Digital Commons Network^™

Weakly Supervised Learning For Multi-Image Synthesis, Muhammad Usman Rafique

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Machine learning-based approaches have been achieving state-of-the-art results on many computer vision tasks. While deep learning and convolutional networks have been incredibly popular, these approaches come at the expense of huge amounts of labeled data required for training. Manually annotating large amounts of data, often millions of images in a single dataset, is costly and time consuming. To deal with the problem of data annotation, the research community has been exploring approaches that require less amount of labelled data.

The central problem that we consider in this research is image synthesis without any manual labeling. Image synthesis is a classic …

Research On Power System State Estimation Problems – Series-Compensated Transmission Line Parameter And Load Model Parameter Estimation, Yiqi Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Transmission line and load model parameters are essential inputs to power system modeling and simulation, control, protection, operation, optimization, and planning. These parameters usually vary over time or under different operating conditions. Thus, reliable estimation methods are desired to ensure the accuracy of those parameters. This research focuses on estimation for transmission line parameters and the ZIP load model. The proposed estimation methods can use both online measurements and historical data of a specified duration. The parameters of long transmission lines with different series-compensation configurations are estimated using linear methods and optimal estimators with bad data detection capability. Additionally, Kalman …

Designing Novel Hardware Security Primitives For Smart Computing Devices, Amitkumar Degada

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Smart computing devices are miniaturized electronics devices that can sense their surroundings, communicate, and share information autonomously with other devices to work cohesively. Smart devices have played a major role in improving quality of the life and boosting the global economy. They are ubiquitously present, smart home, smart city, smart girds, industry, healthcare, controlling the hazardous environment, and military, etc. However, we have witnessed an exponential rise in potential threat vectors and physical attacks in recent years. The conventional software-based security approaches are not suitable in the smart computing device, therefore, hardware-enabled security solutions have emerged as an attractive choice. …

Transmission-Level Impact Analysis Of Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Systems And Battery Energy Storage Grid Support, Gerald W. Bankes Ii

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Solar photovoltaic energy generation is expected to grow dramatically in coming years in order to take advantage of renewable and clean sources of electricity. This thesis presents research on the impact of increasing solar PV penetration, specifically of large, utility-scale PV facilities, on transmission network performance. The development of Python programming tools for automation of power flow analysis is presented. A modified version of the IEEE 118-Bus test system is developed and modified to simulate increasing PV generation on the transmission system. The impacts on performance are analyzed trends are reported. Battery energy storage systems are studied in this thesis …

Geol 746: Groundwater Hydrology, Tim Eaton

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Sustaining A Balanced Calendar In Hopewell City Public Schools, Elizabeth Baber, Brandon S. Petrosky, Taylor M. Snow, Cleveland Walton Iii

Doctor of Education Capstones

As the first school division in Virginia to implement a division-wide year-round school calendar, Hopewell City Public schools requested assistance in evaluating the impact of their work. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic the division paused implementation, shifting the focus of the study from evaluation to providing recommendations for structural, philosophical, and fiscal changes to the year round calendar initiative and its associated communication plan that would positively impact the long term sustainability of the initiative. The study employed a mixed methods approach including survey and focus group data along with an extensive literature review, and internal document and analysis. …

Neuropsychological Associations Of Turner Syndrome, Bethany Kennedy, Rahul Gaini, Janaki Nimmagadda

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

2021 oral presentation

2021 Nebraska Water Leaders Academy Final Report, Mark E. Burbach, Robert Matthew Joeckel, Brooke Mott, Gina S. Matkin

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

Seventeen participants completed the 2021 Water Leaders Academy bringing the total number of graduates to 153 since the inception of the program in 2011. Assessments of participants’ transformational leadership skills, champion of innovation skills, water knowledge, engagement with water issues, civic capacity, entrepreneurial leadership behaviors, and boundary spanner abilities showed significant increases over the course of the year, according to both the participants and their raters. Feedback from the participants was highly positive and constructive. Academy planners are addressing participant concerns. Only minor changes are planned for the 2022 Academy curriculum. Results of the program assessment indicate that the curriculum …

Phenoimage: An Open-Source Graphical User Interface For Plant Image Analysis, Feiyu Zhu, Manny Saluja, Jaspinder Singh, Puneet Paul, Scott E. Sattler, Paul Staswick, Harkamal Walia, Hongfeng Yu

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

High-throughput genotyping coupled with molecular breeding approaches have dramatically accelerated crop improvement programs. More recently, improved plant phenotyping methods have led to a shift from manual measurements to automated platforms with increased scalability and resolution. Considerable effort has also gone into developing large-scale downstream processing of the imaging datasets derived from high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) platforms. However, most available tools require some programming skills.We developed PhenoImage, an open-source graphical user interface (GUI) based cross-platform solution for HTP image processing intending to make image analysis accessible to users with either little or no programming skills. The open-source nature provides the possibility …

Age And Paleoenvironmental Significance Of The Frazer Beach Member—A New Lithostratigraphic Unit Overlying The End-Permian Extinction Horizon In The Sydney Basin, Australia, Stephen Mcloughlin, Robert S. Nicoll, James L. Crowley, Vivi Vajda, Chris Mays, Christopher R. Fielding, Tracy D. Frank, Alexander Wheeler, Malcolm Bocking

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

The newly defined Frazer Beach Member of the Moon Island Beach Formation is identified widely across the Sydney Basin in both outcrop and exploration wells. This thin unit was deposited immediately after extinction of the Glossopteris flora (defining the terrestrial end- Permian extinction event). The unit rests conformably on the uppermost Permian coal seam in most places. A distinctive granule-microbreccia bed is locally represented at the base of the member. The unit otherwise consists of dark gray to black siltstone, shale, mudstone and, locally, thin lenses of fine-grained sandstone and tuff. The member represents the topmost unit of the Newcastle …

Frederick Baxendale (1949–2021), Robert J. Wright, Tiffany Heng-Moss

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Frederick “Fred” Paul Baxendale, 72, of Lincoln, Nebraska, passed away Thursday, 30 September 2021. He was born on 10 April 1949 to Ralph and Inez (Thrasher) Baxendale in Rochester, NY. After graduating from Williamson Central High School, he served in the United States Air Force Air Weather Service from 1969 to 1973. He received an A.S. in Mathematics and Science from Finger Lakes Community College in 1975, and a B.S. in Entomology from Cornell University in 1977. He received both his M.S in Entomology (1980) and his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1983, majoring in Entomology. Fred was a …

Transference Of Citizen Science Program Impacts: A Theory Grounded In Public Participation In Scientific Research, Louise I. Lynch-O’Brien, Wayne A. Babchuk, Jenny M. Dauer, Tiffany Heng-Moss, Doug Golick

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Citizen science is known for increasing the geographic, spatial, and temporal scale from which scientists can gather data. It is championed for its potential to provide experiential learning opportunities to the public. Documentation of educational outcomes and benefits for citizen scientists continues to grow. This study proposes an added benefit of these collaborations: the transference of program impacts to individuals outside of the program. The experiences of fifteen citizen scientists in entomology citizen science programs were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory methodology. We propose the substantive-level theory of transference to describe the social process by which the educational and …

Interspecies Variation In Hominid Gut Microbiota Controls Host Gene Regulation, Amanda L. Muehlbauer, Allison L. Richards, Adnan Alazizi, Michael B. Burns, Andres Gomez, Jonathan B. Clayton, Klara Petrzelkova, Camilla Cascardo, Justyna Resztak, Xiaoquan Wen, Roger Pique-Regi, Francesca Luca, Ran Blekhman

Department of Food Science and Technology: Faculty Publications

The gut microbiome exhibits extreme compositional variation between hominid hosts. However, it is unclear how this variation impacts host physiology across species and whether this effect can be mediated through microbial regulation of host gene expression in interacting epithelial cells. Here, we characterize the transcriptional response of human colonic epithelial cells in vitro to live microbial communities extracted from humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. We find that most host genes exhibit a conserved response, whereby they respond similarly to the four hominid microbiomes. However, hundreds of host genes exhibit a divergent response, whereby they respond only to microbiomes from specific …

Methanol Carbonylation To Acetaldehyde On Au Particles Supported By Single-Layer Mos2 Grown On Silica, Kortney Almeida, Katerina Chagoya, Alan Felix, Tao Jiang, Duy Le, Takat B. Rawal, Prescott E. Evans, Michelle Wurch, Koichi Yamaguchi, Peter A. Dowben, Ludwig Bartels, Talat S. Rahman, Richard G. Blair

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Homogenous single-layer MoS₂ films coated with sub-single layer amounts of gold are found to isolate the reaction of methanol with carbon monoxide, the fundamental step toward higher alcohols, from an array of possible surface reactions. Active surfaces were prepared from homogenous single-layer MoS₂ films coated with sub-single layer amounts of gold. These gold atoms formed clusters on the MoS2 surface. A gas mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and methanol (CH₃OH) was partially converted to acetaldehyde (CH₃CHO) under mild process conditions (308 kPa and 393 K). This carbonylation of methanol to a C₂ species …

Magnetism In Curved Geometries, Robert Streubel, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, Peter Fischer

Robert Streubel Papers

Curvature impacts physical properties across multiple length scales, ranging from the macroscopic scale, where the shape and size vary drastically with the curvature, to the nanoscale at interfaces and inhomogeneities in materials with structural, chemical, electronic, and magnetic short-range order. In quantum materials, where correlations, entanglement, and topology dominate, the curvature opens the path to novel characteristics and phenomena that have recently emerged and could have a dramatic impact on future fundamental and applied studies of materials. Particularly, magnetic systems hosting non-collinear and topological states and 3D magnetic nanostructures strongly benefit from treating curvature as a new design parameter to …

Wireless Mobile Phone Technology, Deregulation Policy, Competition And Economic Welfare In Nigeria’S Telecom Industry: An Analytic Model, Onochie J. Dieli Phd

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

This analytic model is about the Nigerian telecom industry’s structural change caused by the arrival of a new wireless mobile phone technology. Nigeria’s telecom industry transformed from natural monopoly to competitive market as a result of deregulation that occurred in 1999. Under the price regulation using underground or above the ground cable telephone lines, it could run only with the help of government subsidies. This study argues that the arrival of a new telecomm technology was the key to success of Nigeria’s deregulation of its telecom industry. An analysis of a simple microeconomic model shows that with the new wireless …

What Leads Consumers To Spread Ewom For Food Ordering Apps?, Brinda Hansraj Sampat, Kali Charan Sabat

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Restaurants are using innovative ways to engage with consumers using Food Ordering Apps (FOAs). The purpose of this article is to identify the influence of consumers’ eSatisfaction, perceived value, trust, and eLoyalty on eWOM for FOAs in India. The study also verifies if eWOM for FOAs varies based on age, gender, family size, order value, and online shopping experience. The research followed a multi-stage approach. In the first stage, an extensive literature review was conducted to identify the various factors that lead to eWOM. In the second stage, a survey was distributed among the FOA users. 375 responses were obtained. …

Exploring Factors Influencing Adoption Of Blockchain In Accounting Applications Using Technology–Organization–Environment Framework, Sujata Seshadrinathan, Shalini Chandra

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Blockchain is one of the most promising technological innovations of recent times, with the potential to change the very way information systems are used by the accounting function. It is however expected to be disruptive and yet to see high adoption rates. Identification of factors influencing the adoption is required to empower the accounting fraternity to harness the full potential of blockchains. This study is one of the first to inductively explore and develop an adoption model for blockchains as well as for accounting applications with theoretical groundings in the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, which has been extended with a variable …

Trust And Closeness: A Mixed Method For Understanding The Relationship Of Social Network Users, Lei Yang, Xue Wang, Margaret Meiling Meiling Luo

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Mutual trust among social networks users encourages positive communications, so it is critical to study trust in the context of online social networks. In this study, we built a model to calculate trust of social media users. Data was collected from Qzone (Tencent Technology Co., Ltd.), a SN service (also known as QQ) in China. We identified 150 QQ users and 3 friends from each of the users; data of these users were collected by Python program. The relationship between trust and closeness was constructed using an ordinary least squares regression model, and the factors that influence trust between social …

Overcoming The Downsides Of Personal Internet And Cell Phone Use In The Workplace: An Exploratory Empirical Analysis, Kaustav Misra, Michael D. Stackhouse, Arundhati Bagchi Misra, Gregory Berry

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The now taken-for-granted introduction of internet usage into the workplace changed the dynamics of work, productivity, and management, and this is now further complicated by the ubiquitous availability of personal cell phones, going beyond company supplied and (partially) controlled computers with internet connections. This paper studies the connection between internet and cell phone usage by employees and firm productivity. Using primary data collected via a self-reported survey, we conduct an empirical analysis utilizing information based on firm and industry characteristics. Results indicate that the level of non-work-related internet and cell phone usage is significantly associated with firm productivity. Some of …

The Need For Research-Grade Systems Modeling Technologies For Life Science Education, Tomáš Helikar

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic not only challenged deeply-rooted daily patterns but also put a spotlight on the role of computational modeling in science and society. Amid the impromptu upheaval of in-person education across the world, this article aims to articulate the need to train students in computational and systems biology using research-grade technologies. ...

Life sciences education needs multiple technical infrastructures explicitly designed to support this field’s vast computational needs. Developing and sustaining effective, scientifically authentic educational technologies is not easy. It requires expertise in software development and the scientific domain as well as in education and education …

Our Past Creates Our Present: A Brief Overview Of Racism And Colonialism In Western Paleontology, Pedro M. Monarrez, Joshua B. Zimmt, Annaka M. Clement, William Gearty, John J. Jacisin Iii, Kelsey M. Jenkins, Kristopher Mm. Kusnerik, Carmi Milagros Thompson, Ashley W. Poust, Selina V. Robson, Judith A. Sclafani, Kelsey T. Stilson, Shamindri D. Tennakoon

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

As practitioners of a historical science, paleontologists and geoscientists are well versed in the idea that the ability to understand and to anticipate the future relies upon our collective knowledge of the past. Despite this understanding, the fundamental role that the history of paleontology and the geosciences plays in shaping the structure and culture of our disciplines is seldom recognized and therefore not acted upon sufficiently. Here, we present a brief review of the history of paleontology and geology in Western countries, with a particular focus on North America since the 1800s. Western paleontology and geology are intertwined with systematic …

Within- And Trans-Generational Environmental Adaptation To Climate Change: Perspectives And New Challenges, Naim M. Bautista, Amélie Crespel

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The current and projected impacts of climate change are shaped by unprecedented rates of change in environmental conditions. These changes likely mismatch the existing coping capacities of organisms within-generations and impose challenges for population resilience across generations. To better understand the impacts of projected scenarios of climate change on organismal fitness and population maintenance, it is crucial to consider and integrate the proximate sources of variability of plastic and adaptive responses to environmental change in future empirical approaches. Here we explore the implications of considering: (a) the variability in different time-scale events of climate change; (b) the variability in plastic …

Surveys For Ticks On Wildlife Hosts And In The Environment At Asian Longhorned Tick (Haemaphysalis Longicornis)-Positive Sites In Virginia And New Jersey, 2018, Seth A. White, Sarah N. Bevins, Mark G. Ruder, David Shaw, Stacey L. Vigil, Adam Randall, Thomas J. Deliberto, Kristen Dominguez, Alec T. Thompson, James W. Mertins, Jeffrey T. Alfred, Michael J. Yabsley

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Haemaphysalis longicornis, the Asian longhorned tick (ALT), is native to eastern Asia, but it has become invasive in several countries, including Australia, New Zealand and recently in the eastern United States (US). To identify wild mammal and avian host species in the US, we conducted active wildlife surveillance in two states with known ALT infestations (Virginia and New Jersey). In addition, we conducted environmental surveys in both states. These surveillance efforts resulted in detection of 51 ALTinfested individuals from seven wildlife species, including raccoon (Procyon lotor), Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), red fox (Vulpes vulpes …

Estimating Wildlife Strike Costs At Us Airports: A Machine Learning Approach, Levi Altringer, Jordan Navin, Michael J. Begier, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Aaron M. Anderson

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Current lower bound estimates of the economic burden of wildlife strikes make use of mean cost assignment to impute missing values in the National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). The accuracy of these estimates, however, are undermined by the skewed nature of reported cost data and fail to account for differences in observed strike characteristics—e.g., type of aircraft, size of aircraft, type of damage, size of animal struck, etc. This paper makes use of modern machine learning techniques to provide a more accurate measure of the strike-related costs that accrue to the US civil aviation industry. We estimate that wildlife strikes …

Identification Of Prognostic Biomarker Candidates Associated With Melanoma Using High-Dimensional Genomic Data, Brody Kutt, Rachel Burdorf, Travaughn Bain, Nicardo Cameron, Alexia Pearah, Ersoy Subasi, Mehmet Kaya

Mathematics and System Engineering Faculty Publications

Survival of patients with metastatic melanoma varies widely. Melanoma is a highly proliferative, chemo-resistant disease. With the recent availability of immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors, durable response rates have improved but are often still limited to 2–3 years. Response rates to treatment range from 30 to 45% with combination therapy however no improvement in overall survival is frequently observed. Of the available therapies, many have targeted the BRAFV600E mutation that results in abnormal MAPK pathway activation which is important for regulating cell proliferation. Immune checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 offer better success but response rates are still low. …

Identifying Clinical And Genomic Features Associated With Chronic Kidney Disease, M. Megan Moreno, Travaughn C. Bain, Melissa S. Moreno, Katherine C. Carroll, Emily R. Cunningham, Zoe Ashton, Roby Poteau, Ersoy Subasi, Michael Lipcowitz, Munevver Mine Subasi

Mathematics and System Engineering Faculty Publications

We apply a pattern-based classification method to identify clinical and genomic features associated with the progression of Chronic Kidney disease (CKD). We analyze the African-American Study of Chronic Kidney disease with Hypertension dataset and construct a decision-tree classification model, consisting 15 combinatorial patterns of clinical features and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), seven of which are associated with slow progression and eight with rapid progression of renal disease among African-American Study of Chronic Kidney patients. We identify four clinical features and two SNPs that can accurately predict CKD progression. Clinical and genomic features identified in our experiments may be used in …

Détermination Du Formaldéhyde Dans L’Air Par Hplc-Uv (Dosimétrie Umex) (Méthode Inactive), Pierre-Luc Cloutier, Simon Aubin, Josée Poulin

Environnementales

No abstract provided.

Emerging Materials For Spin-Charge Interconversion, T. Nan, D. C. Ralph, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, A. Manchon

Evgeny Tsymbal Publications

No abstract provided.

Defects In Ferroelectric Hfo2, A. Chouprik, D. Negrov, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, A. Zenkevich

Evgeny Tsymbal Publications

No abstract provided.