Digital Commons Network^™

Energy Considerations In Blockchain-Enabled Applications, Cesar Enrique Castellon Escobar

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Blockchain-powered smart systems deployed in different industrial applications promise operational efficiencies and improved yields, while mitigating significant cybersecurity risks pertaining to the main application. Associated tradeoffs between availability and security arise at implementation, however, triggered by the additional resources (e.g., memory, computation) required by each blockchain-enabled host. This thesis applies an energy-reducing algorithmic engineering technique for Merkle Tree root and Proof of Work calculations, two principal elements of blockchain computations, as a means to preserve the promised security benefits but with less compromise to system availability. Using pyRAPL, a python library to measure computational energy, we experiment with both the …

Predicting Anthropogenic Underwater Pile Driving Noise Using Pile Driving Analyzer (Pda) Data, Brandon Alfredo Rivera

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the past several years, there has been increasing concern about anthropogenic noise generated during marine pile driving. This concern is expected to increase concomitantly with increases in waterfront construction efforts associated with aging infrastructure and sea level rise. Several guidelines are available to help predict underwater noise transmission due to pile driving, but the issue with all these methods is that they require one to measure sound pressure levels at one locus or more from the driven pile. In the context of marine construction, adding specifications for underwater noise collection may be expensive or difficult because contractors typically have …

A Microscopic Simulation Approach For Developing Ramp Metering Activation Guidelines For Weekends, Sarah T. Kasomi

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traffic congestion is one of the major concerns in urban motorways. Agencies are implementing various Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSM&O) strategies to reduce traffic congestion on roadway networks. Ramp metering is a TSM&O strategy that utilizes signals installed at freeways’ on-ramps to dynamically manage traffic entering the freeway. RMSs have been effective at alleviating recurring congestion. Recurring congestion, however, constitutes less than half of all congestion. More than half of all congestion is due to non-recurring events such as incidents, work zones, adverse weather conditions, special events, etc., that adversely affect the performance of a highway. Non-recurring congestion on …

Reconsidering Ross: The Interplay Of Aedpa, Criminal Appeals, And The Right To Counsel, Kimberly A. Thomas

Articles

This piece highlights features of our current law that converge to say that we should reconsider Ross: (1) the utility of counsel on discretionary review, which has been underexplored, both before and after Ross; (2) the increased importance, in modern criminal law, of direct appeals; and relatedly, the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of AEDPA that has moved most of the significant windows for substantive criminal law change into the direct appeal; and, finally, (3) perhaps an increased sliver of doctrinal sunlight in which to think about chipping away at Ross. Given the first two developments, the possible window to think …

Respecting Autonomy And Enabling Diversity: The Effect Of Eligibility And Enrollment On Research Data Demographics, Kayte Spector-Bagdady, Shengpu Tang, Sarah Jabbour, Nicholson Price, Ana Bracic, Melissa S. Creary, Sachin Kheterpal, Chad M. Brummett, Jenna Wiens

Articles

Many promising advances in precision health and other Big Data research rely on large data sets to analyze correlations among genetic variants, behavior, environment, and outcomes to improve population health. But these data sets are generally populated with demographically homogeneous cohorts. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients at a major academic medical center during 2012–19 to explore how recruitment and enrollment approaches affected the demographic diversity of participants in its research biospecimen and data bank. We found that compared with the overall clinical population, patients who consented to enroll in the research data bank were significantly less diverse …

Beyond Plea Bargaining: A Theory Of Criminal Settlement, Richard Lorren Jolly, J.J. Prescott

Articles

Settlement is a term rarely used in criminal law. Instead, people speak almost exclusively of plea bargaining—i.e., enforceable agreements in which a defendant promises to plead guilty in exchange for a prosecutor’s promise to seek leniency in charging or at sentencing. But a traditional plea agreement is just the most visible instance of a much broader class of possible criminal settlement agreements. In terms of their fundamentals, criminal settlements are indistinguishable from their civil counterparts: through either an atomized or comprehensive bargain, parties exchange what they have for what they want, advancing their respective interests in cost minimization, risk mitigation, …

Real-Time Overhead Power Line Sag Monitoring, Jie Huang, Rui Bo

Patents

System and method for determining real-time sag and shape information of an electrical power line based on strain distribution along a length of an optical fiber associated with the power line. An embedded fiber coupled to an overhead transmission line measures strain using the backscatter of an optical signal, the optical signal is then interrogated using an interferometer.

The Effects Of Housing Systems And Provision Of Maize Silage On Pig Performance And Pork Meat Quality, Nicholas Purdue

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Concerns over animal welfare within pig production, the flavour of the meat produced, environmental considerations and food safety worries have led consumers to question the merits of current production systems. The study set out to investigate the effects of outdoor rearing and the offering of farm produced forage on the growth rate of pigs and the eating quality of the pork produced. Experiment 1: 2 groups of British Lop X Welsh finishing pigs were housed either in indoor straw bedded pens with access to an outside yard (YA) or in outdoor accommodation with a simple shelter (OA). All pigs were …

The Effectiveness Of Partially Protected Marine Areas For Ecosystem Based Management, Bede Ffinian Rowe Davies

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

The oceans provide highly important benefits to humans, ranging from sustenance and travel to livelihoods and spiritual wellbeing to climate stabilisation. Yet, globally the use of the marine environment has been unsustainable with extensive pressure being applied either directly or indirectly. This has led to the degradation of almost all marine ecosystems, with no system considered pristine from the depths of the Marianas trench to the inshore seas.Destabilisation of the ocean systems is jeopardising their ability to slow down the effects of climate change. This destabilisation is being driven in part by unsustainable and destructive human practises, such as: overfishing, …

How Filipino Youth Identify And Act On Bullying And Harassment On Social Media, Cheryll Ruth Soriano, Jason Vincent A. Cabañes, Jan Michael Alexandre Bernadas, Maria Caridad H. Tarroja, Kimberly Kaye Mata

SDRC Projects

This study examined how Filipino youth identify, experience, assess, and respond to bullying and harassment on social media. It approached these phenomena as communicative and socially constructed, shaped by young people’s relationships, cultural contexts, and use of multiple interconnected digital platforms. The study drew on online in-depth interviews with 152 Filipino youth aged 15 to 24 from Metro Manila, Batangas, Negros Occidental, and Misamis Occidental, including both school-going and out-of-school youth. The findings show that social media bullying and harassment are shaped by the youth’s use of polymedia and by the interaction of three key dimensions: targets, acts, and spaces. …

Development And Validation Of A Psychometric Scale To Assess Attitude Towards Safe Abortions In Pakistan, Xaher Gul, Junaid-Ur-Rehman Siddiqui, Miraal Mavalvala, Waqas Hameed, Muhammad Ishaque

Community Health Sciences

Despite severe health and economic consequences that women face because of the negative attitude of healthcare providers towards safe abortion and post-abortion care (SA/PAC), no psychometric tool has yet been validated for assessing the attitude towards SA/PAC. Only a handful of studies have attempted to assess healthcare providers' attitude towards safe abortions in Pakistan. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and validate a psychometric scale to assess attitude towards safe abortions in Pakistan. The study collected data from 106 workers of an NGO that provides SA/PAC through an online and anonymous survey using the organisation's network. The study used factor …

Multimodal Learning For Dyslexic Musicians: Practical Applications For Adults, Melissa Mikucki

Theses : Honours

Dyslexia affects 15 to 20% of the population according to the International Dyslexia Association. Multimodal media, such as smartphones and tablets, which are capable of presenting varied modes of information (for example, visual, aural, and kinetic), have been shown to aid learning in dyslexic children. Music has been identified as a useful multisensory tool to help educators improve literacy skills in children. However, little research has been done on the impact of dyslexia on a child or adult’s ability to learn and perform music. Few studies have been undertaken that focus solely on dyslexia’s effect on musical ability in children; …

Adapting Barbershop Harmony For The Saxophone Quartet, Jonathon Astbury

Theses : Honours

Barbershop harmony refers to a unique style of arrangement and performance for voice that is strictly in four parts and acapella. There is much untapped potential in this close harmonic genre that could be explored in instruments other than the human voice. This paper set out to explore and establish a method of arranging and performing music of the barbershop style for the saxophone quartet. To achieve this transference of the style from voices to saxophones, the harmonic conventions and arranging rules of barbershop from the existing literature were established, along with a review of the literature pertaining to effective …

Responding To Stigmatization: How To Resist And Overcome The Stigma Of Unemployment, Paul Donnelly, Lucia Garcia-Lorenzo, Lucia Sell-Trujillo

Articles

Organization research on stigma has mostly focused on the stigmatized, limiting the scope for exploring what is possible and lacking recognition of the structural conditions and unequal power relations that create and sustain stigma. Consequently, it overlooks how actors can organize to resist and potentially overcome stigmatization altogether. Addressing this question empirically, we studied the long-term unemployed in Spain using a longitudinal qualitative research design. We develop a typology of responses to stigmatization – getting stuck, getting by, getting out, getting back at and getting organized – that advances our understanding of stigma in several ways. First, our typology captures …

A Comparison Of Anthropometric And Performance Profiles Between Elite And Sub-Elite Hurling Players, John Keane, Shane Malone, Ciaran Keogh, Damian Young, Guiseppe Coratella, Kieran Collins

Articles

The aim of the current study was to identify the specific differences in anthropometric and performance profiles between elite and sub-elite hurling players with respect to position and level of play. One hundred and thirty-seven (n = 137) hurlers at the elite (n = 61) and sub-elite (n = 76) level completed a series of anthropometric [height, body mass, the sum of seven skinfolds, adipose tissue percentage estimates (%AT), fat-free mass estimations (FFM)) and performance ((countermovement jump height (CMJ), CMJ peak power (CMJ PP), CMJ relative peak power (CMJ RPP), acceleration (5, 10 and 20 m), and yo-yo intermittent recovery …

Fedoram: A Federated Oblivious Ram Scheme, Alexandre Pujol, Liam Murphy, Christina Thorpe

Articles

Instant messaging (IM) applications, even with end-to-end encryption enabled, pose privacy issues due to metadata and pattern leakage. Our goal is to develop a model for a privacy preserving IM application, by designing an IM application that focuses on hiding metadata and discussion patterns. To solve the issue of privacy preservation through the obfuscation of metadata, cryptographic constructions like Oblivious Random Access Machines (ORAM) have been proposed in recent years. However, although they completely hide the user access patterns, they incur high computational costs, often resulting in excessively slow performance in practice. We propose a new federated model, FedORAM, which …

Methodologies Of Comparative Constitutional Law: Functional Approach The Max Planck Encyclopedia Of Comparative Constitutional Law (Forthcoming), Francesca Bignami

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This encyclopedia entry conceptualizes methodology in comparative constitutional law as divided into consumption-side and production-side methodologies. Many of the labels in the field refer to types of consumption of comparative law by constitutional judges and constitution-writers—expressivist, universalist, functionalist. Other labels refer to types of production by scholars situated in the academy—black-letter, historical, contextual, classificatory, critical.

The functional approach, one form of consumption by constitutional judges and constitution-drafters, uses the law of other jurisdictions to explore various alternatives to solving common constitutional problems. Once the alternatives are exposed, the decision to adopt a foreign judicial doctrine or legal text is driven …

It's Time To Regulate Stablecoins As Deposits And Require Their Issuers To Be Fdic-Insured Banks, Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In November 2021, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) issued a report analyzing the rapid expansion and growing risks of the stablecoin market. PWG’s report determined that stablecoins pose a wide range of potential hazards, including the risks of inflicting large losses on investors, destabilizing financial markets and the payments system, supporting money laundering, tax evasion, and other forms of illicit finance, and promoting dangerous concentrations of economic and financial power. PWG called on Congress to pass legislation that would require all issuers of stablecoins to be banks that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). …

Us Debarment: An Introduction, John Pachter, Christopher R. Yukins, Jessica Tillipman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Disclaimer: This chapter has been published in The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance edited by Benjamin van Rooij and D. Daniel Sokol (2021), https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108759458. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. Copyright John Pachter, Christopher Yukins & Jessica Tillipman.

This chapter, cowritten by senior members of the bar who teach in the leading public procurement law program in the United States, discusses corruption, compliance, and debarment in government procurement. When a government procures goods or services, it must decide questions of price and quality, and – equally importantly – …

Public Health Insurance And Pharmaceutical Innovation: Evidence From China, Xuan Zhang, Huihua Nie

Research Collection School Of Economics

Developing countries are characterized by low levels of pharmaceutical innovation. A likely reason is their small market size, which is not because of the population size but because of low levels of income and lack of health insurance coverage. This study exploits a natural experiment from the implementation of a public health insurance program for rural residents in China (New Cooperative Medical Scheme [NCMS]) to examine whether the pharmaceutical industry increases innovation regarding diseases covered by the NCMS that are prevalent in rural areas. We examine the 1993–2009 patent data to gauge pharmaceutical innovation in China. Diseases with a 10% …

Joint Tests For Dynamic And Spatial Effects In Short Dynamic Panel Data Models With Fixed Effects And Heteroskedasticity, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Simple and reliable tests are proposed for testing the existence of dynamic and/or spatial effects in fixed-effects panel data models with small T and possibly heteroskedastic errors. The tests are constructed based on the adjusted quasi scores (AQS), which correct the conditional quasi scores given the initial differences to account for the effect of initial values. To improve the finite sample performance, standardized AQS tests are also derived, which are shown to have much improved finite sample properties. All the proposed tests are robust against nonnormality, but some are not robust against cross-sectional heteroskedasticity (CH). A different type of adjustments …

Generalized Jump Regressions For Local Moments, Tim Bollerslev, Jia Li, Leonardo Salim Saker Chaves

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop new high-frequency-based inference procedures for analyzing the relationship between jumps in instantaneous moments of stochastic processes. The estimation consists of two steps: the nonparametric determination of the jumps as differences in local averages, followed by a minimum-distance type estimation of the parameters of interest under general loss functions that include both least-square and more robust quantile regressions as special cases. The resulting asymptotic distribution of the estimator, derived under an infill asymptotic setting, is highly nonstandard and generally not mixed normal. In addition, we establish the validity of a novel bootstrap algorithm for making feasible inference including bias-correction. …

Retirement Preparedness In Singapore, Junxing Chay, Seonghoon Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

This chapter presents empirical evidence on a variety of measures to assess the social and economic well-being of near-retirees and retirees in Singapore based on rich data from the Singapore Life Panel, a nationally representative monthly panel survey of 50- to 70-year-old adults in Singapore. Large differences in retirement behaviour and household financial conditions related to retirement preparedness across education and wealth groups are documented. This suggests the importance of a retirement-related policy that focuses on the low-skilled and low-wealth groups. In addition, we discuss and evaluate current public policy designed to increase the employment of older workers and propose …

3d Dental Biometrics: Automatic Pose-Invariant Dental Arch Extraction And Matching, Xin Zhong, Zhiyuan Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A novel automatic pose-invariant dental arch extraction and matching framework is developed for 3D dental identification using laser-scanned dental plasters. In our previous attempt [1-5], 3D point-based algorithms have been developed and they have shown a few advantages over existing 2D dental identifications. This study is a continuous effort in developing arch-based algorithms to extract and match dental arch feature in an automatic and pose-invariant way. As best as we know, this is the first attempt at automatic dental arch extraction and matching for 3D dental identification. A Radial Ray Algorithm (RRA) is proposed by projecting dental arch shape from …

Carole Sellers Moon Walker Papers - Accession 1736, Carole Sellers Moon Walker, Walker Family, Sellers Family, Bell Family, Moon Family

Manuscript Collection

The Carole Sellers Moon Walker Papers consists of the genealogical research conducted by Martha Carole Sellers Moon-Walker (1936-2019) concerning her family and extended family. The collections consists of correspondence, photographs, family histories and anecdotes, research printouts and notes, copies of primary documents, genealogical charts and lineage charts, family charts, and other research related to Carole Walkers genealogical research. The more prominent family names included in the research are: Allen; Ausburn; Beagle; Bell; Bellamy; Brown; Carrington; Case; Casey; Cash; Catlett; Caudell; Christopher; Clayton; Crisler; Crow/Crowe; Dodd; Duckworth; Dunson; Edwards; Gammon; Gober; Goolsby; Gunter; Hancock; Henry; Hogshead/Hogsed; Hopewell; Ivey; Jackson; Kelley; King; …

Faculty Intention And Faculty Implementation - Do They Align?, Laura Ann Paulson

Biological Sciences

There have been a multitude of calls to reform teaching in undergraduate education. The implementation of active learning in the classroom increases student learning, relative to traditional lecturing. I worked with university faculty to determine the relationship between their interest in (intent) and application of active learning (behavior). I measured the intent of faculty to implement active learning and conducted classroom observations. Based on these classroom, observations, I found there is not always an alignment between an individual’s intent and behavior. Therefore, interviews were conducted to determine what factors could be contributing to the misalignment. Several factors were found: preparation …

Influence Of Habitat Characteristics On Amphibian Stress And Reproductive Success In North Dakota, Rebecca Lynn Jones

Biological Sciences

As amphibians continue to decline, conservation efforts are a necessity in management plans. It is essential to determine the correlation between water characteristics, stress, and habitat alteration with anuran losses. Large portions of diverse wetlands across the state of North Dakota are being lost to agriculture at unprecedented rates and as a result, habitat for anurans is declining. Larval and visual encounter surveys were conducted to distinguish the essential habitat characteristics that are crucial during each stage of amphibian reproduction. In addition to collection of amphibian data, macro-and micro-habitat data were recorded at each site. Captured individuals had their blood …

Alignment Of Genetic Variation, Plasticity, And Selection, And The Effects Of Cost Of Plasticity, Monica Anderson Berdal

Biological Sciences

Phenotypic expression depends on both the underlying genetics and the environment the phenotype is expressed in, i.e., plasticity. Adaptive theory predicts that selection should align with the dimensions of most genetic variation and plasticity because this will increase the evolutionary rate of a population, meaning that a population would reach its fitness optimum faster than if they were misaligned. Alignment with selection is only predicted if there is directional selection, and not under stabilizing selection. In addition, only adaptive plasticity is predicted to align with both selection and genetic variation, with the proportion of the plastic variation consisting of adaptive …

The Influence Of Body Size On Metabolic Rates, Scaling, Telomere Dynamics, And Metamorphosis In Megachilid Bees, Courtney Corinne Grula

Biological Sciences

Body size is related to many aspects of a bee’s life history including foraging distance and pollination efficiency. Megachile rotundata, and Osmia lignaria are agriculturally important, solitary pollinators. Adult body size in solitary bees is variable because it is determined by the quantity of food available to the developing larva. The goal of this dissertation was to determine the effect of body size on metabolic rates, scaling, telomere dynamics, and entry into metamorphosis. Body size was manipulated under laboratory conditions by manipulating the amount of food provided during the final larval stage. First, I tested the effect of body size …

Extraction And Evaluation Of Statistical Information From Social And Behavioral Science Papers, Sree Sai Teja Lanka, Sarah Rajtmajer, Jian Wu, C. Lee Giles

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With substantial and continuing increases in the number of published papers across the scientific literature, development of reliable approaches for automated discovery and assessment of published findings is increasingly urgent. Tools which can extract critical information from scientific papers and metadata can support representation and reasoning over existing findings, and offer insights into replicability, robustness and generalizability of specific claims. In this work, we present a pipeline for the extraction of statistical information (p-values, sample size, number of hypotheses tested) from full-text scientific documents. We validate our approach on 300 papers selected from the social and behavioral science literatures, and …