Digital Commons Network^™

Quantum Inspired Concepts In Decision Making, Qizi Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"In this study, several new applications of quantum-inspired techniques are presented to advance the state of the art in decision making. In the first part, a quantum boost scheme for multiple-model filters based on extended Grover’s algorithm is presented for fault detection and parameter estimation. The quantum boost scheme accelerates the convergence of the posterior probabilities in the multiple-model filter. Stability proofs for the quantum boost scheme is presented and its performance is analyzed using benchmark examples. In the second part, the scope of application is extended to modeling human decision making. The open quantum system cognition model is applied …

Can Personhood Protect The Environment? Affording Legal Rights To Nature, Nicola Pain & Rachel Pepper

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons Cannot Comply With The Law Of Armed Conflict, Evan Richardson

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Towards A Control-Centric Account Of Tort Liability For Automated Vehicles, Jerrold Tsin Howe Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Existing motor vehicle accident laws are generally described as ‘driver-centric’, since regulatory, liability, and insurance obligations revolve around drivers. This is sometimes taken to imply that they cannot apply to automated vehicles. This article seeks to re-centre the liability discussion around the tortious doctrine of control. It argues centrally that properly understanding legal control as influence over metaphysical risks, rather than physical objects, clarifies that automated vehicles are both legally controllable in theory, despite having no human drivers, and legally controlled in practice, despite their reliance on machine learning. Examining today’s automated driving technology and businesses, this article demonstrates how …

Breeding And Feeding Habitat Selection By An Island Endemic Bird May Increase Its Vulnerability To Climate Change, Paul Radley, Eddie Van Etten, David Blake, Robert Davis

Research Datasets

Characterising patterns of habitat use is an important first step for effective conservation planning. Species restricted to low-lying islands are at greatest risk from climate change-related sea level rise, and requirements for breeding and foraging habitat may determine their risk from tidal inundation. The endangered Micronesian Scrubfowl (Megapodius laperouse senex) is a model species for understanding these impacts. This species faces the cumulative challenges of tourist visitation, invasive species, and rising sea levels, yet little is understood about its habitat use in the Rock Islands Southern Lagoon Conservation Area (RISL) of Palau. We studied the habitat requirements of …

An Examination Of The Effects Of Environmental Regulations On Retail Gasoline Price Seasonality, Michael C. Davis

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Stricter environmental standards on gasoline have had impacts on the prices of gasoline including the seasonality of gasoline prices. Using both national data and individual station data, the paper tests for a possible explanation for this increase. Three theories are tested: that gasoline seasonality increases due to higher costs, due to greater market power because of segmented markets, or due to greater asymmetry because of greater inattention on the part of customers. The results suggest that gasoline price seasonality has increased both due to higher costs and greater market power with mixed results on the inattention of consumers.(JEL Q41, Q53, …

Identifying Consumer Preferences From User-Generated Content On Amazon.Com By Leveraging Machine Learning, Jikhan Jeong

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Inexperienced consumers may have high uncertainty about experience goods that require technical knowledge and skills to operate effectively; therefore, experienced consumers' prior reviews can be useful for inexperienced consumers. However, one-sided review systems (e.g., Amazon) only provide the opportunity for consumers to write a review as a buyer and contain no feedback from the seller's side, so the information displayed about individual buyers is limited. Therefore, this study analyzes consumers' digital footprints (DFs) for programmable thermostats to identify and predict unobserved consumer preferences, using a dataset of 141 million Amazon reviews. This paper proposes novel approaches (1) to identify unobserved …

Summer Vacation In The Wild: An Historical And Archaeological Study Of Timber Land Fraud In The Tobacco Plains, Montana, Tyler Jay Rounds

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

During the 19th and early 20th century, Congress passed several laws intended to allow average Americans the chance to acquire portions of the public domain for their own benefit. However, contemporary observers and historians alike have noted that several of these laws—especially the Homestead Act and the Timber and Stone Act—were instead used by speculators and lumber companies to amass large landholdings by orchestrating and purchasing fraudulent entries. Local historical tradition suggests that Eureka Lumber Company, Bonners Ferry Lumber Company, and J. Neils Lumber Company employed this tactic within the Kootenai National Forest (KNF), though the veracity of such claims …

Probiotic Vsl#3 Treatment Reduces Colonic Permeability And Abdominal Pain Symptoms In Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Prapaporn Boonma, Jordan M Shapiro, Emily B Hollister, Shyam Badu, Qinglong Wu, Erica M Weidler, Bincy P Abraham, Sridevi Devaraj, Ruth Ann Luna, James Versalovic, Margaret M Heitkemper, Tor C Savidge, Robert J Shulman

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

Background: Little is known regarding the clinical impact of treatment and treatment duration of probiotic VSL#3 on gut and microbiome function in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). As part of a safety trial, we assessed the effect of VSL#3 treatment duration on abdominal pain, stooling, gut permeability, microbiome composition and function.

Methods: Adults with IBS were randomized into an open label trial to receive the probiotic VSL#3 for 4 or 8 weeks. Adverse events, abdominal pain, and stooling patterns were recorded daily. Gut permeability, fecal bile acid levels, and microbiome composition were profiled at baseline and after treatment.

Results: Fifteen subjects …

Assessment Of The Gut Bacterial Microbiome And Metabolome Of Girls And Women With Rett Syndrome, Santosh Thapa, Alamelu Venkatachalam, Nabeel Khan, Mohammed Naqvi, Miriam Balderas, Jessica K Runge, Anthony Haag, Kathleen M Hoch, Daniel G Glaze, Ruth Ann Luna, Kathleen J Motil

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

Background: Gastrointestinal problems affect the health and quality of life of individuals with Rett syndrome (RTT) and pose a medical hardship for their caregivers. We hypothesized that the variability in the RTT phenotype contributes to the dysbiosis of the gut microbiome and metabolome in RTT, predisposing these individuals to gastrointestinal dysfunction.

Objectives: We characterized the gut bacterial microbiome and metabolome in girls and young women with RTT (n = 44) and unaffected controls (n = 21), and examined the relation between the composition of the microbiome and variations in the RTT phenotype.

Methods: Demographics and clinical information, including growth and …

Enhancing Mixed Traffic Flow Safety Via Connected And Autonomous Vehicle Trajectory Planning With A Reinforcement Learning Approach, Yanqiu Cheng, Chenxi Chen, Xianbiao Hu, Kuanmin Chen, Qing Tang, Yang Song

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The longitudinal trajectory planning of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) has been widely studied in the literature to reduce travel time or fuel consumptions. The safety impact of CAV trajectory planning to the mixed traffic flow with both CAV and human-driven vehicle (HDV), however, is not well understood yet. This study presents a reinforcement learning modeling approach, named Monte Carlo tree search-based autonomous vehicle safety algorithm, or MCTS-AVS, to optimize the safety of mixed traffic flow, on a one-lane roadway with signalized intersection control. Crash potential index (CPI) is defined to quantitively measure the safety performance of the mixed traffic …

Humanistic Stem: From Concept To Course, Debra T. Bourdeau, Beverly L. Wood

Publications

Blending perspectives from the humanities and STEM fosters the creativity of all students. The culturally implicit dichotomy between the two meta-disciplines can be overcome with carefully designed courses and programs intent on doing so. The why and how of doing so through an online course is described with qualitative evidence of the success. Future plans for a full slate of such course and a virtual community are discussed.

Exploiting Semantic Embedding And Visual Feature For Facial Action Unit Detection, Huiyuan Yang, Lijun Yin, Yi Zhou, Jiuxiang Gu

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Recent study on detecting facial action units (AU) has utilized auxiliary information (i.e., facial landmarks, relationship among AUs and expressions, web facial images, etc.), in order to improve the AU detection performance. As of now, no semantic information of AUs has yet been explored for such a task. As a matter of fact, AU semantic descriptions provide much more information than the binary AU labels alone, thus we propose to exploit the Semantic Embedding and Visual feature (SEV-Net) for AU detection. More specifically, AU semantic embeddings are obtained through both Intra-AU and Inter-AU attention modules, where the Intra-AU attention module …

Mindfulness Training In Emergency Department Nurses: Review Of Literature, Amy Newstrom

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Practice Innovation Projects

Introduction: Compassion fatigue is prevalent among nurses. Nurses and patients are negatively impacted by the occurrence of compassion fatigue. Research has indicated that nurses working in high-acuity areas, such as the emergency department, are more likely to experience compassion fatigue. Mindfulness training has been shown to reduce symptoms of compassion fatigue. The goal of this project was to examine the effect of mindfulness training on Professional Quality of Life V (ProQOL-V-V) subscale scores.
Evidence Summary: An evidence search was conducted using the EBSCO Megafile, CINAHL, APA PsychArticles, and APA PsychInfo databases. Keywords: Professional Quality of Life, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Oldenburg …

Education On My Healthevet To Increase Access To Psychiatric Healthcare For Veterans, Roxann Hackbarth

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Practice Innovation Projects

Introduction: Access to mental health care can be challenging for many veterans. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) developed the patient portal My Healthevet (MHV) to increase access to healthcare services. Despite this program, many veterans still do not take advantage of the portal. The goal of this literature review was to gain knowledge on benefits and barriers of using patient portals, identification of patients who use and do not use patient portals, and interventions to increase the use of patient portals.
Evidence Summary: The use of patient portals, including the VHA portal MHV, helps to increase interactions between clinicians and …

Effect Of Emergency Severity Index (Esi) Annual Competency Assessment On Mistriage Rates, Stefanie Hoffman

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Practice Innovation Projects

Introduction: In order to accurately assign an Emergency Severity Index (ESI) acuity level to patients who present to the emergency department (ED) triage area, it is essential triage nurses remain competent in the ESI triage tool. In addition, effective use of the ESI triage tool is critical in preventing patients from being mistriaged.
Objective: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to determine the effect of an ESI annual competency assessment in an ED for triage trained registered nurses (RNs).
Methods: Triage trained RNs completed an ESI competency assessment composed of 25 patient scenarios in competency assessment A, and …

Opioid Overdose Response Teaching To Staff In A Homeless Shelter, Hayley E. Rasmussen

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Practice Innovation Projects

Background/Purpose: Opioid overdose can occur in anyone who uses illicit drugs, but relationship correlation exists between homelessness and illicit drug use. Between March 2019 and March 2020, 92 deaths were attributed to opioids in the DNP Project state. Methods: Naloxone education was given to a single population of homeless shelter staff. An Opioid Overdose Attitude Scale (OOAS) and Opioid Overdose Knowledge Scale (OOKS) were administered to the sample prior to education, immediately after education, and 3 months after education.
Results: OOAS and OOKS changes between surveys as a whole were not statistically significant (p=0.14; p=0.25). Individual components of the surveys …

Effect Of Yoga On Nurse Burnout, Marie Schone

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Practice Innovation Projects

Background: Burnout is the result of emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and decreased personal accomplishments (PA). When burnout is experienced, it can create an unhealthy environment for the nurses and patients. Methods: Nurses participated in an eight-week yoga course which focused on hatha yoga practices to teach postural alignment, relaxation and meditation, mindfulness, and selfawareness. Those who participated completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) questionnaire pre- and post-intervention to measure burnout levels. Results: The paired sample t-test with a 5% level of significance found a statistically significant reduction in EE (p = 0.0001) and DP (p = 0.0074) subscale score …

Evaluation Of Robust Epoxy Resin Sealants For Wellbore Integrity Applications, Mohammed Mousa M Alkhamis

Doctoral Dissertations

"During the drilling and completion phases of oil and gas wells, cement is placed in the wellbore as a barrier between the casing and the formation. All casing strings must be cemented to protect and support the casing, and to isolate production zones. The primary cement must prevent the wellbore fluids from migrating in an annular flow path so as to allow the wells to be utilized without any control problems. The primary cement may fail to deliver full zonal isolation due to several reasons such as insufficient mud removal before the cementing, casing expansion, and contraction, high fluid losses, …

Investigating The Effect Of Operating Condition On Esd-Induced Soft-Failures, Omid Hoseini Izadi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Conflicting observations have been found in the literature regarding the effect of operating conditions on ESD (electrostatic discharge) susceptibility. While some studies have suggested a strong correlation between the two, others observed little to no correlation. In this work, a systematic study has been carried out suggesting the existence of a strong correlation between the ESD susceptibility and operating conditions. It is found that the root cause of this conflict is random ESD noise injection. A measurement approach is proposed to synchronize the noise injection with the system activity such as high/low CPU load. In this approach, the current consumption …

Integrated Solar And Ess Ac/Dc Systems For Various Grid Applications, Phani Ratna Vanamali Marthi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Modular multilevel converters (MMC) have gained prominence for high power applications in recent years due to their technical merits such as voltage scalability, harmonic performance, and high efficiency. Integration of renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and energy storage systems (ESS) to the grid using power electronic (PE) resources is increasing due to the techno-economic successes achieved by such systems. Following these developments, the integration of MMCs with PV plants and ESS systems is one of the dynamic research avenues being pursued. Along these lines, an integrated development of PV plants, ESS, and alternating- and direct-current (ac/dc) …

Scheduling Based Optimization In Software Defined Radio And Wireless Networks, Nathan Daniel Price

Doctoral Dissertations

"The objective of this work is to enable dynamic sharing of software-defined radio (SDR) transceivers through the concepts of hardware virtualization and real-time resource management. SDR is a way to build a digital radio that consists of a software back-end for digital signal processing (DSP) and an analog front-end transceiver for waveform generation and reception. This work proposes the use of a virtualization layer to decouple back-end SDR software from front-end transceivers. With this arrangement, front-ends are said to be virtualized, and it becomes possible to share a limited number of front-ends among many SDR back-ends through different multiplexing techniques. …

Thermophysical Properties Of Nominally Phase Pure Boride Ceramics, Austin D. Stanfield

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research focusses on the thermophysical properties of nominally phase pure boride ceramics. As interest in ultra high temperature ceramics increases due to a renewed interest in hypersonic flight vehicles and with the expanding materials design space accompanying interest in high entropy materials, it is imperative to understand the intrinsic properties of boride ceramics. By reducing Hf content in ZrB₂ from the natural abundance, ~1.75 at% in this case, to ~100 ppm, thermal conductivity increased from 88 W/m·K to 141 W/m·K. Removal of Hf allowed the thermal conductivity of ZrB₂ with small transition metal solute additions to be …

Fiber Optic Sensors For Industry And Military Applications, Yiyang Zhuang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Fiber optic sensors (FOSs) have been widely used for measuring various physical and chemical measurands owing to their unique advantages over traditional sensors such as small size, high resolution, distributed sensing capabilities, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. This dissertation focuses on the development of robust FOSs with ultrahigh sensitivity and their applications in industry and military areas.

Firstly, novel fiber-optic extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (EFPI) inclinometers for one- and two-dimensional tilt measurements with 20 nrad resolution were demonstrated. Compared to in-line fiber optic inclinometers, an extrinsic sensing motif was used in our prototype inclinometer. The variations in tilt angle of the …

Improving Employee Engagement On An Inpatient Unit: A Quality Improvement Project, Holly Mccormack

DNP Scholarly Projects

BACKGROUND: Engaged employees are paramount to the success of an organization. They are more invested in their organization and the unit on which they work. This investment in the organization results in higher patient satisfaction and safety, less staff turnover, and improved quality. According to the literature, generational differences may be necessary to consider when improving employee engagement. To successfully lead a multigenerational workforce, nurse leaders should consider these differences and incorporate them into their strategic plan for employee engagement.

METHODS: A pilot survey was conducted on a medical-surgical unit to assess a perceived lack of engagement. Subsequently, work engagement …

Improving The Diagnosis Of Major Depression In A Primary Care Practice Using The Patient Health-9 Questionnaire, Chukwudi C. Orji

DNP Scholarly Projects

Abstract

Background: Major depression is a serious health problem that affects both children and adults. It is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Most cases of major depression are treated in primary care settings. Many cases of major depression presenting in primary care are missed. Many PCPs do not routinely use screening tools. The aim of this project is to improve the diagnosis of major depression in adults in a primary care practice through routine use of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) during initial encounter with patients and during follow-up visit for patients who are receiving treatment for depression to …

Machine Learning For Measuring And Analyzing Online Social Communications, Chris Bronk, Amaury Lendasse, Peggy Lindner, Dan S. Wallach, Barbara Hammer

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In This Paper, We Propose a Framework for Application of a Novel Machine Learning-Based System for Analyzing Online Social Communications. as an Example, We Are Targeting Anti-Semitic Graphical Memes Posted to Social Media. We Presented Very Promising Preliminary Results on a Facebook Dataset that Consists of a Total of 10000 Labeled Memes. We Can Conclude that Machine Learning Will Soon Be Able to Successfully Analyze and Monitor Complex Social Communications.

Open And Distance Learning Programs For Nursing And Midwifery Education In East Africa: Protocol For A Scoping Review, Kahabi Isangula, Grace Edwards, Tumbwene Mwansisya, Columba Mbekenga, Eunice Pallangyo, Ahmed Sarki, Eunice Ndirangu

School of Nursing & Midwifery, East Africa

Background: In the face of growing modernity and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, open and distance learning (ODL) is considered to play an important role in increasing access to education worldwide. There is a robust evidence base demonstrating its cost effectiveness in comparison with conventional class-based teaching; however, the transition to this new paradigm of learning for nursing and midwifery courses has been difficult in low-income countries. While there are notable efforts to increase internet and education access to health care professionals, not much is known about ODL for nurses and midwives in East African countries.

Objective: The objective …

Social Influences And Social Desirability On Recollections Of Childhood Bullying, Jaynee L. Bohart

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Parents and peers play important roles in shaping attitudes toward a variety of matters during adolescence. However, little research has investigated parental and peer influence on developing attitudes toward bullying. Further, few studies have looked at whether socially desirable responding (SDR) impacts self-reports in bullying research. To address these gaps in literature, the current study recruited college students from a mid-sized public university in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States to complete a survey. The survey assessed the participants’ past attitudes toward bullying, perceptions of their parents’ and peers’ influence on their attitudes, and bullying participant roles during …

School Leadership Under Apartheid South Africa As Portrayed In The Apartheid Archive Projectand Interpreted Through Freirean Education, Kevin Bruce Deitle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This qualitative study employed a phenomenological approach to examine how teachers, school leaders, and students rationalize their roles in the educational process when their institution is bounded by an educational system that openly strives against them. For a context, this study examined apartheid-era South Africa, from 1948 to 1994, which established social and administrative policies that deliberately curtailed the education of Indigenous and other South Africans, as a means of oppressing non-European ethnic groups.

In lieu of face-to-face interviews, stories and interviews submitted to The Apartheid Archive Project, curated by the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa, portrayed …