Digital Commons Network^™

A Mixed-Methods Study Of Applying Andragogical Practices To An Online Tesol Teacher Training Course At A Midwestern University, Daisy Anne Mary Skelly

Dissertations

Preservice teachers needed to be prepared to teach culturally and linguistically diverse learners, because English learners continued to enroll in new geographic areas. In response to the reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requirements for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students were added to teacher certification programs at the state level. Universities offering teacher certification programs addressed new program requirements in different ways, including adding competencies to existing courses or creating new courses. The purpose of this mixedmethods study was to investigate the knowledge, pedagogical skill, and self-efficacy levels of preservice teachers and their perceptions of English …

Education And Innovation: An Interview With Charles Chen Yidan, Charles Yidan Chen

Asian Management Insights

Education and innovation are not only the engines of economic growth in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy, but they also lead us to the solutions of the crises we face today.

Optimization Of Electrospray Ionization For Liquid Chromatography Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry Analysis Of Preservatives In Wood Leachate Matrix, Kukowski Klara, Gysbers Brianna, Stephen Fisher, Alena Kubatova

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Triazoles and 3-iodo-2-propynyl butylcarbamate (IPBC) are commonly used wood preservatives active against a wide range of fungi and bacteria. As they are prone to leaching, their amounts need to be monitored by the industry to determine preservative loss from the products and for environmental impact assessment. Therefore, a liquid chromatography–electrospray–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC–ESI–TOFMS) method was developed and optimized for simultaneous quantification of triazoles and IPBC in aqueous wood extracts, specifically wood leachate. Analyte pre-concentration on a solid-phase extraction cartridge prior to the analysis yielded > 94% recoveries. ESI method parameters (e.g., solvent system, electrolyte type, electrolyte concentration, capillary and fragmentor voltages) …

Safe Inputs Approximation For Black-Box Systems, Bai Xue, Yang Liu, Lei Ma, Xiyue Zhang, Meng Sun, Xiaofei Xie

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Given a family of independent and identically distributed samples extracted from the input region and their corresponding outputs, in this paper we propose a method to under-approximate the set of safe inputs that lead the blackbox system to respect a given safety specification. Our method falls within the framework of probably approximately correct (PAC) learning. The computed under-approximation comes with statistical soundness provided by the underlying PAC learning process. Such a set, which we call a PAC under-approximation, is obtained by computing a PAC model of the black-box system with respect to the specified safety specification. In our method, the …

An Explicit Finite Volume Numerical Scheme For 2d Elastic Wave Propagation, Mihhail Berezovski, Arkadi Berezovski

Publications

The construction of the two-dimensional finite volume numerical scheme based on the representation of computational cells as thermodynamic systems is presented explicitly. The main advantage of the scheme is an accurate implementation of conditions at interfaces and boundaries. It is demonstrated that boundary conditions influence the wave motion even in the simple case of a homogeneous waveguide.

Collective Representation Learning On Spatiotemporal Heterogeneous Information Networks, Dakshak Keerthi Chandra, Pengyang Wang, Jennifer Leopold, Yanjie Fu

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Representation learning is a technique that is used to capture the underlying latent features of complex data. Representation learning on networks has been widely implemented for learning network structure and embedding it in a low dimensional vector space. In recent years, network embedding using representation learning has attracted increasing attention, and many deep architectures have been widely proposed. However, existing network embedding techniques ignore the multi-class spatial and temporal relationships that crucially reflect the complex nature among vertices and links in spatiotemporal heterogeneous information networks(SHINs).

To address this problem, in this paper, we present two types of collective representation learning …

Characterizing Instructional Leader Interactions In A Social Learning Management System Using Social Network Analysis, Orven E. Llantos, Ma. Regina Justina E. Estuar

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

Online learning environments are designed with specific users and respective roles in mind. However, for social systems that thrive on the interaction between and among users, important features are developed based on relationships that evolve over time. Typical learning management systems are designed with the teacher and the student as primary users of the system. my.eskwela is a social learning management system that has been designed for use in public schools in the Philippines with the inclusion of an additional user, the school administrator. Although administrators influence on student learning through mediated effects of instructional leadership, pieces of literature are …

A Better Approach For Mishandled Bags Industry Measure, Ana Caroline Costa, Daniel B. Ravagnani, Domenico Giuseppe Valente, Vitor Coletti Fernandes

Graduate Student Works

Since 1987, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) has ordered US airlines to report baggage handling statistics. The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), requests each U.S. carrier to report monthly the total number of passengers enplaned, and the total number of mishandled baggage reports (MBR), including lost, pilfered, damaged and delayed baggage. The U.S. DOT also created a mishandled-baggage rate, which represents the total number of MBRs divided by 1,000 passengers enplaned. This KPI is monthly published at the Air Travel Consumer Report. And it is used worldwide to make comparisons between regions, airports, and airlines, characterizing efficiency and consistency …

2019 (Fall) Ensi Informer Magazine, Morehead State University. Engineering Sciences Department

ENSI Informer Magazine Archive

The ENSI Informer Magazine published in the fall of 2019.

A New 30 Meter Resolution Global Shoreline Vector And Associated Global Islands Database For The Development Of Standardized Ecological Coastal Units, Roger Sayre, Suzanne Noble, Sharon Hamann, Rebecca Smith, Dawn Wright, Sean Breyer, Kevin Butler, Keith Van Graafeiland, Charlie Frye, Deniz Karagulle, Dabney Hopkins, Drew Stephens, Kevin Kelly, Zeenatul Basher, Devon Burton, Jill Cress, Karina Atkins, D. Paco Van Sistine, Beverly Friesen, Revecca Allee, Tom Allen, Peter Aniello, Irawan Asaad, Mark John Costello, Kathy Goodin, Peter Harris, Maria Kavanaugh, Helen Lillis, Elonora Manca, Frank Muller-Karger, Bjorn Nyberg, Rost Parsons, Jusrin Saarinen, Jack Steiner, Adam Reed

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

A new 30-m spatial resolution global shoreline vector (GSV) was developed from annual composites of 2014 Landsat satellite imagery. The semi-automated classification of the imagery was accomplished by manual selection of training points representing water and non-water classes along the entire global coastline. Polygon topology was applied to the GSV, resulting in a new characterisation of the number and size of global islands. Three size classes of islands were mapped: continental mainlands (5), islands greater than 1 km² (21,818), and islands smaller than 1 km² (318,868). The GSV represents the shore zone land and water interface boundary, and …

Satisfaction-Aware Data Offloading In Surveillance Systems, Marcos Paul Torres

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

In this thesis, exploiting Fully Autonomous Aerial Systems' (FAAS) and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) servers' computing capabilities to introduce a novel data offloading framework to support the energy and time-efficient video processing in surveillance systems based on satisfaction games. A surveillance system is introduced consisting of Areas of Interest (AoIs), where a MEC server is associated with each AoI, and a FAAS is flying above the AoIs to support the IP cameras' computing demands. Each IP camera adopts a utility function capturing its Quality of Service (QoS) considering the experienced time and energy overhead to offload and process remotely or …

Artificial Intelligence Empowered Uavs Data Offloading In Mobile Edge Computing, Nicholas Alexander Kemp

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The advances introduced by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are manifold and have paved the path for the full integration of UAVs, as intelligent objects, into the Internet of Things (IoT). This paper brings artificial intelligence into the UAVs data offloading process in a multi-server Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) environment, by adopting principles and concepts from game theory and reinforcement learning. Initially, the autonomous MEC server selection for partial data offloading is performed by the UAVs, based on the theory of the stochastic learning automata. A non-cooperative game among the UAVs is then formulated to determine the UAVs' data to be …

Experimental Demonstration Of Deterministic Chaos In A Waste Oil Biodiesel Semi-Industrial Furnace Combustion System, Shengyang Gao, Fashe Li, Qintai Xiao, Jianxin Xu, Huage Wang, Hua Wang

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

In this paper, the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the oxygen-enriched combustion of waste oil biodiesel in semi-industrial furnaces were tested by the power spectrum, phase space reconstruction, the largest Lyapunov exponents, and the 0-1 test method. To express the influences of the system parameters, experiments were carried out under different oxygen content conditions (21%, 25%, 28%, 31%, and 33%). Higher oxygen enrichment degrees contribute to finer combustion sufficiency, which produces flames with high luminance. Flame luminance and temperature can be represented by different gray scale values of flame images. The chaotic characteristics of gray scale time series under different oxygen …

Hyperpolarized Relaxometry Based Nuclear T1 Noise Spectroscopy In Diamond, A. Ajoy, B. Safvati, R. Nazaryan, J. T. Oon, B. Han, P. Raghavan, R. Nirodi, A. Aguilar, K. Liu, X. Cai, X. Lv, E. Druga, C. Ramanathan, J. A. Reimer, C. A. Meriles, D. Suter, A. Pines

Publications and Research

The origins of spin lifetimes in quantum systems is a matter of importance in several areas of quantum information. Spectrally mapping spin relaxation processes provides insight into their origin and motivates methods to mitigate them. In this paper, we map nuclear relaxation in a prototypical system of ¹³C nuclei in diamond coupled to Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers over a wide field range (1 mT-7 T). Nuclear hyperpolarization through optically pumped NV electrons allows signal measurement savings exceeding million-fold over conventional methods. Through a systematic study with varying substitutional electron (P1 center) and ¹³C concentrations, we identify the operational …

Spatial And Temporal Variations In Abundance And Composition Of Benthic Macrofauna Associated With Seagrass Beds In Abu Dhabi, Maitha Mohamed Al Hameli

Biology Theses

This study compared the seasonal variations of macrofaunal communities found within the seagrass beds of protected areas and non-protected areas in Abu Dhabi. The study took into consideration the spatial and temporal differences of the sites and seasons as well as other environmental factors, like trace metals concentrations, water temperature, sediment composition, salinity and pH. The main objective and aim of this study is to investigate changes in the community structure of macrofauna with changes in location and seasons. Environmental parameters and biological samples were collected in-situ and analyzed at UAEU labs from both sites, during both seasons (winter and …

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of A Training Programme To Improve Decision Making In Insurance Risk Underwriting, Gavin Raj Maistry

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation studies the effectiveness of a training programme to improve decision making in insurance risk underwriting. A key component of insurance risk underwriting decisions is qualitative judgement, in addition to quantitative analytical modelling. In the training of insurance underwriters, great strides have been made on the analytical side. However, the training of judgement, both intuitive and deliberate, has largely been ignored. The aim of this research proposal is to design and test a training programme to improve judgement in insurance underwriting.

Our research extends the script training concept, used extensively in medical training, to the domain of insurance underwriting …

A Rotating Aperture Mask For Small Telescopes, Edward L. Foley

Master's Theses

Observing the dynamic interaction between stars and their close stellar neighbors is key to establishing the stars’ orbits, masses, and other properties. Our ability to visually discriminate nearby stars is limited by the power of our telescopes, posing a challenge to astronomers at small observatories that contribute to binary star surveys. Masks placed at the telescope aperture promise to augment the resolving power of telescopes of all sizes, but many of these masks must be manually and repetitively reoriented about the optical axis to achieve their full benefits. This paper introduces a design concept for a mask rotation mechanism that …

Effects Of Intertidal Position On Metabolism And Behavior In The Acorn Barnacle, Balanus Glandula, Kali Horn

Master's Theses

The intertidal zone is characterized by persistent, tidally-driven fluctuations in both abiotic (e.g., temperature, [O₂], salinity) and biotic (e.g., food availability, predation) conditions, which makes this a very physiologically challenging habitat for resident organisms. The magnitude and degree of variability of these environmental stressors differs between intertidal zones, with the most extreme physiological stress often being experienced by organisms in the high intertidal. Given that many of the fluctuating conditions in this environment are primary drivers of metabolic rate (e.g., temperature, [O₂], food availability), we hypothesized that sessile conspecifics residing in different tidal zones would exhibit …

Increasing Impacts Of Extreme Droughts On Vegetation Productivity Under Climate Change, Chonggang Xu, Nate G. Mcdowell, Rosie A. Fisher, Liang Wei, Sanna Sevanto, Bradley O. Christoffersen, Engsheng Weng, Richard S. Middleton

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) is the basis of vegetation growth and food production globally1 and plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric CO2 through its impact on ecosystem carbon balance. Even though higher CO2 concentrations in future decades can increase GPP2, low soil water availability, heat stress and disturbances associated with droughts could reduce the benefits of such CO2 fertilization. Here we analysed outputs of 13 Earth system models to show an increasingly stronger impact on GPP by extreme droughts than by mild and moderate droughts over the twenty-first century. Due to a dramatic increase in …

Salt Tolerance Of Sego Supremetm Plants, Asmita Paudel, Ji Jhong Chen, Youping Sun, Yuxiang Wang, Richard M. Anderson

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Sego Supreme^TM is a designated plant breeding and introduction program at the Utah State University Botanical Center and the Center for Water Efficient Landscaping. This plant selection program introduces native and adapted plants to the arid West for aesthetic landscaping and water conservation. The plants are evaluated for characteristics such as color, flowering, ease of propagation, market demand, disease/pest resistance, and drought tolerance. However, salt tolerance has not been considered during the evaluation processes. Four Sego Supreme^TM plants [Aquilegia barnebyi (oil shale columbine), Clematis fruticosa (Mongolian gold clematis), Epilobium septentrionale (northern willowherb), and Tetraneuris acaulis var. arizonica …

From Critical Behavior To Catastrophic Runaways: Comparing Sheared Granular Materials With Bulk Metallic Glasses, Alan A. Long, Dmitry Denisov, Peter Schall, Todd C. Hufnagel, Xiaojun Gu, Wendelin J. Wright, Karin A. Dahmen

Faculty Journal Articles

The flow of granular materials and metallic glasses is governed by strongly correlated, avalanche-like deformation. Recent comparisons focused on the scaling regimes of the small avalanches, where strong similarities were found in the two systems. Here, we investigate the regime of large avalanches by computing the temporal profile or “shape” of each one, i.e., the time derivative of the stress-time series during each avalanche. We then compare the experimental statistics and dynamics of these shapes in granular media and bulk metallic glasses. We complement the experiments with a mean-field model that predicts a critical size beyond which avalanches turn into …

E-Hailing Pricing And Strategies For Transportation System Performance Improvement, Qixing Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

App-based e-hailing ride services, which connect both drivers and riders through their GPS-enabled mobile devices, have rapidly developed into a viable transportation alternative for many travelers. This technology has changed the set of choices for travelers and has shifted travel patterns, most significantly away from traditional taxi services. These applications provide convenience and flexibility to both drivers and passengers, however, they have also caused several issues. For example, they have pulled ridership off public transportation, damaged the taxi industry, and created new congestion etc. during their expansion. In this research, we analyze available information to arrive at a solution to …

Power, Process, And Automated Decision-Making, Ari Ezra Waldman

Fordham Law Review

Automated decision-making systems based on “big data”–powered algorithms and machine learning are just as prone to mistakes, biases, and arbitrariness as their human counterparts. The result is a technologically driven decision-making process that seems to defy interrogation, analysis, and accountability and, therefore, undermines due process.

Trust And Influence In The Gulf Of Mexico’S Fishery Public Management Network, Anthony Lima, Dongkyu Kim, Andrew M. Song, Gordon M. Hickey, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Sustainable fishery management is a complex multi-sectoral challenge requiring substantial interagency coordination, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. While scholars of public management network theory and natural resource management have identified trust as one of the key ideational network properties that facilitates such interaction, relatively few studies have operationalized and measured the multiple dimensions of trust and their influence on collaboration. This article presents the results of an exploratory study examining the Gulf of Mexico fishery management network comprised of more than 30 stakeholder organizations. Using an empirically validated survey instrument, the distribution of four types of trust, three gradations of influence, …

Remote Sensing Of The Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: A Review Of Advances Over 50 Years, Jingfeng Xiao, Frederic Chevallier, Cecile Gomez, Luis Guanter, Jeffrey A. Hicke, Alfredo R. Huete, Kazuhito Ichii, Wenjian Ni, Yong Pang, Abdullah Rahman

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Highlights

• We review 50 years of history and advances in remote sensing of C fluxes and stocks

• We present an overview of terrestrial C cycle, remote sensing, and key milestones

• We review remote sensing platforms/sensors, data, methods, findings, and challenges

• We also discuss the uncertainty and validation of the C flux and stock estimates

• A forward-looking perspective and insights for future research are provided

Abstract

Quantifying ecosystem carbon fluxes and stocks is essential for better understanding the global carbon cycle and improving projections of the carbon-climate feedbacks. Remote sensing has played a vital role in this endeavor during the last …

An Experimental And Theoretical Investigation Of Internal Wave Kinetic Energy Density In Variable Stratifications, Allison Marie Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Internal waves are generated in a fluid if the density increases continuously with depth. The variation in density with depth, or stratification, defines the natural frequency of the fluid N. Two common examples of stratified fluids are the ocean and atmosphere; internal waves are generated continuously in both mediums. Although there are many internal wave generation mechanisms, one common and frequently studied method is tidal flow over oceanic bathymetry. If the local natural frequency of the water near the topography is greater than the tidal frequencyω, internal waves will be generated by the tidal flow over the topography. If N=ω, …

Hydrological And Paleoclimate Analysis Of A Pinyon-Juniper And Fen-Dominated Watershed On The Windy Ridge Mega-Landslide, Joel Frederick Barker

Theses and Dissertations

Water BudgetThis chapter documents the hydrologic analysis of a watershed within the Windy Ridge mega-landslide of Central Utah to (1) create a water budget and (2) place a quantitative limit on the magnitude of climatic changes documented by Shurtliff et al. (2017) and Hudson et al. (2019). (1) A water budget was calculated over the last four years using instrumentation and weather stations both within and surrounding the watershed, In terms of precipitation input, 85% is released by the evapotranspiration of the Pinyon-Juniper forest, 4% discharges as surface water from the base of the watershed, and 11 % infiltrates the …

Organizational Determinants Of Political Involvement In Trade And Professional Membership Associations, Marina Saitgalina, Lisa A. Dicke, Patricia Birungi

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Trade and business associations and professional membership societies like many other political interest groups in the United States advocate and lobby their interests in the policy arena. Yet, we lack the understanding of how organizational capabilities shape different forms of political engagement in trade and professional associations. Research on the political involvement of tax-exempt organizations has been focused on charitable nonprofits. Studying the elements that underlie political action strategies and tactics of trade and professional associations would expand our understanding of political engagement in the nonprofit sector. In our sample of occupational mutual benefit associations, both resource dependence and institutional …

Exploring Planetary Surfaces With Remote Sensing, Donald R. Hood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Aside from Earth, Mars is the most well-explored planetary body in our solar system. Much has been learned about its geologic past including a history of volcanism, ice ages, and potentially long-lasting liquid water. Much of this knowledge of Mars comes from remote observations of the surface and atmosphere from Mars-orbiting satellites. Such remote observations remain the only way to examine the entirety of Mars’ surface as rovers and landers can only examine small areas. The chapters of this work cover three projects that explore the surface of Mars through a variety of remote sensing methods.

In chapter 1, Gamma-ray …

Groundwater Level Mapping Tool: Development Of A Web Application To Effectively Characterize Groundwater Resources, Steven William Evans

Theses and Dissertations

Groundwater is used worldwide as a major source for agricultural irrigation, industrial processes, mining, and drinking water. An accurate understanding of groundwater levels and trends is essential for decision makers to effectively manage groundwater resources throughout an aquifer, ensuring its sustainable development and usage. Unfortunately, groundwater is one of the most challenging and expensive water resources to characterize, quantify, and monitor on a regional basis. Data, though present, are often limited or sporadic, and are generally not used to their full potential to aid decision makers in their groundwater management.This thesis presents a solution to this under-utilization of available data …