weather events are well-known. However, …

Integrating Anthropogenic Factors Into Regional-Scale Species Distribution Models: A Novel Application In The Imperiled Sagebrush Biome, Juan M. Requena-Mullor, Kaitlin C. Maguire, Douglas J. Shinneman, Timothy Trevor Caughlin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Species distribution models (SDM) that rely on regional-scale environmental variables will play a key role in forecasting species occurrence in the face of climate change. However, in the Anthropocene, a number of local-scale anthropogenic variables, including wildfire history, land-use change, invasive species, and ecological restoration practices can override regional-scale variables to drive patterns of species distribution. Incorporating these human-induced factors into SDMs remains a major research challenge, in part because spatial variability in these factors occurs at fine scales, rendering prediction over regional extents problematic. Here, we used big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) as a model species to …

Daily Eastern News: November 01, 2019, Eastern Illinois University

November

No abstract provided.

Natural Resource Condition Assessment, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, David S. Jones, Roy Cook, John Sovell, Christopher Herron, Jay Benner, Karin Decker, Andrew Beavers, Johannes Beebee, David Weinzimmer, Rob Schorr

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

The National Park Service (NPS) Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) Program administered by the NPS Water Resources Division evaluates current conditions for important natural resources and resource indicators using primarily existing information and data. NRCAs also report on trends in resource condition when possible, identify critical data gaps, and characterize a general level of confidence for study findings. This NRCA complements historic resource assessments, is multi-disciplinary in scope, employs a hierarchical indicator framework, identifies and develops reference conditions/values for comparison against current conditions, and emphasizes spatial evaluation of conditions and GIS products.

Created in 1996, Tallgrass Prairie National …

Pharmacokinetics Of Once-Daily Extended-Release Tacrolimus Tablets Versus Twice-Daily Capsules In De Novo Liver Transplant, Derek A Dubay, Lewis Teperman, Kimi Ueda, Andrew Silverman, William Chapman, Angel E Alsina, Carmelina Tyler, Daniel R Stevens

2010-2019 OA Pubs

The pharmacokinetics of once-daily extended-release tacrolimus tablets (LCPT) in de novo liver transplantation have not been previously reported. In this phase II, randomized, open-label study, de novo liver transplant recipients were randomized to LCPT 0.07-0.13 mg/kg/day (taken once daily; n = 29) or twice-daily immediate-release tacrolimus capsules (IR-Tac) at 0.10-0.15 mg/kg/day (divided twice daily; n = 29). Subsequent doses of both drugs were adjusted to maintain tacrolimus trough concentrations of 5 to 20 ng/mL through day 90, and 5-15 ng/mL thereafter. Twenty-four-hour pharmacokinetic profiles were obtained on days 1, 7, and 14, with trough concentration and efficacy/safety monitoring through year …

Supporting Prospective Teachers’ Development Of Relevant And Authentic Mathematics Stories, Eryn M. Stehr, Lindsay M. Keazer

Education Faculty Publications

Supporting prospective elementary teachers (PTs) to develop mathematics problems with contexts that reflect their students’ lives is a challenge that remains to be explored. We began this work by conducting collaborative action research to explore PTs’ development of mathematics problems that were relevant and authentic to PTs’ own lives. We engaged in iterative cycles of action research by asking PTs to write mathematics stories, followed by our review and discussion of the themes we saw and sharing selected examples with PTs during class discussions. Findings after three cycles of data collection suggest that PTs’ mathematics contexts became more story-like and …

Deformable Part Models For Automatically Georeferencing Historical Map Images, Nicholas Howe, Jerod Weinman, John Gouwar, Aabid Shamji

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Libraries are digitizing their collections of maps from all eras, generating increasingly large online collections of historical cartographic resources. Aligning such maps to a modern geographic coordinate system greatly increases their utility. This work presents a method for such automatic georeferencing, matching raster image content to GIS vector coordinate data. Given an approximate initial alignment that has already been projected from a spherical geographic coordinate system to a Cartesian map coordinate system, a probabilistic shape-matching scheme determines an optimized match between the GIS contours and ink in the binarized map image. Using an evaluation set of 20 historical maps from …

Characterizing And Predicting Repeat Food Consumption Behavior For Just-In-Time Interventions, Yue Liu, Helena Huey Chong Lee, Palakorn Achananuparp, Ee-Peng Lim, Tzu-Ling Cheng, Shou-De Lin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Human beings are creatures of habit. In their daily life, people tend to repeatedly consume similar types of food items over several days and occasionally switch to consuming different types of items when the consumptions become overly monotonous. However, the novel and repeat consumption behaviors have not been studied in food recommendation research. More importantly, the ability to predict daily eating habits of individuals is crucial to improve the effectiveness of food recommender systems in facilitating healthy lifestyle change. In this study, we analyze the patterns of repeat food consumptions using large-scale consumption data from a popular online fitness community …

View-Dependent Data Prefetching For Interactive Visualization Of Large-Scale 3d Scientific Data, Jin Wang

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

One of the most significant challenges for today's interactive visualization is the efficient analysis and visualization of large-scale data, and I/O becomes a significant performance bottleneck. This thesis proposes a new data management policy to support interactive large-scale visual analytics. Our method can characterize user's data access patterns according to their data-dependent and view-dependent visualization operations, and leverage application knowledge to derive a novel scheme to predict data access during the interactive operations. Based on the prediction results, we develop a data replacement policy to exploit data locality and minimize data movement across multiple levels of a memory hierarchy. We …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Electrical Energy Storage And Harvesting Energy Devices Using Gel Electrolytes, Belqasem Aljafari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Redox-active materials in the bulk of gel electrolytes are unquestionably holding the primary roles in developing energy harvesting and storage technology. Both technologies are necessary in order to cope with the current challenges of the environmental crises of global warming and finite non-renewable sources while the demand for energy modern societies have been speedily increased. One of the most challenges of making a hybrid device of energy conversion and storage is the cost of the fabrication process. Therefore, gel electrolyte-based materials with redox-active properties can potentially be a promising solution to improve the performance of electrochemical and photoelectrochemical devices for …

Simulation And Experimental Investigation Of Fluid Mixing Enhancement With Orifice Plate, Mohammed Al Busaidi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current experimental and simulation fluid mixing studies aim to increase mixing efficiency and incorporate various measurement methods to quantify mixing. In this thesis, comprehensive simulation and experimental studies were carried out to investigate the effects of an orifice plate on mixing. Mixing efficiency is measured through the correlation of volume fraction to color light reflectivity, as dyes were introduced to the fluids being mixed. Volume fractions close to 0.5 indicate high mixing performance, and the efficiency declines as volume fractions depart from 0.5. It was found that fluids in a small diameter tube do not mix due to the absence …

Liability For Ai Decision-Making: Some Legal And Ethical Considerations, Iria Giuffrida

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Power Law Growth And Delayed Feedbacks In Socio‐Hydrological Systems, Anthony J. Parolari, Gabriele Manolia

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Water infrastructure dynamics result from coupled social and physical hydrological processes embedded in “socio‐hydrological systems” (SHSs). Freshwater fuels socioeconomic activity, which in turn exerts pressure on water resources through increased water demand and water quality degradation. Many factors emphasize the need for quantitative tools to predict the future of these systems, including SHS failures due to growing water scarcity from population growth and climate change. However, unfolding the interactions between social and hydrological factors continues to resist theoretical treatment, impeding progress toward a predictive framework. To resolve this issue, we propose and evaluate time delays as surrogates for the social …

He Said, She Said: The Impact Of Language In Advertising On The Development Of A Feminist Identity, Alicia Fletcher

Honors Theses - Providence Campus

Little kids are often told they can be anything they want to be. Firefighter, princess, football player, and dragon are among the more popular answers. One of the less popular answers is “Feminist.” Very rarely, if ever, do young children declare that when they grow up, they want to be Feminists. So, how did so many people grow up to be Feminists? At what point do people realize that they can be both firefighter and Feminist, orthodontist and Feminist, or seamstress and Feminist? Though there is no set timeline, it begins when people start to develop identities and fundamental beliefs …

Education Policies And The Effect On The Skilled Trades Work Force, Aaron K. Nadrowski

Career & Technical Education Theses

The United Stated of America has pushed for all to gain a higher level of education. For many years schools steered underperforming students into vocational studies. This placed a stigma on those who learn or perform vocational careers to be less than those whom have completed a college degree. Now (2019) America is facing a shortage of skilled trades persons. Those who entered a vocation soon learn that many of the skilled trades are demanding positions which require not only skill, but knowledge and dedication to learn. With the growth of technology, many of the trades require higher levels of …

Seafloor Geodesy In Shallow Water With Gps On An Anchored Spar Buoy, Surui Xie, Jason Law, Randy Russell, Timothy H. Dixon, Chad Lembke, Rocco Malservisi, Melanie Rodgers, Giovanni Iannaccone, Sergio Guardato, D. F. Naar

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Measuring seafloor motion in shallow coastal water is challenging due to strong and highly variable oceanographic effects. Such measurements are potentially useful for monitoring near‐shore coastal subsidence, subsidence due to petroleum withdrawal, strain accumulation/release processes in subduction zones and submerged volcanoes, and certain freshwater applications, such as volcano deformation in caldera‐hosted lakes. We have developed a seafloor geodesy system for this environment based on an anchored spar buoy topped by high‐precision GPS. Orientation of the buoy is measured using a digital compass that provides heading, pitch, and roll information. The combined orientation and GPS tracking data are used to recover …