Digital Commons Network^™

First Destination Survey 2021: For Degrees Awarded December 2020-August 2021, Hart Career Center, Illinois Wesleyan University

First Destination Survey

[from the email sent by Warren Kistner] "The Hart Career Center is responsible for producing an annual First Destination (graduate) survey that tracks the post-graduate activity of our students within a six-month window of commencement. Following this collection period, we work to produce a report that provides our university community with vital information about the success of our graduates and allows us to address questions posed by prospective students and families. I am pleased to share our report for the class of 2021. Based on data obtained for 90.5% of our graduates, 96.8% are either employed or in graduate/professional school …

Variable Selection In Big Data With Applications To Develop A New Epigenetic Clock, Zhenghong Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Big data is known for 5V's: (1) "volume" with huge quantity/amount (large n) and/or large number of variables (large p), (2) "variety" with various type, nature, and format, (3) "velocity" with ultra-high speed of data generation/collection, (4) "veracity" for its trustworthiness and quality of big data, and (5) "value" for its insights, usefulness and impact. Current computational resources, traditional methodologies and techniques are hard to keep up with the extraordinary volume of data being generated. Therefore, it is challenging to extract useful information from the big data with current computational resources. In this dissertation, we propose procedures to address some …

Charging Of Fine Aerosol Particles, Li Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The particle electric charge distribution plays a critical role in electrical mobility measurements of nanoparticle size distribution functions, where it is usually estimated by empirical regression equations. However, there are still lack of methods to accurately calculate nanoparticle-ion collision rates in the presence of strong attractive potentials and to calculate aerosol particle charge distributions with detailed consideration of ion properties. This dissertation consists of three main parts and aims to address the pending issues. The main purpose is to obtain a precise prediction on the aerosol particle charge under various conditions of charging, along with the collision kernel expressions developed …

Using A Person-Centered Approach To Explore Patterns Of Ptsd, Sexual Functioning And Sexual Satisfaction In College Women Exposed To Sexual Violence, Alexandra Lipinski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Elevated symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, impairment in sexual function, and decreased sexual satisfaction are common among female survivors of sexual violence. Although these symptoms frequently co-occur, little is known regarding whether patterns of symptom comorbidity exist across these conditions. The present study identified empirically-derived profiles of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and domains of sexual function and satisfaction among 348 college women who had experienced sexual violence. A four-profile solution was identified. The first profile, Resilient (RES), was characterized by low severity of PTSD and sexual functioning complaints. A second profile, Sexual Distress (SEXDISS), was characterized by greatest endorsement of …

Multivariate Analysis For Understanding Cognitive Speech Processing, Md Sultan Mahmud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Categorical perception (CP) of audio is critical to understand how the human brainperceives speech sounds despite widespread variability in acoustic properties. Most studiesthat examine cognitive speech processing have applied methodological approaches that focuson specific or a set of brain regions. Departing from hypothesis-driven approaches, in thisdissertation, we proposed multivariate data-driven approaches to identify the spatiotemporal(i.e., when in time and where in the brain) and spectral (i.e., frequency-band power levels)characteristics of auditory neural activity that reflects CP for speech (i.e., differentiatesphonetic prototypes from ambiguous speech sounds). We recorded 64-channel EEG aslisteners rapidly classified vowel sounds along an acoustic-phonetic continuum. We usedparameter …

Implementing A Community Of Inquiry Professional Development Course To Improve Adjunct Facilitation Of Online Courses, Stephanie Shipley Markowitz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Community colleges are experiencing an influx of online course enrollments. To meet this demand, colleges are hiring adjunct faculty who are experts in their field of study. Unfortunately, most adjunct instructors have no teaching experience or training, especially within online learning environments. To facilitate an effective online learning environment that promotes student learning, community college online adjunct faculty need formal educational experience or professional development (PD) that focuses on the facilitation of critical thinking and community within an online environment. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) Model provides a foundation upon which to build a PD course to train faculty who …

Factors That Impact First-Generation College Student Engagement While Attending A Technical College, Laura Denise Monks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

First-generation college students are associated with lower educational outcomes leading to decreased career aspirations. Student engagement has been linked to positive college retention outcomes. The present study surveyed 6,421 technical and two-year college students, who were in their first term of college, to determine if there are differences in the factors that impact student engagement of those students that identify as first-generation or continuing generation. Framed by Astins (1999) Student Involvement Theory and Bourdieus (1986) Social Capital Theory, and using a quantitative, non-experimental correlational design with a cross-sectional survey, this study examined several constructs from the student engagement conceptual model …

The Association Of Gendered Racism And Resilience On Sense Of Belonging And Academic Self-Efficacy In Black Women At Predominantly White Institutions, Kanesha La'shunta Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The current study examined the moderating effects of resilience on the relationships between gendered racism and sense of belonging and gendered racism and academic self-efficacy for Black women at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Data from 118 Black women (22.9%, undergraduate students, 26.5% graduate students, and 50.6% alumni/graduated students) were collected from PWIs across the United States and analyzed using PROCESS 3.2 for SPSS. Gendered racism was negatively associated with both sense of belonging and academic self-efficacy, and resilience did not moderate the relationships between the predictor and outcome variables. Findings from this study contradict previous literature by indicating that resilience …

Probabilistic Analysis Of Self-Assembly, Tyler Garrett Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Self-assembly is a pervasive process in natural phenomena that builds complex structures from very simple components. These processes are central to nanoscale manufacturing and crystallography and rely on stochastic self-assembly to bring order out of molecular chaos. In particular, the algorithmic models of self-assembly (for example, the aTAM) employ highly nondeterministic dynamics in an attempt to emulate the massively parallel physical feats effected by DNA {\it in vivo} to support life. In this work, we define a new object in algorithmic self-assembly called the synoptic pattern to explore structural properties and the long-term behavior of algorithmic self-assembly systems. The synoptic …

Exploring New Approaches To The Problem Of Plant Awareness Disparity In Undergraduate Students, Kathryn Mckenna Parsley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Plant awareness disparity (PAD, formerly plant blindness) is the tendency not to notice plants in ones environment. PAD is made of four components: attention (not noticing plants), attitude (not liking plants), knowledge (not understanding why plants are important), and relative interest (being less interested in plants than in animals). This can lead to a host of misconceptions regarding plants, such as plants do not evolve, or that humans do not need plants. Previously, many interventions have been suggested to address PAD in undergraduate students. However, the success of these interventions cannot be fully determined without a way to measure PAD. …

Hyporheic Exchange Flow In River Bars: Depicting Travel Times At High Temporal And Spatial Resolutions, Eatedal Alqusaireen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The movement of river water into subsurface, near-streambed sediments and its return to the main channel after relatively short travel pathways is known as Hyporheic Exchange Flow (HEF). Hyporheic exchange brings both solutes and particles into high specific surface area environments, where they suffer biogeochemical transformations which impact a streams water quality and ecology. These processes, which are the basis for the self-purification capacity of river systems, depend on the quantity and travel time of flow within the sediments. Most previous research has focused on the net, larger-scale exchange processes between stream water and sediments, but not on the flow …

Expert-Generated And Auto-Generated Socratic Tutoring Systems For Code Comprehension, Zeyad Alshaikh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Programming skills are a vital part of many disciplines but can be challenging to teach and learn. Thus, the programming courses are considered difficult and a major stumbling block. To overcome these challenges, students could benefit from extensive individual support such as tutoring, but there are simply not enough qualified tutors available to meet rising demands.A potential solution is the development of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), which offer individualized, one-on-one instruction. Such systems can offer the support to make programming instruction more effective, scalable and reduce existing teachers' workloads.This dissertation demonstrates how conversational ITSs and the Socratic method of teaching …

Difference And Necessity: Dispositionalism, Deleuze, And The Finite Genesis Of Transfinite Truths, Michael J. Ardoline

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation attempts to resolve a central problem in the metaphysics of science. This problem is the conflict in ontologies that our best scientific theories seem to imply. Our best scientific theories tell us that the universe and everything in it is contingent, changing, and finite. Yet this model of the universe cannot even be formulated without the tools of contemporary mathematics. The objects that mathematics describes are necessary, unchanging, and involve infinities. If we take the statements of mathematics literally, we find all sorts of fantastic objects which cannot possibly fit within the bounds of our scientific picture of …

Are There Effects Of Self-Efficacy, Interest, And Outcome Expectancy In Stem High Schools?, Audrea L. Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Low enrollment in STEM-related degree programs at the college level has been a national concern in the United States. Most American college students preferred to choose to major other than STEM majors. The purpose of this study was to examine if high school students' extensive STEM experiences in high school would influence their STEM major decisions. The theoretical framework for this study was Lent's Social Cognitive Career Theory, supported by some concepts from Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory and Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory. This study used data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, including self-efficacy, interest in math and …

Learning Motion Estimation, Ali Salehi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Transformation of any generic scene including structural deformation and fluid flow can be estimated non-invasively from an image sequence using optical flow estimation techniques. Dense optical flow estimation is more challenging when there are large displacements in a scene with heterogeneous motion dynamics, occlusion, and scene homogeneity. Recently developed deep learning methods show significant promise in estimating optical flow with high accuracy. Majority of these methods, however, have been more commonly derived from architectures of related computer vision tasks such as semantic segmentation and require a large number of training parameters. Accuracy of these methods is also affected by the …

Approaches To Vulnerability Analysis For Discovering The Critical Routes In Roadway Networks, Hana Takhtfiroozeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

All modes of transportation are vulnerable to disruptions caused by natural disasters and/or man-made events (e.g., accidents), which may have temporary or permanent consequences. Identifying crucial links where failure could have significant effects is an important component of transportation network vulnerability assessments, and the risk of such occurrences cannot be underestimated. The ability to recognize critical segments in a transportation network is essential for designing resilient networks and improving traffic conditions in scenarios like link failures, which can result in partial or full capacity reductions in the system. This study proposes two approaches for identifying critical links for both single …

Design A System Of Secure Random Number Generators By Random Coupling With The Future, Farnaz Solatikia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) play an important role in both areas of computersimulation and computer security. For PRNGs in computer security applications, the securityconcern is extremely important. In recent years, there have been many PRNGs proposed in the areaof computer simulation satisfying the nice properties. However, most of them are linear generators,thus sharing the same weakness in predictability. The major aim of this study is to propose threegeneral class of secure generators, called RCF(Random Coupling with Future), Dual RCF, RCFShufflinggenerators, to obtain a secure generator that would inherit the nice properties.Proposed generators are suitable for both simulation and security applications. …

Fugitive Gestures: The Persistence Of Black Meaning And Black Life In An Anti-Black World, Jasmine Wallace

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

My dissertation, Fugitive Gestures: The persistence of Black meaning and Black life in an anti-Black world, develops a phenomenological analysis of contemporary Black lived experience in the US occuring in fugitive spaces--territories independent of white supremacy and anti-Black disciplinary techniques. In contrast to Afropessimists who argue that contemporary Black subjects exists as nonbeing, I demonstrate the presence of contemporary Black meaning and Black being as expressed in Black gestures. First, I develop the concept 'Black archive' to describe how contemporary subjects live with the conceptual awareness of historical anti-Blackness as it unfolds in the present; are symbolically marked by 'hieroglyphics …

Tri-Hamiltonian Duality System Of Merola-Ragnisco-Tu Equation, Mengxia Zhang, Bao-Feng Feng, Jiawen Liu

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

The tri-Hamiltonian method is applied to the Merola-Ragnisco-Tu equation. This enables us to construct a new integrable system, whose continuum limit is related to the AKNS system. Moreover, the system is proved to have linear spectral problems (Lax pair), bi-Hamiltonian structure and Darboux-Bäcklund transformation. Through the Darboux-Bäcklund transformation, we construct some exact solutions for the system.

Truck Platooning In The U.S. National Road Network: A System-Level Modeling Approach, Mohamadhossein Noruzoliaee, Bo Zou, Yan (Joann) Zhou

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Truck platooning enables a group of trucks to move close together, which helps reduce truck fuel use and increase effective road capacity. In this paper, a system-level equilibrium model is developed to characterize spontaneous truck platooning with coexistence of non-platooning vehicles in a network, by explicitly accounting for the interlocking relationship among platoon formation time, truck fuel saving, and increase in effective road capacity. To equilibrate the relationships, an algorithm is proposed which involves a diagonalization approach and a bush-based algorithm to solve decomposed subproblems. The condition of proportionality is imposed to obtain unique traffic flows for each class of …

A Surrogate Weather Generator For Estimating Natural Gas Design Day Conditions, David J. Kaftan, George Corliss, Richard J. Povinelli, Ronald H. Brown

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Natural gas customers rely upon utilities to provide gas for heating in the coldest parts of winter. Heating capacity is expensive, so utilities and end users (represented by commissions) must agree on the coldest day on which a utility is expected to meet demand. The return period of such a day is long relative to the amount of weather data that are typically available. This paper develops a weather resampling method called the Surrogate Weather Resampler, which creates a large dataset to support analysis of extremely infrequent events. While most current methods for generating weather data are based on simulation, …

Hexagon Tilings Of The Plane That Are Not Edge-To-Edge, D. Frettlöh, Alexey Glazyrin, Z. Lángi

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

An irregular vertex in a tiling by polygons is a vertex of one tile and belongs to the interior of an edge of another tile. In this paper we show that for any integer k≥3, there exists a normal tiling of the Euclidean plane by convex hexagons of unit area with exactly k irregular vertices. Using the same approach we show that there are normal edge-to-edge tilings of the plane by hexagons of unit area and exactly k many n-gons (n>6) of unit area. A result of Akopyan yields an upper bound for k depending on the maximal diameter …

Maximizing User Engagement In Short Marketing Campaigns Within An Online Living Lab: A Reinforcement Learning Perspective, Aniekan Michael Ini-Abasi

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

MAXIMIZING USER ENGAGEMENT IN SHORT MARKETING CAMPAIGNS WITHIN AN ONLINE LIVING LAB: A REINFORCEMENT LEARNING PERSPECTIVE

by

ANIEKAN MICHAEL INI-ABASI

August 2021

Advisor: Dr. Ratna Babu Chinnam Major: Industrial & Systems Engineering Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

User engagement has emerged as the engine driving online business growth. Many firms have pay incentives tied to engagement and growth metrics. These corporations are turning to recommender systems as the tool of choice in the business of maximizing engagement. LinkedIn reported a 40% higher email response with the introduction of a new recommender system. At Amazon 35% of sales originate from recommendations, …

Software As A Service: The Mediating Role Of Consequences Of Saas Diffusion On Firm Performance, Cristina Marie-Mccarthy Recchia

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACTSOFTWARE AS A SERVICE: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF CONSEQUENCES OF SAAS DIFFUSION ON FIRM PERFORMANCE by CRISTINA MARIE-MCCARTHY RECCHIA DECEMBER 2021 Advisor: Dr. Ratna Babu Chinnam Major: Industrial Engineering Degree: Doctor of Philosophy There are ample studies that support a positive link between information technology and firm performance. Bharadwaj (2000) and Chae (2014, 2018) are two examples that provided a foundation for this work. These scholars looked at how capabilities associated with information technology contribute to improved financial performance using a specific set of financial ratios. In addition, there are studies that examine a positive link between Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and …

Big Data Distributed Support Vector Machine, Raed Abdulkareem Hasan, Tole Sutikno Tole Sutikno, Mohd Arfian Ismail Mohd Arfian Ismail

Mesopotamian Journal of Big Data

Data mining and machine learning (ML) methods are being used more than ever before in cyber security. The use of machine learning (ML) is one of the potential solutions that may be successful against zero day attacks, starting with the categorization of IP traffic and filtering harmful traffic for intrusion detection. In this field, certain published systematic reviews were taken into consideration. Contemporary systematic reviews may incorporate both older and more recent works in the topic of investigation. All of the papers we looked at were thus recent. Data from 2016 to 2021 were utilized in the study. Both security …

Exponential Random Graphs And A Generalization Of Parking Functions, Ryan Demuse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Random graphs are a powerful tool in the analysis of modern networks. Exponential random graph models provide a framework that allows one to encode desirable subgraph features directly into the probability measure. Using the theory of graph limits pioneered by Borgs et. al. as a foundation, we build upon the work of Chatterjee & Diaconis and Radin & Yin. We add complexity to the previously studied models by considering exponential random graph models with edge-weights coming from a generic distribution satisfying mild assumptions. In particular, we show that a large family of two-parameter, edge-weighted exponential random graphs display a phase …

Blockchain Technology Applications, Concerns And Recommendations For Public Sector, Mohanad Ghazi Yaseen, Mahadi Bahari, Omar A. Hammood

Mesopotamian Journal of Computer Science

Blockchain technology is being hailed as the next significant phenomenon, with potential near-term uses that might profoundly impact society and the economy. While the previous studies emphasized cryptocurrency research, our article focused more on the blockchain-based applications applied in public sectors. This review was conducted by collecting articles from different libraries, and the search strategy was applied Nvivo software was utilized to code the literature and extract the themes used to build the body of this research. Finally, the study identified several applications and concerns regarding adopting and implementing blockchain technology within these sectors and the recommendations offered by scholars …

Character Recognition By Implementing Fpga-Based Artificial Neural Network, Ahmed Hussein Ali, Mostafa Abdulghfoor Mohammed, Munef Abdullah Ahmed

Mesopotamian Journal of Computer Science

A non-linear applied math knowledge modelling tool, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are predominantly used to model complicated interactions between inputs and outputs or to look for patterns within the data. Using VHDL coding, we developed a generic hardware-based ANN. This classifier has been trained to recognize letters on a 4x4 binary grid that a user fills out using 16 toggle switches. An LCD shows the most likely classification that the ANN proposed. The ANN was taught to recognize 20 English character patterns and 9 Arabic character patterns on a 4x4 grid to showcase the viability of the FPGA execution of …

Character Recognition Techniques And Approaches: A Literature Review, Mostafa Abdulghfoor Mohammed, Shuyuan Yang

Mesopotamian Journal of Computer Science

Researchers have carried out many approaches to recognizing the OCR through software-based and FPGA-based and its relationship with the ANNs and training these NNs by using the BP algorithm. The FPGA supports high speed to recognize the character because it works in parallel. It involves many logic circuits and can process at the same time (clock cycle). There have been problems with the established system because the size, shape, and style of supposedly identical characters might differ from person to person and even within the same person on rare occasions. The photograph is vulnerable to noise and can lose some …

On-Road Remote Sensing Of Automobile Emissions In The Fresno, Ca Area: Spring 2021, Gary A. Bishop

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.