Digital Commons Network^™

A Quality Improvement Initiative: Addressing Workplace Violence Toward Nurses To Promote A Culture Of Safety In An Inpatient Psychiatric Facility, Ernestina Danso

DNP Scholarly Projects

This quality improvement initiative aimed to address workplace violence against nurses in inpatient psychiatric facilities and promote a culture of safety. The QI project involved 27 participants, including inpatient psychiatric nurses and mental health counselors from Cahill 4 and 7 West units at the Cambridge Campus. The primary objective was to identify challenges that hindered the effective utilization of the Broset Violence Checklist (BVC) tool for referring patients to sensory modulation rooms.

Pre- and post-intervention surveys were conducted to assess participants' self-reported knowledge and barriers to BVC and sensory room utilization. Educational sessions covering workplace violence, debriefing techniques, and the …

An Effective Transfer Learning Based Landmark Detection Framework For Uav-Based Aerial Imagery Of Urban Landscapes, Bishwas Praveen, Vineetha Menon, Tathagata Mukherjee, Bryan Mesmer, Sampson Gholston, Steven Corns

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aerial imagery captured through airborne sensors mounted on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aircrafts, satellites, etc. in the form of RGB, LiDAR, multispectral or hyperspectral images provide a unique perspective for a variety of applications. These sensors capture high-resolution images that can be used for applications related to mapping, surveying, and monitoring of crops, infrastructure, and natural resources. Deep learning based algorithms are often the forerunners in facilitating practical solutions for such data-centric applications. Deep learning-based landmark detection is one such application which involves the use of deep learning algorithms to accurately identify and locate landmarks of interest in images captured …

Tennessee Archivist 42, No. 1, Society Of Tennessee Archivists

Tennessee Archivist newsletters

Winter 2023 issue of the Tennessee Archivist, a newsletter produced by the Society of Tennessee Archivists.

Show-Me Resilience: Assessing And Reconciling Rural Leaders’ Perceptions Of Climate Resilience In Missouri, Zachary J. Miller, Caleb O'Brien, Casey I. Canfield, Lauren Sullivan

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rural areas of the United States play a vital role in coping with, adapting to and mitigating climate change, yet they often lag urban areas in climate planning and action. Rural leaders—e.g., policymakers, state/federal agency professionals, non-profit organization leadership, and scholars – are pivotal for driving the programs and policies that support resilient practices, but our understanding of their perspectives on climate resilience writ large is limited. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 rural leaders in Missouri to elucidate their conceptualizations of climate resilience and identify catalysts and constraints for climate adaptation planning and action across rural landscapes. We investigated …

Deep Reinforcement Learning For Approximate Policy Iteration: Convergence Analysis And A Post-Earthquake Disaster Response Case Study, Abhijit Gosavi, L. (Lesley) H. Sneed, L. A. Spearing

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Approximate Policy Iteration (API) is a Class of Reinforcement Learning (RL) Algorithms that Seek to Solve the Long-Run Discounted Reward Markov Decision Process (MDP), Via the Policy Iteration Paradigm, Without Learning the Transition Model in the Underlying Bellman Equation. Unfortunately, These Algorithms Suffer from a Defect Known as Chattering in Which the Solution (Policy) Delivered in Each Iteration of the Algorithm Oscillates between Improved and Worsened Policies, Leading to Sub-Optimal Behavior. Two Causes for This that Have Been Traced to the Crucial Policy Improvement Step Are: (I) the Inaccuracies in the Policy Improvement Function and (Ii) the Exploration/exploitation Tradeoff Integral …

Modeling Of A Microstrip Line Referenced To A Meshed Return Plane, Zeyi Sun, Jian Liu, Xiaoyan Xiong, Yuan Liu, Victor Khilkevich, Donghyun Kim, Daryl G. Beetner

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Transmission Lines Referenced to Meshed Return Planes Are Widely Used Because of the Physical Flexibility Imparted by the Meshed Plane. Poor Accounting for the Meshed Ground, However, Can Lead to Severe Signal Integrity and Radio Frequency Interference Issues. Full-Wave Simulation Can Characterize the Electrical Performance at an Early Design Stage, But It is Both Time and Computational Resource Consuming. to Make the Simulation More Efficient, a Method is Proposed in This Study to Model Transmission Lines with a Meshed Reference Ground using 2D Analysis. the 2D Analysis is Performed at Several Locations Along the Length of the Trace above the …

A Genome-Wide Association Study Coupled With Machine Learning Approaches To Identify Influential Demographic And Genomic Factors Underlying Parkinson’S Disease, Md Asad Rahman, Jinling Liu

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Background: Despite the recent success of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in identifying 90 independent risk loci for Parkinson's disease (PD), the genomic underpinning of PD is still largely unknown. At the same time, accurate and reliable predictive models utilizing genomic or demographic features are desired in the clinic for predicting the risk of Parkinson's disease. Methods: To identify influential demographic and genomic factors associated with PD and to further develop predictive models, we utilized demographic data, incorporating 200 variables across 33,473 participants, along with genomic data involving 447,089 SNPs across 8,840 samples, both derived from the Fox Insight online study. …

Improving Social Bot Detection Through Aid And Training, Ryan Kenny, Baruch Fischhoff, Alex Davis, Casey I. Canfield

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Objective: We test the effects of three aids on individuals' ability to detect social bots among Twitter personas: a bot indicator score, a training video, and a warning. Background: Detecting social bots can prevent online deception. We use a simulated social media task to evaluate three aids. Method: Lay participants judged whether each of 60 Twitter personas was a human or social bot in a simulated online environment, using agreement between three machine learning algorithms to estimate the probability of each persona being a bot. Experiment 1 compared a control group and two intervention groups, one provided a bot indicator …

Approximation Of Optimal Control Surfaces For The Bass Model With Stochastic Dynamics, Gabriel Nicolosi, Christopher Griffin

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Bass diffusion equation is a well-known and established modeling approach for describing new product adoption in a competitive market. This model also describes diffusion phenomena in various contexts: infectious disease spread modeling and estimation, rumor spread on social networks, prediction of renewable energy technology markets, among others. Most of these models, however, consider a deterministic trajectory of the associated state variable (e.g., market-share). In reality, the diffusion process is subject to noise, and a stochastic component must be added to the state dynamics. The stochastic Bass model has also been studied in many areas, such as energy markets and …

Usdot Tier-1 University Transportation Center For Advancing Cybersecurity Research And Education, Yunpeng Jack Zhang, Kailai Wang, Lingguang Song, Amaury Lendasse, Houbing Herbert Song, Zhu Han, Rakesh Verma, Arlei Silva, Carlos Rubio-Medrano, Zhixia Richard Li, Guohui Zhang

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Transportation Cybersecurity Center for Advanced Research and Education (Cyber-Care) is a Us Department of Transportation (Usdot) Tier-1 University Transportation Center (Utc) Funded in 2023. Cyber-Care Primarily Focuses on the Usdot Statutory Research Priority Area of 'reducing Transportation Cybersecurity Risks.' Cyber-Care Aims to Establish a Fundamental Knowledge Basis and Explore Advanced Theory to Mitigate the Impacts of Large-Scale Cyberattacks on Transportation Infrastructure and Connected and Automated Vehicle (Cav) Systems. the Research Projects at Cyber-Care Will Develop Conceptual Frameworks, Construct Comprehensive Datasets, Explore Novel Analytical Approaches, Support the Implementation of Public Policies and Infrastructure Investments, and Build a High-Quality Industry Workforce …

Improved Quantification Of Defect Cross-Section For Active Microwave Thermography, Logan M. Wilcox, Kristen M. Donnell

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Active microwave thermography (AMT) is an integrated nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) technique that features a microwave-based excitation and subsequent thermographic inspection via an infrared camera. AMT has been successfully employed in several industries including aerospace and civil for NDT&E inspections. Since the excitation is microwave-based, an antenna is used to irradiate the sample under test and hence the heating pattern will vary spatially (following the antenna pattern). This nonuniform thermal excitation may limit the ability of AMT to quantify defect cross-sections. Therefore, this work seeks to expand the capabilities of AMT by incorporating a post-processing technique to improve defect …

Optimal Adaptive Tracking Control Of Partially Uncertain Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems Using Lifelong Hybrid Learning, Behzad Farzanegan, Rohollah Moghadam, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Pappa Natarajan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This article addresses a multilayer neural network (MNN)-based optimal adaptive tracking of partially uncertain nonlinear discrete-time (DT) systems in affine form. By employing an actor–critic neural network (NN) to approximate the value function and optimal control policy, the critic NN is updated via a novel hybrid learning scheme, where its weights are adjusted once at a sampling instant and also in a finite iterative manner within the instants to enhance the convergence rate. Moreover, to deal with the persistency of excitation (PE) condition, a replay buffer is incorporated into the critic update law through concurrent learning. To address the vanishing …

A Real-Time Microwave Camera Prototype With Zero-Bias Diode Detectors For Emi Source Imaging, Xin Yan, Liang Liu, Victor Khilkevich

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Emission Source Microscopy (ESM) Could Be Utilized to Localize the Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Sources that Contribute to the Far-Field Radiation. in Those Cases, the Electrical Field over a Two-Dimensional Plane is Collected by Mechanical Scanning, Resulting in a Long Measurement Time and the Presence of Mechanical Errors. in This Work, a Microwave Camera based on a Two-Dimensional Array of Elliptical Slot Antennas and Diode Detectors is Presented. Multiplexers Are Utilized to Access the Output of Each Detector and the Scanning of the Whole Array Could Be Done Multiple Times Per Second.

Lifelong Learning-Based Multilayer Neural Network Control Of Nonlinear Continuous-Time Strict-Feedback Systems, Irfan Ahmad Ganie, S. (Sarangapani) Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In This Paper, We Investigate Lifelong Learning (LL)-Based Tracking Control for Partially Uncertain Strict Feedback Nonlinear Systems with State Constraints, employing a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the Multilayer Neural Networks (MNNs) Activation Function based Weight Tuning Scheme. the Novel SVD-Based Approach Extends the MNN Weight Tuning to (Formula Presented.) Layers. a Unique Online LL Method, based on Tracking Error, is Integrated into the MNN Weight Update Laws to Counteract Catastrophic Forgetting. to Adeptly Address Constraints for Safety Assurances, Taking into Account the Effects Caused by Disturbances, We Utilize a Time-Varying Barrier Lyapunov Function (TBLF) that Ensures a Uniformly Ultimately …

A Combined Model For Transient And Self-Heating Of Snapback Type Esd Protection Devices, Xin Yan, Seyed Mostafa Mousavi, Li Shen, Yang Xu, Wei Zhang, Sergej Bub, Steffen Holland, David Pommerenke, Daryl G. Beetner

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A simplified physics-based model for predicting the transient response and self-heating behavior of silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) snapback-type transient voltage suppressors (TVS) is presented. Comparisons of the predicted quasi-static behavior and transient waveforms with measurements suggest that the proposed model accurately captures the most important characteristics of the device. Its simplified nature means it can be easily tuned using only data obtained from package-level measurements.

Efficient High Order Ensemble For Fluid Flow, John Carter

Doctoral Dissertations

"This thesis proposes efficient ensemble-based algorithms for solving the full and reduced Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. The proposed ensemble methods require solving only one linear system with multiple right-hand sides for different realizations, reducing computational cost and simulation time. Four algorithms utilize a Generalized Positive Auxiliary Variable (GPAV) approach and are demonstrated to be second-order accurate and unconditionally stable with respect to the system energy through comprehensive stability analyses and error tests. Two algorithms make use of Artificial Compressibility (AC) to update pressure and a solenoidal constraint for the magnetic field. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate theoretical results and demonstrate …

Tradeoffs May Counteract Effects Of Telecommunication Towers On Osprey Nesting, Gage R. Barnes, Kate G. Slankard, John B. Hewlett, Andrea K. Darracq

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The number of telecommunication towers (TCTs) throughout the United States has and continues to increase exponentially. Increased TCT placement has been implicated in local population increases in platform nesting birds such as ospreys (Pandion haliaetus). However, osprey use of artificial structures can cause conflicts with humans because of economic costs and risks to human safety. Managers require better information regarding the effect of artificial nesting surfaces, such as TCTS, on osprey reproduction to make informed decisions regarding species conservation and to mitigate potential conflicts. The objective of our study was to evaluate the influence of TCTs on osprey …

Do Trap-Neuter-Return (Tnr) Practices Contribute To Human–Coyote Conflicts In Southern California?, Danielle M. Bucklin, Jennifer M. Shedden, Niamh M. Quinn, Robert Cummings, Paul Stapp

Human–Wildlife Interactions

One possible contributor to the unusually high number of conflicts between coyotes (Canis latrans) and people in urban southern California, USA, may be the abundance of free-roaming domestic cats (Felis catus; cats) subsidized by feeding and augmented by trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs. To determine if coyotes regularly prey on and consume cats, we combined visual and molecular-genetic approaches to identify prey items in stomachs of 311 coyotes from Los Angeles County and Orange County, provided to the South Coast Research and Extension Center, in Irvine, California, between June 2015 and December 2018. We detected cat remains in …

An Unmanned Aircraft System For Marking Live Power Lines To Prevent Bird Collisions, Mattheuns D. Pretorius, Lourens Leeuwner, Kaajial Durgapersad, Constant Hoogstad, Peter Beckedahl, Michael D. Michael, Kishaylin Chetty

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Collisions with overhead power lines represent a significant cause of mortality for a number of large bird species worldwide. Certain threatened species are severely impacted by power line collisions, particularly those for which there are no other known significant threats. In South Africa, bird collisions with overhead power line cables, including collisions with phase conductors and shield wires, contribute significantly to annual threatened bird species mortalities associated with Eskom power lines. The most practical mitigation measure is to attach bird anti-collision devices as markers on the cables. Current marking methods involve installations by hand, where linemen are hoisted up to …

Navigating The Soviet Experiment: Travels And Writings Of John Dos Passos And Edmund Wilson In Soviet Russia, 1928-1935, Robert Allan Winslow

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The travel accounts of Soviet Russia by John Dos Passos (1896-1970) and Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) vividly demonstrate how Western writer-travelers were drawn into Soviet cultural experiments. Only rarely was this process one of literary influence. This thesis focuses on published travel writings by Dos Passos (In All Countries, 1934) and Wilson (Travels In Two Democracies, 1936), as well as journals, letters, and essays, in terms of Soviet cultural developments both writers noted as historically significant in shaping Western views of the Soviet state, and of the methods involved in building socialism and Communism.

In the …

The Paradoxes Of A Unified Judicial Philosophy: An Empirical Study Of The New Supreme Court, 2020-2022, Victoria Frances Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The 2021 Supreme Court Term ended with a bang, yielding blockbuster cases making headlines. But what of the rest of the cases? This is the first major paper to examine the “Trump effect,” meaning the influence of three Justices appointed by President Trump who all share a “unified” judicial philosophy. In a two-year project, starting from 2020, when Justice Barrett ascended to the Court, to the end of June 2022, this article reviews 124 cases and over 300 opinions. There is both good and bad news for the court’s new “unified” judicial philosophy. History and text are both upwardly mobile …

Noticing Patents, John R. Thomas

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Patents take the form of public letters that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) actively disseminates. Whether these documents sufficiently provide the public with notice of the technologies they describe, as well as the proprietary rights that they assert, has been subject to long-standing debate. Many commentators conclude that patents are often filed too early in the research and development cycle, are deliberately drafted in a vague or obtuse manner, or are simply too numerous. As a result, identifying the relevant patent landscape is not just difficult for technology implementers, but possibly undesirable as a matter of innovation policy. …

Hatch-Waxman’S Renegades, John R. Thomas

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No intellectual property rights impact society more forcefully than patents on pharmaceuticals. But as a practical matter, only a handful of jurists resolve disputes involving them. Two neighboring federal districts, Delaware and New Jersey, adjudicate the vast majority of patent contests between brand-name drug companies and generic manufacturers. And in contrast to Eastern Texas, which has been persistently derided as a renegade jurisdiction, the authority of the mid-Atlantic courts has seldom been questioned. The complex workings of the Hatch-Waxman Act, the compromise legislation that governs pharmaceutical patent litigation, go a long way to explaining such distinct shareholder reactions to highly …

Disrupting Data Cartels By Editing Wikipedia, Eun Hee Han, Amanda Levendowski, Jonah Perlin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Legal discourse in the digital public square is driven by memoranda, motions, briefs, contracts, legislation, testimony, and judicial opinions. And as lawyers are taught from their first day of law school, the strength of these genres of legal communication is built on authority. But finding that authority often depends on a duopoly of for-profit legal research resources: Westlaw and Lexis. Although contemporary legal practice relies on these databases, they are far from ethically neutral. Not only are these “data cartels” expensive-- creating significant access to justice challenges--they also are controlled by parent companies that profit by providing information to Immigration …

When The Digital Services Act Goes Global, Anupam Chander

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The European Union’s Digital Services Act (“DSA”) establishes a “meta law”—public regulation of the private regulation conducted by internet platforms. The DSA offers an attempt to balance private technological power with democratic oversight. The DSA will likely prove an attractive model for other governments to assert control over massive global internet platforms. What happens when other countries borrow its approach, in an instantiation of the vaunted Brussels Effect? This Article evaluates the DSA using the “Putin Test”—asking what if an authoritarian leader were given the powers granted by the DSA? The Article argues that authoritarians might well exploit various mechanisms …

Race And Entrepreneurship: Reclaiming Narratives, Priya Baskaran, Alicia E. Plerhoples

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay makes the case for engaging in counter-narratives and inclusive storytelling within the transactional clinic curriculum. The authors leverage lessons from Critical Race Theory to amplify the voices and experiences of underrepresented entrepreneurs and marginalized communities in both clinic seminar and selected casework. In doing so, we challenge hegemonic narratives of entrepreneurship and expose our law students to the presence and impact of interlocking systems of subordination that minimize the existence and contributions of entrepreneurs of color. We challenge our law students and ourselves to become more creative and thoughtful lawyers to a more inclusive and diverse set of …

Abila Keynote Address: Beyond International Law? A Dangerous Time, Gregory Shaffer

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this keynote address for the 2023 International Law Weekend conference of the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA), I first address the dangers of the conference theme “beyond international law” at a time when challenges to international law and institutions increase and aim to constrain international law’s normative force. We have been here before. The world today recalls that of the interwar period, a time of growing economic insecurity and inequality that helped to catalyze the rise of authoritarian movements. During that period, Carl Schmitt was a leading legal theorist who eventually became a member of the …

A Logical Proof That The Common Good, Not Economics, Underlies Copyright, Michelle M. Wu

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Copyright experts endlessly debate its purpose: economic or common good. Both sides cite to judicial language backing their interpretations, and the frequency and cost of litigation between those representing the two interests have noticeably increased over recent years.

This article aims at a simpler way to resolve the dispute, by taking a step back and starting with the definition of a government. The government of a democratic republic, particularly one described as “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” has a single purpose: to address the common concerns of its people.

The following philosophical argument is a …

Modeling Of Transport In Anatomic Respiratory Airways: Applications In Targeted Drug Delivery And Airborne Pathogenic Transmissions, Mohammad Mehedi Hasan Akash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to explore the potential of improving the efficacy of drugs for treatment of viral infections by targeting the nasopharynx, which is commonly the first site of infection for many viral pathogens. Currently, intranasal sprays are used, but the standard protocol (“Current Use” or CU) results in suboptimal drug deposition at the nasopharynx. To address this issue, an “Improved Use” or, IU protocol has been proposed, which involves pointing the spray bottle at a shallower angle and aiming slightly towards the cheeks. The IU delivery is also robust to perturbations in spray direction, which highlights the practical utility …

Method Of Validating Satellite Surface Reflectance Product Using Empirical Line Method, Meghraj Kc

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Atmospherically corrected surface reflectance (SR) products are used for reliable monitoring of land surfaces and are the standard products of Landsat sensors. Due to increased demand for SR products, a need exists to verify that the L2C2 (Level-2 Collection-2) SR products are precise and accurate. The Level-2 Collection 2 (L2C2) SR Product is processed satellite imagery data that corrects for atmospheric effects such as absorption and scattering, providing a more accurate representation of Earth's surface. The validation of SR products using ground truth measurement is essential. This study aims to develop and evaluate a validation methodology for satellite SR products. …