Digital Commons Network^™

Sustainability Hub Newsletter - December 2022, Jacqueline Jergensen, Neyda Gilman, Jennifer Embree

Library Sustainability Resources

In our last issue of the year, read about how to get involved with sustainability focused student groups, the Reclaiming Turtle Island documentary featuring a local activist, food resources on campus, the Move Out Spring Internship, sustainable holiday tips, and other announcements!

Arkansas Soybean Research Studies 2021, Jeremy Ross

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Arkansas is the leading soybean-producing state in the mid-southern United States. Arkansas ranked 11th in soybean production in 2021 compared to the other soybean-producing states in the U.S. The state represented 3.49% of the total U.S. soybean production and 3.49% of the total acres planted in soybean in 2021. The 2021 state soybean average yield was 52.0 bushels per acre, setting a new state record and surpassing the previous yield record of 51.5 bushels per acre set in 2020. The top five soybean-producing counties in 2021 were Mississippi, Phillips, Crittenden, Poinsett, and Arkansas (Table 1). These five counties accounted for …

Code Of Ethics Quality And Audit Fees, Hong Kim Duong, Giorgio Gotti, Michael T. Stein, Anthony Chen

School of Accountancy Faculty Publications

Using a sample of U.S. firms from 2003 to 2018, we examine the effect of an audit client’s code of ethics quality on audit fees. We find that clients with a lower code of ethics quality pay significantly higher audit fees, suggesting that auditors perceive such clients as riskier and charge greater risk premiums. We also find that such clients have higher litigation risk and auditors spend greater effort when auditing such clients. Our study is among the first to demonstrate the role of a client’s code of ethics quality in audit pricing. Overall, our findings are consistent with …

Which Children Are Frequently Victimized In Us Elementary Schools? Population-Based Estimates, Paul L Morgan, Adrienne D Woods, Yangyang Wang, George Farkas, Yoonkyung Oh, Marianne M Hillemeier, Cynthia Mitchell

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

We analyzed a population-based cohort of 11,780 U.S. kindergarten children to identify risk and protective factors predictive of frequent verbal, social, reputational, and/or physical bullying victimization during the upper elementary grades. We also stratified the analyses by biological sex. Both girls and boys displaying kindergarten externalizing problem behaviors were at consistently higher risk of frequent victimization during 3rd-5th grade (for the combined sample of boys and girls, verbal odds ratio [OR] = 1.82, social OR = 1.60, reputational OR = 1.85, physical OR = 1.67, total OR = 1.93). Hispanic children relative to non-Hispanic White children and those from higher …

Visualising Population Dynamics To Examine Algorithm Performance, Mathew J. Walter, David J. Walker, Matthew J. Craven

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This work assesses the efficacy of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) using an intuitive Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) visualisation of the evolution of a population. We propose the use of Landmark Multi-Dimensional Scaling (LMDS) to overcome computational challenges inherent to visualising many-objective and complex problems with MDS. For the benchmark problems we tested, LMDS is akin to MDS visually, whilst requiring less than 1% of the time and memory necessary to produce an MDS visualisation of the same objective space solutions, leading to the possibility of online visualisations for multiand many-objective optimisation evaluation. Using multi- and many-objective problems from the DTLZ and WFG …

Common Weights Analysis Of Renewable Energy Efficiency Of Oecd Countries, Reza Kiani Mavi, Neda Kiani Mavi, Reza Farzipoor Saen, Mark Goh

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Arising from the recent COP26 climate change conference, many governments have emphasised carbon neutrality targets for environmental sustainability by increasing renewable energy efficiency. This study develops a common set of weights (CSW) model for the additive model in data envelopment analysis using goal programming to analyse the energy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The CSW model, which has better discrimination power, places Iceland as the most renewable energy-efficient member country in the OECD, followed by Luxemburg and Norway. Our findings suggest that OECD countries should increase their renewable energy consumption and reduce municipal waste …

External-Memory Dictionaries With Worst-Case Update Cost, Rathish Das, John Iacono, Yakov Nekrich

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The Bϵ-tree [Brodal and Fagerberg 2003] is a simple I/O-efficient external-memory-model data structure that supports updates orders of magnitude faster than B-tree with a query performance comparable to the B-tree: for any positive constant ϵ < 1 insertions and deletions take O(B11-ϵ logB N) time (rather than O(logB N) time for the classic B-tree), queries take O(logB N) time and range queries returning k items take O(logB N + Bk) time. Although the Bϵ-tree has an optimal update/query tradeoff, the runtimes are amortized. Another structure, the write-optimized skip list, introduced by Bender et al. [PODS 2017], has the same performance as the Bϵ-tree but with runtimes that are randomized rather than amortized. In this paper, we present a variant of the Bϵ-tree with deterministic worst-case running times that are identical to the original’s amortized running times.

The George-Anne Daily, Georgia Southern University

George-Anne Media Group: Newsletters & Magazines

No abstract provided.

When Intelligence Hurts And Ignorance Is Bliss: Global Pandemic As An Evolutionarily Novel Threat To Happiness, Satoshi Kanazawa, Norman P. Li, Jose C. Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Introduction: The savanna theory of happiness posits that it is not only the current consequences of a given situation that affect happiness but also its ancestral consequences, and that the effect of ancestral consequences on happiness is stronger among less intelligent individuals. But what about situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment and thus have no ancestral consequences? Global pandemic is one such situation that has no ancestral analog, and the theory predicts such evolutionarily novel threats to have a negative effect disproportionately on the life satisfaction of more intelligent individuals.Methods: We analyzed prospectively longitudinal data from population …

A Qualitative Multi-Disciplinary Analysis Of Employers’ Technology Competency Perceptions For Graduates Readiness To The Workforce, Marcel Maghiar, Christopher M. Brown

Civil Engineering & Construction: Faculty Publications

To fully prepare college graduates to function competently and productively in their career, it is important to examine employers’ views of technology competency and graduates’ readiness. Using a qualitative approach by interviewing employers in South-eastern United States across a range of fields, the authors describe the major functions and dimensions of technology competency, compare similarities and differences across the disciplines, and integrate the results to inform theory and pedagogy. The main purpose of this research is to investigate how well new graduates from selected disciplines can transfer technological skills, how they learned and/or used these skills during their program of …

Illinois State University, One Hundred And Sixty-Third Annual Commencement, December 2022, Illinois State University

Commencement Programs

Illinois State University
One Hundred and Sixty-Third Annual Commencement
December 2022

Rsif Mozambique Country Report 2022 - English, Regional Scholarship And Innovation Fund (Rsif)

Rsif Country Progress Reports

Mozambique contributed USD 6 million to Rsif in 2021. There are 32 competitively selected Mozambican Rsif doctoral scholars (31% women and 78% faculty) in all five thematic areas in ten different Rsif African host universities across the continent. Twelve Rsif funded research and innovation projects are under implementation by Mozambican institutions.

Rsif Kenya Country Report 2022, Regional Scholarship And Innovation Fund (Rsif)

Rsif Country Progress Reports

Kenya was the first country to contribute USD 2 million to Rsif in 2018 followed by Rwanda, and Kenya is the former chair of PASET. There are 25 competitively selected Kenyan Rsif doctoral scholars (68% women) in four thematic areas in eight different Rsif African Host Universities across the continent. There are so far 3 Kenyan Rsif alumni and 32 publications by Kenyan Rsif students. Two Kenyan universities were competitively selected as Rsif African host universities: University of Nairobi in Energy, including renewables (PhD in Physics) and Kenyatta University in Minerals, Mining and Material Science area (PhD in Material Science). …

Hieronymus Bosch's Dismantled Triptych And The 'Devotio Moderna', Mary E. Tippett

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Flemish painter Jeroen van Aken, better known as Hieronymus Bosch, created a triptych depicting the folly of humanity. This dismantled triptych includes the Ship of Fools, the Allegory of Intemperance, the Death of the Miser, and the Rotterdam Wayfarer, completed between 1500 and 1510. Throughout his career, Bosch explored a peculiar take on the traditional forms of wellknown religious motifs throughout Renaissance Europe by populating his scenes with fantastical creatures and monsters. Scholars have long since suggested that these forms were inspired by illuminated manuscripts. However, scholars provided no explanation as to why these texts drew …

Characterization Of Losses In Superconducting Radio-Frequency Cavities By Combined Temperature And Magnetic Field Mapping, Ishwari Prasad Parajuli

Physics Theses & Dissertations

Superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities are one of the fundamental building blocks of modern particle accelerators. To achieve the highest quality factors (10¹⁰-10¹¹), SRF cavities are operated at liquid helium temperatures. Magnetic flux trapped on the surface of SRF cavities during cool-down below the critical temperature is one of the leading sources of residual RF losses. Instruments capable of detecting the distribution of trapped flux on the cavity surface are in high demand in order to better understand its relation to the cavity material, surface treatments and environmental conditions. We have designed, developed, and commissioned two novel …

Learning Curve Characterization Within Complex Low-Rate Production Environments, Robert J. Gies

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Traditional and current learning curve approaches, methods, and theories were deficient when addressing complex low-rate production systems. The purpose of this research was to address this problem and develop a learning curve approach that characterizes learning in low-rate production environments such as naval ship construction. This research identified the principal aspects that influence learning within this environment and developed a learning characterization more reflective of this environment.

There obviously exists a large body of knowledge covering learning. However, the research contained herein addresses learning as it relates to learning curves in low-rate production environments, such as naval shipbuilding. The various …

A Systems Theory-Based Framework For Environmental Scanning In Complex System Governance, Dale E. Baugh

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop a Systems Theory-based framework for Environmental Scanning (ES) in Complex System Governance (CSG) using an inductive research design. Complexity and uncertainty are normal for external environments in which today’s systems (organizations) exist. These environmental characteristics provide impetus for researchers to focus on organizational planning for disruptive external forces that could threaten system stability and future system existence. The ES function supports the requisite governance metasystemic functions to be enabled, executed, and evolved sufficiently well to promote continuous system viability. In this research the functioning of ES was examined from a diverse literature-based …

Kinetic Simulations Of Active Nematic Polymers In Channel Flow, Lacey Savoie Schenk

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

Suspensions of active nematic liquid crystalline polymers exhibit complex phenomena such as spontaneous flows, pattern formations, and defects. They have many applications in industry, commercial settings, and our daily lives. We employ the Kinetic Model for our research, an extensive model that couples the Smoluchowski Equation and the incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations to solve for the active nanorod number density function–a function dependent on the polymer’s physical orientation and space at a given time. Using this function, we can derive the polymer’s polarity and nematic orientations as well as other rheological properties. In this research, we conduct numerical simulations of active, …

Comparison Of Fuzzy And Neural Network Computing Techniques For Performance Prediction Of An Industrial Copper Flotation Circuit, Ivana Jovanović, Fardis Nakhaei, Daniel Kržanović, Vesna Conić, Daniela Urošević

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents the development and validation of five different soft computing methods for flotation performance prediction: (1) two models based on fuzzy logic (Mamdani and Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy inference system) and (2) three models based on artificial neural networks. Copper content in the ore feed, collector dosage in the rougher and the scavenger flotation circuits, slurry pH in the rougher flotation circuit and frother consumption were selected as input parameters to estimate the copper grade and recovery of final concentrate, as well as the copper content in the final tailings of the flotation plant. The training and evaluation of the …

Growth And Mortality Of American Oysters (Crassostrea Virginica) For Several Years In The Mississippi Sound – Effects Of Freshwater Influence, Taylor Slade

Honors Theses

The American oyster, Crassostrea virginica, is a filter feeding bivalve native to the Gulf of Mexico, and an essential part of the Mississippi Sound estuarine ecosystem. In recent years, influx of freshwater into the Mississippi Sound as a result of frequent rainfall events has altered the water chemistry in several ways that are detrimental to the oyster populations. In this thesis, I examine the growth rate of C. virginica over the last five years in association with salinity fluctuations in the Mississippi Sound. Given diminishing populations and limited recruitment, researchers have facilitated citizen-scientist managed oyster gardens along the coast …

The Possibilities Of Explicit Striga (Striga Asiatica) Risk Monitoring Using Phenometric, Edaphic, And Climatic Variables, Demonstrated For Malawi And Zambia, Emily Kimathi, Bester Tawona Mudereri, Elfatih M. Abdel-Rahman, Saliou Niassy, Henri E.Z. Tonnang, Tobias Landmann

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Food insecurity continues to affect more than two-thirds of the population in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), particularly those depending on rain-fed agriculture. Striga, a parasitic weed, has caused yield losses of cereal crops, immensely affecting smallholder farmers in SSA. Although earlier studies have established that Striga is a constraint to crop production, there is little information on the spatial extent of spread and infestation severity of the weed in some SSA countries like Malawi and Zambia. This study aimed to use remotely sensed vegetation phenological (n = 11), climatic (n = 3), and soil (n = 4) variables to develop a …

Fractional Sobolev Embedding With Radial Potential, Yu Su, Zhaosheng Feng

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

We present some embedding results of fractional Ds,2(RN) space with radial potential. To overcome the difficulty of non-compactness, we obtain the Lions-type theorems by means of the refined Sobolev inequality with the Morrey norm. Then we apply the obtained results to study the existence of ground state solution for fractional equations with radial potential.

Non-Archimedean Quantum Mechanics Via Quantum Groups, Wilson A. Zuniga-Galindo

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

We present a new non-Archimedean realization of the Fock representation of the q-oscillator algebras where the creation and annihilation operators act on complex-valued functions, which are defined on a non-Archimedean local field of arbitrary characteristic, for instance, the field of p-adic numbers. This new realization implies that many quantum models constructed using q-oscillator algebras are non-Archimedean models, in particular, p-adic quantum models. In this framework, we select a q-deformation of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation and construct the corresponding q-deformed Schrödinger equations. In this way we construct a p-adic quantum mechanics which is a …

Qualitative Analysis For A Two-Component Peakon System With Cubic Nonlinearity, Shaojie Yang, Zhijun Qiao

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper is devoted to studying a two-component peakon system with cubic nonlinearity, which is a two-component extension of the cubic Camassa–Holm equation. We first discuss the local well-posedness for the Cauchy problem of the system. Then, in light of a fine structure of the system, we present the precise blow-up scenario for strong solutions to the system and derive a new blow-up result with respect to initial data. Finally, peakon solutions are discussed as well.

Thermo-Mechanical Process Modeling Of Friction Stir Deposition Of Ti6al4v Alloy, Gazi A. Raihan

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Additive friction stir deposition (AFSD) is a novel metal additive manufacturing (AM) process that enables fast, scalable manufacturing of metal and alloys by utilizing friction stirring and metal feeding processes together. Thermo-mechanical process optimization during the AFSD process is very critical for ensuring better quality control, improved microstructure, and desired thermo-mechanical properties. In this study, the numerical models based on computational fluid dynamics are developed to investigate spatial thermal and flow behaviors such as temperature evolution, wall heat flux, material velocity, pressure distribution, etc. in the metal printing of Ti6Al4V alloy via the AFSD process. The material conversation law with …

Erosion And Resuspension Of Cohesive Sediments In Coastal Louisiana, Laith Qasem Shamaileh

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The research presented in this study is motivated by the need to improve the predictions of cohesive sediment erosion and subsequent transport. In addition, the knowledge of the geotechnical engineering soil properties related to the erosion of sediments in coastal Louisiana has broad implications as these properties are used in transport models guiding the current restoration efforts. The erosion measuring device used in the study is the Cheng-Han Tasi and Wilbert Lick Shaker. Previous studies have been conducted before using the Shaker, but challenges with the calibration of the shear stress hampered the resuspension results produced by the Shaker. Therefore, …

Experimental Tests And Numerical Study Of Trajectories Of Different Types Of Dropped Objects, Yi Li

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In marine and offshore engineering, dropped objects, such as drill pipes, anchor chains, containers and some small parts, can accidentally fall into the water from ships or offshore platforms, causing casualties on deck or damage to underwater equipment. Damaged equipment can further harm the environment, such as oil spills from damaged wellheads. Therefore, for safe engineering and environmental protection reasons, we need to develop methods and tools that can predict the trajectory of dropped objects.

In this dissertation, we first study containers dropped from ships. More and more containers are falling into the sea due to bad weather. Containers lost …

Choosing Penumbra, Christina Melchiorre

Graduate Theses

Amaranthine | adjective

am·a·ran·thine | \ ˌa-mə-ˈran(t)-thən , -ˈran-ˌthīn \

1a : of or relating to an amaranth

b : Eternally beautiful and unfading; everlasting, undying

2 : of the color amaranth; a shade of reddish-rose

My work explores the narrative I have with family in relation to who I am and how I have developed as a result of both positive and negative influences. Despite the dysfunctional dynamics that I experience with my family, I choose to remain connected to them and continue to endure and persevere through the obstacles that they create. I particularly experience these moments through …

Address Obfuscation To Protect Against Hardware Trojans In Network-On-Chips, Thomas Mountford

Theses

Interconnection networks for multi/many-core processors or server systems are the backbone of the system as they enable data communication among the processing cores, caches, memory, and other peripherals. Given the criticality of the interconnects, the system can be severely subverted if the interconnection is compromised. The threat of Hardware Trojans (HTs) penetrating complex hardware systems such as multi/many-core processors are increasing due to the increasing presence of third-party players in a System-on-chip (SoC) design. Even by deploying native HTs, an adversary can exploit the Network-on-Chip (NoC) backbone of the processor and get access to communication patterns in the system. This …

Identifying Prospective Clients For Long-Term Bank Deposit, Mohamed Al Hammadi

Theses

The numerous characteristics of customers are often kept in bank databases, which are utilized to understand who they are. But it has been found in recent years that utilizing different Data Mining and Feature Selection (PCA) methods, customer traits and other factors connected to bank services have a big influence on consumers' decisions. Business analytics is an approach to conducting business that uses transactional data from an organization to acquire knowledge of how business operations can be enhanced by employing data mining methods to determine existing patterns that a firm can incorporate to generate significant data-driven choices to choose significant …