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Smartphone Addiction And Checking Behavior Predict Aggression: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach, Shuna Shiann Khoo, Hwajin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite the potential risks of excessive smartphone use for maladaptive outcomes, the link between smartphone use and aggression remains less understood. Furthermore, prior findings are inconclusive due to a narrow focus on limited aspects of smartphone use (e.g., screen time) and reliance on self-reported assessments of smartphone use. Therefore, using objective measures of smartphone use, we sought to examine the associations between several key indices of smartphone use—screen time, checking behaviors, and addictive tendency—and multifaceted aggression (i.e., confrontation, anger, and hostility). In a cross-sectional study, we administered a series of questionnaires assessing aggressive tendencies (i.e., The Aggression Questionnaire) and various …

Creating Something Out Of Nothing: Enacting Critical Civic Engagement In Urban Classrooms, Jon Schmidt

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

Critical civic engagement (CCE) is a pedagogical framework for civic education in urban settings. CCE as a pedagogical approach engages student lived experience, develops critical thinking, and facilitates informed civic action projects. In this phenomenological study of teachers in four urban high schools in a large urban school district, the author seeks to understand how teachers experience the enactment of CCE elements in schools with majority African American or Latinx student populations. The author argues that CCE practices can and should lead to the development of civic identity as a critical outcome for students in contrast to more formal measures …

The Efficiency Of Using Attribute And Performance- Based Activity Methods To Raise The Level Of Control Deviation A Field Study In Jaber Bin Hayyan Factory, Intisar Saber Aljuboori, Nada Abdu-Lrazak Agha

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

Cost is the essence of any production process for it is one of the requirements for the continuity of activities so as to increase the profitability of the economic unit and to support the competitive situation in the market. Therefore, there should be an overall control to reduce the cost without compromising the product quality; to achieve this, the management should have detailed credible and reliable information about the cost to be measured, collected, understood and to analyze the causes for the spread of deviations and obstacles the management faces, and to search for the factors that trigger the emergence …

The Mediating Role Of Product Innovation On The Relationship Between Marketing Information System And Customer Orientation, Osamah Sohaib Sabri Alwattar, Melek Yurdakul

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

Marketing information system (KMIS) is an essential factor of developing business’ performance and getting sustainable success. The main goal of the research is to measure effect of MIS on customer orientation and product innovation. Also, another goal is to analyze the mediation role of product innovation in relationship MIS and customer orientation. This study sought to analyze the marketing information system and measure its effect on the customer orientation and product innovation. The data of the study were collected using questionnaire. The data were analyzed using statistical tools and SPSS programming. The results of the study showed that the KMIS …

The Effectiveness Of Indicators Of Financial Discipline In Strengthening The Exchange Rate, With A Special Reference To Iraq, Karrar Mahdi Fenjan, Mohammed Saleh Salman Al-Kubaisi

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

Controlling public expenditures is one of the main objectives of the public budget. The public budget often suffers from a deficit, whether in developed or developing countries, because expenditures are usually greater than the revenues generated. This requires the existence of financial rules that are adhered to by the government, which in turn leads to discipline. Fiscal policy leads to a reduction in the obligations incumbent on the government. Adhering to the financial rules would correct the course of fiscal policy in Iraq, with the need to direct oil revenues in the years of financial abundance when global oil prices …

The Philosophy Of Outliers: Reintegrating Rare Events Into Biological Science, Chelsea N. Cook, Angela R. Freeman, James C. Liao, Lisa A. Mangiamele

Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Individual variation in morphology, physiology, and behavior has been a topic of great interest in the biological sciences.While scientists realize the importance of understanding diversity in individual phenotypes, historically the minority results (i.e., outlier observations or rare events) of any given experiment have been dismissed from further analysis. We need to reframe how we view outliers to improve our understanding of biology. These rare events are often treated as problematic or spurious, when they can be real rare events or individuals driving evolution in a population. It is our perspective that to understand what outliers can tell us in our …

Author Correction: Fingerprinting The Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary Impact With Zn Isotopes (Nature Communications, (2021), 12, 1, (4128), 10.1038/S41467-021-24419-8), Ryan Mathur, Brandon Mahan, Marissa Spencer, Linda Godfrey, Neil Landman, Matthew Garb, D. Graham Pearson, Sheng Ao Liu, Francisca E. Oboh-Ikuenobe

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The original version of this Article contained an error in the 'Methods', which incorrectly read 'The error of the standard compared to itself throughout the four sessions is ±0.05‰ and is considered a conservative estimation of error as duplicate analyses of the same solutions and complete procedural duplicates of the USGS BVHO-2 rock standard (+0.01 ±0.03‰, 2σ, n = 8, overlapping values found in) are significantly less.' The correct version states '(+0.28 ±0.03‰, 2σ, n = 8, overlapping values found in)' in place of '(+0.01 ±0.03‰, 2σ, n = 8, overlapping values found in)'.

Occurrence, Diversity And Distribution Of Trypanosoma Infections In Cattle Around The Akagera National Park, Rwanda, S. Richard Gashururu, Ndichu Maingi, Samuel M. Githigia, Methode N. Gasana, Peter O. Odhiambo, Dennis O. Getange, Richard Habimana, Giuliano Cecchi, Weining Zhao, James Gashumba, Joel L. Bargul, Daniel K. Masiga

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Background African Trypanosomiases threaten the life of both humans and animals. Trypanosomes are transmitted by tsetse and other biting flies. In Rwanda, the African Animal Trypanosomiasis (AAT) endemic area is mainly around the tsetse-infested Akagera National Park (NP). The study aimed to identify Trypanosoma species circulating in cattle, their genetic diversity and distribution around the Akagera NP. Methodology A cross-sectional study was carried out in four districts, where 1,037 cattle blood samples were collected. The presence of trypanosomes was determined by microscopy, immunolog-ical rapid test VerY Diag and PCR coupled with High-Resolution Melt (HRM) analysis. A parametric test (ANOVA) was …

Detection And Classification Of Leaf Disease Using Deep Learning For A Greenhouses’ Robot, Shahad Ahmed, Saman Hameed

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

Plant diseases are a severe threat to the environment, economy, and health. Early disease identification remains a challenging task in Iraq due to the scarce of the necessary resources and infrastructure. This paper uses various deep learning algorithms to detect different diseases on plant leaves and detect healthy ones, using an RGB camera as a crucial part of our real-time autonomous greenhouses' robot along with using two datasets, plant-village and cotton dataset, to investigate the best conVolutional neural network architecture. The first dataset contained 10,190 images from the plant-village open datasets; it includes four crops with ten distinct classes of …

Speaker Recognition System Based On Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient And Four Features, Ashraf Tahseen, Hasanen S., Mohammad N. Fadhil

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

Biometrics signs are the most important factor in the human recognition field and considered an effective technique for person authentication systems. Voice recognition is a popular method to use due to its ease of implementation and acceptable effectiveness. This original_study will introduce a speaker recognition system that consists of preprocessing techniques to eliminate noise and make the sound smoother. For the feature extraction stage, the method Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) is used, and in the second step, the four features (FF) Mean, Standard Division, Zero-Cross and Amplitude, which added to (MFCC) to improve the results. For data representation, vector …

Population Connectivity In Voles (Microtus Sp.) As A Gauge For Tall Grass Prairie Restoration In Midwestern North America, Marlis R. Douglas, Steven M. Mussmann, Tyler Chafin, Whitney J.B. Anthonysamy, Mark A. Davis, Matthew P. Mulligan, Robert L. Schooley, Wade Louis, Michael E. Douglas

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ecological restoration can promote biodiversity conservation in anthropogenically fragmented habitats, but effectiveness of these management efforts need to be statistically validated to determine ’success.’ One such approach is to gauge the extent of recolonization as a measure of landscape permeability and, in turn, population connectivity. In this context, we estimated dispersal and population connectivity in prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster; N = 231) and meadow vole (M. pennsylvanicus; N = 83) within five tall-grass prairie restoration sites embedded within the agricultural matrix of midwestern North America. We predicted that vole dispersal would be constrained by the …

Creation Of A Trimmed Powered Aerodynamic Database For A Generic Hypersonic Vehicle, Cannon Debardelaben

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to propose and evaluate a methodology for creating an inviscid trimmed powered database for a generic airbreathing hypersonic vehicle. The database was created using the cartesian flow solver Cart3D. Propulsion effects were coupled to the airframe and inlet by using conditions at the inlet of the combustor to determine conditions at the exit of the combustor. This was done by solving the quasi-one-dimensional momentum equation with heat addition. Selected trajectory points were also evaluated using the viscous solver, FUN3D. The viscous solutions contain effects such as boundary layer separation which had a pronounced effect …

That’S Me In The Spotlight: Self-Relevance Modulates Attentional Breadth, M Golubickis, Cn Macrae

School of Psychology

A core prediction of models of social-cognitive functioning is that attention is preferentially tuned to self-relevant material. Surprisingly, however, evidence in support of this viewpoint is scant. Remedying this situation, here we demonstrated that self-relevance influences the distribution of attentional resources during decisional processing. In a flanker task (N = 60), participants reported if to-be-judged stimuli either denoted, or were owned by, the self or a friend. A consistent pattern of results emerged across both judgment tasks. Whereas the identification of friend-related targets was speeded when the items were flanked by compatible compared with incompatible flankers, responses to self-related targets …

China Maritime Report No. 17: The Pla Army's New Helicopters: An "Easy Button" For Crossing The Taiwan Strait?, Tom Fox

CMSI China Maritime Reports

This report examines the potential roles and missions of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) new rotary wing capabilities in a cross-strait invasion. Looking specifically at the helicopter units of the PLA Army (PLAA), it discusses two possible scenarios in which these forces could serve as the main thrust in a campaign to seize control of Taiwan. In the first scenario, the PLAA would use nearly all of its rotary wing inventory simultaneously to overwhelm Taiwan’s defenses and quickly convince the country’s political leadership to surrender. In a second “unconventional” scenario, the PLAA would risk the destruction of older helicopters in …

Blood Pressure Management And Factors Affecting Adherence To Antihypertensive Medications In The United Arab Emirates, Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula

Dissertations

Hypertension is a significant public health problem worldwide and is a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The dynamics of guidelines-recommended blood pressure (BP) control and adherence to antihypertensive medications in incident hypertensives remain unclear. This dissertation aims to assess guidelines-recommended BP management, adherence to antihypertensive medications, and factors associated with poor BP control among newly diagnosed hypertensive patients in the UAE. A retrospective chart review of 5308 newly treated hypertensives across the emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE, in 2017 was conducted. These patients were diagnosed by the treating physician according to ambulatory (ABPM), or home-based BP monitoring (HBPM) …

The Impact Of Wastewater Chemistry And Flow Characteristics On Hydrogen Sulfide Concentration, Mohsina Muhammed Sherief

Theses

Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is a naturally occurring, highly toxic gas that is formed from the decomposition of sulfur compounds. At low concentrations, H₂S is an irritant for the eyes, respiratory and gastrointestinal tract. At higher H₂S concentrations, it produces neurological impairment with dizziness, headache, and loss of consciousness. Mortality was reported to reach 6 percent following exposure to elevated concentrations. H₂S is generated in different industrial processes. In wastewater collection and treatment plants, H₂S is a common source of concrete and metal corrosion that has resulted in huge economic loss. …

Minimization Of The Weld Distortion By Weld Sequence Optimization Using Artificial Intelligence, Jeyaganesh Devaraj

Theses

The application of dissimilar metal welding processes is increasing nowadays in the automobile, aerospace, marine industry as they not only serve for joint welding for different metals but also assist in repairing and reworking in a simplified manner. Study on optimization of weld parameter to weld a structure is important to have control over the distortion, mass deposition, tensile strength, etc. The present research reports the development and implementation of the Genetic algorithm integrated Artificial Neural Network (GANN) based weld sequence optimization for reducing deformation of dissimilar metal joining using the hot-encode technique. Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) is used …

Split-Horizon Dual-Stage Dispatch Scheme For A Standalone Microgrid, Aslam Amir

Theses

The advent of microgrids has prompted plenty of studies into its design, control, protection, and implementation, with several operational as well as pilot systems being commissioned worldwide. This necessitates the development of hardware and software for the Energy Management System, the supervisory controller in a microgrid. Hence, this thesis provides a novel dual-stage dispatch scheme for the Energy Management System of a Standalone microgrid by “splitting” the dispatch time horizon into four equal quarters to facilitate better usage of power forecast accuracies. The two stages include Unit Commitment/Scheduling and Economic Dispatch for the dispatchable Distributed Energy Resources based on renewable …

The Wholesale Problem With Congress: The Dangerous Decline Of Expertise In The Legislative Process, Rachel E. Barkow

Fordham Law Review

It is no surprise to anyone that Congress has become a hyperpartisan battleground where little effort is expended to promote policies that work for Americans. While Congress has always viewed policy issues through the lens of party politics, the role of nonpartisan expertise in the legislative process is at an all-time low. The disrespect for experts is growing across society, but the decline in their use is particularly troubling in Congress because it exacerbates deficiencies that are inherent to the legislative process. Congress passes laws of general applicability and does not sit in judgment of specific applications of the law. …

Copyright’S Techno-Pessimist Creep, Xiyin Tang

Fordham Law Review

Government investigations and public scrutiny of Big Tech are at an all-time high. While current legal scholarship and government focus have centered overwhelmingly on whether and how antitrust law and § 230 of the Communications Decency Act can be revised to address platform dominance, scant attention has been paid to another, almost unseen attempt to regulate Big Tech: copyright law. The recent adoption in Europe of Article 17 of the Copyright Directive, which holds internet platforms liable for user-generated creative content unless they obtain costly content licenses, is the most direct example of such regulation—and may serve as precedent for …

Qui Tam And The Bank Secrecy Act: A Public-Private Enforcement Model To Improve Anti-Money Laundering Efforts, Giovanni Scarcella

Fordham Law Review

Cartels, terrorists, fraudsters, and other criminals face a problem: when they receive the proceeds from their illicit activities, how can they get this money into their bank accounts without raising regulatory eyebrows? The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) has established a complex regulatory regime, imposing on banks the duty to assess the risks presented by their clients, to monitor the transactions they process, and to report transactions that contain indicia of money laundering and other criminal activity to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). In response, criminals utilize increasingly sophisticated means to obfuscate the origins of these transactions and disguise their …

Computer-Based Training For Mswo Preference Assessment With Paraprofessionals In A Self-Contained Special Education Classroom, Megan Robertson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Special educators are required to train the staff who work in their rooms to be competent in working with students with severe disabilities. Oftentimes these special educators do not have enough time to adequately train the staff and this often results in a high turnover rate and frustrated staff. This study looked at the effects of using a video model to train staff to complete a multiple stimulus without replacement assessment which identifies a student’s preferences. These preferences can then be used for a student to earn throughout their school day. The participants were paraprofessionals who work in a self-contained …

Gps-Denied Navigation Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Images And Neural Networks, Teresa White

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) often rely on GPS for navigation. GPS signals, however, are very low in power and easily jammed or otherwise disrupted. This paper presents a method for determining the navigation errors present at the beginning of a GPS-denied period utilizing data from a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system. This is accomplished by comparing an online-generated SAR image with a reference image obtained a priori. The distortions relative to the reference image are learned and exploited with a convolutional neural network to recover the initial navigational errors, which can be used to recover the true flight trajectory throughout …

High-Magnification Digital Image Correlation Techniques For Aged Nuclear Fuel Cladding Testing, Robert Scott Hansen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nuclear fuel cladding in light water reactors, often made of zirconium alloys, is naturally made more brittle by exposure to the water coolant during normal reactor operation. However, this embrittlement by zirconium hydrides changes the mechanical behavior of the cladding material, affecting how it will deform and what may cause it to fail. Because the cladding already has different properties in different material directions, mechanical testing also needs to be direction specific. In addition, to understand the effects that these microscale hydride features have, measurements of deforming cladding need to be at a microscale. This dissertation describes several high-magnification innovations …

A Longitudinal Assessment Of The Energy And Carbon Performance Of A Passivhaus University Building In The Uk, Ss Korsavi, Rv Jones, Pa Bilverstone, A Fuertes

School of Art, Design and Architecture

There is a limited number of university buildings designed to the Passivhaus standard, therefore, only a few studies have assessed the standard's adoption in this context. This paper aims to address this significant gap by investigating the energy and carbon performance of The Enterprise Centre (TEC), a UK university building, designed and certified to the Passivhaus standard. The building's energy performance was monitored for four years and was predicted by the Passivhaus Planning Package (PHPP) simulations. Results show that TEC met the primary energy requirement of 120 kWh/m2 and space cooling requirement of 15 kWh/m2 during the first four years …

Analyzing Student Writing: A Multiple Case Study Exploring Kindergarten Teacher Knowledge Of Early Writing Development, Nanette Mills Watson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The developmental nature of early writing warrants targeted instruction in writing concepts and skills in kindergarten classrooms. Given the complexity of writing and early writing development, research into kindergarten teacher knowledge of early writing development and how this influences instructional practices is appropriate.

To conduct this research, data was collected from an online questionnaire, a semistructured interview, and student writing sample analysis tasks of five kindergarten teachers. Qualitative data analysis was conducted and provided descriptions of individual teachers’ instructional practices for writing and an in-depth description of the proposed teacher-student interactions from the student writing sample analysis tasks. Findings revealed …

On Predicting Omnidirectional Honey Bee Traffic Using Weather And Electromagnetic Radiation, Daniel G. Hornberger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Honey bees are responsible for pollinating many important crops in the United States. However, honey bee populations have declined significantly since 1961. While some causes of this decline are known, others are not. By utilizing electronic bee hive monitoring (EBM) systems, bee keepers and researchers have an added resource in determining the causes of these declines so that the issues can be remedied. For nearly five months (May through October) during the 2020 honey bee foraging season in Logan, Utah, USA, we collected on-site weather and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) readings and videos of the hive entrances of six bee hives …

Estimation Of High-Resolution Evapotranspiration In Heterogeneous Environments Using Drone-Based Remote Sensing, Ayman M. M. Nassar

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key element of hydrological cycle analysis, irrigation demand, and for better allocation of water resources in the ecosystem. For successful water resources management activities, precise estimate of ET is necessary. Although several attempts have been made to achieve that, variation in temporal and spatial scales constitutes a major challenge, particularly in heterogeneous canopy environments such as vineyards, orchards, and natural areas. The advent of remote sensing information from different platforms, particularly the small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) technology with lightweight sensors allows users to capture high-resolution data faster than traditional methods, described …

The Transition To Parenthood: Exploration Of Systemic Changes And Implications For Future Treatment, David B. Jenks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The transition to parenthood is change that alters the very structure of the family system. Families who engage in this transition are often in need of assistance as they navigate and attempt to manage the changes and challenges that arise. The biopsychosocial-spiritual model is a modality that helps providers more holistically examine the biological, psychological, social and spiritual realms of life’s experiences. This model provides a valuable way to look at the transition to parenthood and understand some of the interactions taking place that may contribute to the development of challenges such as mental health concerns. The present dissertation was …

Intraspecific Variation In Prey Susceptibility Mediates The Consumptive Effect Of Predation: A Case Study Of Yellowstone Elk And Wolves, Lacy M. Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The reintroduction of wolves (Canis lupus) to Yellowstone National Park starting in 1995 is an important case study for understanding the consequences of predation on a prey population. Simulation studies conducted prior to and shortly after wolf reintroduction predicted that wolf predation of elk (Cervus canadensis) would have a modest influence on elk abundance. Predation of elk by wolves has been well documented and elk have remained the primary prey for wolves despite a decline in elk abundance. I used two quantitative approaches to estimate the influence of wolf predation on adult female elk survival and …