Digital Commons Network^™

Monitoring Institutional Ownership And Corporate Innovation, Steve Miller, Bin Qiu, Bin Wang, Tina Yang

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

We document a positive effect of monitoring institutional ownership on firm innovation after controlling for traditional measures of institutional ownership. We further find that monitoring institutions enhance firm innovation by: (1) incentivizing CEO risk-taking and reducing intense board monitoring, (2) alleviating agency problems, (3) attenuating managerial career concerns, and (4) mitigating corporate misvaluation. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of considering institutions’ monitoring incentives when examining the outcomes of their portfolio firms’ activities associated with high information asymmetry.

The Role Of Investment Treaties And Investor–State Dispute Settlement (Isds) In Renewable Energy Investments, Ladan Mehranvar, Sunayana Sasmal

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Achieving our global goals of universal access to clean energy and averting a climate crisis will require a mass scale-up of investments in renewable energy infrastructure, redirecting capital from carbon intensive energy and transport systems. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that the transformation of the energy system alone will need cumulative investments to reach USD 110 trillion by 2050 to keep the rise in global temperatures to well below 2°C and towards 1.5°C during this century. Of that amount, over 80% will need to be invested in renewables, energy efficiency, end-use electrification, and power grids and flexibility.

The private …

Creating A Better Browser Fingerprint, Scott Reiling

Interdisciplinary Informatics Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Web browser fingerprinting is used to analyze client behavior through retrieval of browser attributes unique to the user’s browser, network and hardware profile. Third-party trackers are prevalent on the top Alexa sites and use JavaScript to retrieve and store user machine information in a stateless fashion. Stateless fingerprinting is performed through acquisition of client machine specifiers through an embedded JavaScript, which then forwards the information to a server. The client information is purportedly used to provide tailored advertising and enhance the browsing experience. However, the depth of captured client information often extends into the realm of personally identifiable information. The …

Openet: Filling A Critical Data Gap In Water Management For The Western United States, Forrest S. Melton, Justin Huntington, Robyn Grimm, Jamie Herring, Maurice Hall, Dana Rollison, Tyler Erickson, Richard Allen, Martha Anderson, Joshua B. Fisher, Ayse Kilic, Gabriel B. Senay, John Volk, Christopher Hain, Lee Johnson, Anderson Ruhoff, Philip Blankenau, Matt Bromley, Will Carrara, Britta Daudert, Conor Doherty, Christian Dunkerly, Mackenzie Friedrichs, Alberto Guzman, Gregory Halverson, Jody Hansen, Jordan Harding, Yanghui Kang, David Ketchum, Blake Minor, Charles Morton, Samuel Ortega-Salazar, Thomas Ott, Mutlu Ozdogan, Peter M. Revelle, Mitch Schull, Carlos Wang, Yun Yang, Ray G. Anderson

AES Faculty Publications and Presentations

The lack of consistent, accurate information on evapotranspiration (ET) and consumptive use of water by irrigated agriculture is one of the most important data gaps for water managers in the western United States (U.S.) and other arid agricultural regions globally. The ability to easily access information on ET is central to improving water budgets across the West, advancing the use of data-driven irrigation management strategies, and expanding incentive-driven conservation programs. Recent advances in remote sensing of ET have led to the development of multiple approaches for field-scale ET mapping that have been used for local and regional water resource management …

An Unexpected Case Of Non-Uremic Calciphylaxis In A Patient With Multiple Risk Factors, Shannon Nugent, Fred Karaisz, Maisa Elbadawi, Andrew Touati, Neda Nikbakht, Jason B. Lee, Hasan Arif

Division of Internal Medicine Faculty Papers & Presentations

A 58-year-old woman with a history of morbid obesity, asthma, and prior warfarin use presented to the hospital with shortness of breath and a three-month history of painful, ulcerated ulcers with retiform purpura of her bilateral distal extremities. A punch biopsy specimen demonstrated focal necrosis and hyalinization of the adipose tissue with subtle arteriolar calcium deposition, findings consistent with calciphylaxis. We discuss the presentation of non-uremic calciphylaxis and review the risk factors, pathophysiology, and interdisciplinary management approach of this rare disease.

Linguistic Imperialism: A Critical Analysis Of English Hegemony And Its Effect On English Language Learners, Linley King

Honors Theses

This study uses previous research and qualitative data to determine how foreign language teachers can present English to learners as an international communicative tool while also preserving their native L1 identity amidst hegemonic cultural influences. Since becoming a lingua franca, the majority of English users are non-native speakers, and the findings of this study explain how English has globally spread to create distinctive linguistic groups among these speakers and the importance of promoting the equality of their English variations against the “standard” dialect used in current monolingual English language teaching (ELT) policies (Canagarajah, 1999; Duff, 2005; Schmitz, 2014). Responses from …

Digital Forensics For Investigating Control-Logic Attacks In Industrial Control Systems, Nauman Zubair

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Programmable logic controllers (PLC) are required to handle physical processes and thus crucial in critical infrastructures like power grids, nuclear facilities, and gas pipelines. Attacks on PLCs can have disastrous consequences, considering attacks like Stuxnet and TRISIS. Those attacks are examples of exploits where the attacker aims to inject into a target PLC malicious control logic, which engineering software compiles as a reliable code. When investigating a security incident, acquiring memory can provide valuable insight such as runtime system activities and memory-based artifacts which may contain the attacker's footprints. The existing memory acquisition tools for PLCs require a hardware-level debugging …

Phosphate Mineralogy And Paragenesis Of The Fletcher Pegmatite, North Groton, New Hampshire, Susanna T. Kreinik

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Investigation of phosphate assemblages selectively collected at the Fletcher Mine pegmatite, North Groton, New Hampshire, yielded eighteen discrete secondary phosphate species. Secondary phases were formed via metasomatic (high temperature) and hydrothermal (low temperature) alteration of primary triphylite and fluorapatite. Mineral associations bear proximal phases known to occur under contrasting conditions, both oxidizing and reducing, suggesting the formation of microenvironments during concomitant mineral generation. Late-stage hydrothermal fluids provide ions taken up in low temperature secondary phases with calcium and magnesium most prevalent in these suites. High iron to manganese ratios in analyzed specimens establish the relative evolution of the pegmatite host. …

Charter School Leaders’ Perceptions Of School Autonomy, Sharon L. Latten-Clark

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This study explored school leaders and how they perceive and use autonomy to operate a school. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to better understand the lived experiences of school leaders and how they perceive and use their autonomy while operating a charter school in New Orleans, Louisiana. There is relatively little documentation on the perceptions of how school leaders feel they use and balance their autonomy when operating a charter school. This study builds upon the current and past research which regards principal autonomy as a driver of the success of charter schools and school quality. …

Destroying The Myth Of The Monolith: A Historical Observation Of The Black Conservative From Then To Now, Jessica Reese

Honors Theses

Although it is not often reflected at the ballot box, Black America has a wide variety of political thought processes mostly rooted in socially conservative backgrounds. There has been a false, and frankly disrespectful, narrative that all Black Americans affirm to the same political ideology, vote in similar patterns, and align with the same political party. The uprising of Black Americans, specifically within the young electorate, who hold political conservative thought processes is the inspiration of this thesis. Starting with the 1780s and progressing through the 2020s, this thesis will observe the historical shifts and expansion of Black conservatism in …

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Light Concentration With The Catoptric Surface, Samatha Kodali

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The Catoptric Surface is an array of mirrors arranged on the interior of a large window which serves to manipulate the effects of natural lighting inside the room. The framework for moving the mirrors uses an interface which connects various Raspberry Pis and Arduino Unos to move stepper motors that connect to each mirror and move them as desired by the user. This kind of light manipulation allows the atmosphere of the room to be modified using natural lighting rather than artificial lighting and can be useful for varying the way people interact with a space. The intensity at which …

Divide-And-Conquer Distributed Learning: Privacy-Preserving Offloading Of Neural Network Computations, Lewis C.L. Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Machine learning has become a highly utilized technology to perform decision making on high dimensional data. As dataset sizes have become increasingly large so too have the neural networks to learn the complex patterns hidden within. This expansion has continued to the degree that it may be infeasible to train a model from a singular device due to computational or memory limitations of underlying hardware. Purpose built computing clusters for training large models are commonplace while access to networks of heterogeneous devices is still typically more accessible. In addition, with the rise of 5G networks, computation at the edge becoming …

A Method For Exploring The Habitability Of Earth-Like Exoplanets: Applications To Tess Objects Of Interest 203 B, 256 B, And 700 D, Paul Bonney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has and is continuing to discover a multitude of potentially habitable planet candidates. As more planets are detected and confirmed, it becomes increasingly important to strategically search for signs of habitability with which to differentiate and prioritize them for further observation, in particular with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). To facilitate this, I have created a method for prioritizing TESS planet candidates based on parameters derived from their light curves and have applied the method to the TESS Candidate Target List (CTL). This data set uses preliminary fits to transit modeling which can …

Nitrogen Use Efficiency Of Pretassel Nitrogen Applications In Corn, Robyn Brittlee Mulloy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Corn (Zea mays L.) production continues to be a critical component of row-crop production systems within Arkansas and is seeing a resurgence in recent years. Nitrogen (N) is critical for corn growth and is often one of the single largest input costs associated with corn production. Research objectives for this study were to determine the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of late season N applications as influenced by sidedress N rate and timing of pretassel application and to quantify the nutrient uptake and partitioning in modern era corn hybrids within a furrow-irrigated production system. Research was conducted at the Milo J. …

Design And Comparison Of Asynchronous Fft Implementations, Julie Bigot

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is a widely used digital signal processing technology in a large variety of applications. For battery-powered embedded systems incorporating FFT, its physical implementation is constrained by strict power consumption, especially during idle periods. Compared to the prevailing clocked synchronous counterpart, quasi-delay insensitive asynchronous circuits offer a series of advantages including flexible timing requirement and lower leakage power, making them ideal choices for these systems. In this thesis work, various FFT configurations were implemented in the low-power Multi-Threshold NULL Convention Logic (MTNCL) paradigm. Analysis illustrates the area and power consumption trends along the changing of the number …

Data-Driven Deep Learning-Based Analysis On Thz Imaging, Haoyan Liu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer affects about 12.5% of women population in the United States. Surgical operations are often needed post diagnosis. Breast conserving surgery can help remove malignant tumors while maximizing the remaining healthy tissues. Due to lacking effective real-time tumor analysis tools and a unified operation standard, re-excision rate could be higher than 30% among breast conserving surgery patients. This results in significant physical, physiological, and financial burdens to those patients. This work designs deep learning-based segmentation algorithms that detect tissue type in excised tissues using pulsed THz technology. This work evaluates the algorithms for tissue type classification task among freshly …

Hierarchical Structure And Material Integration For Electrocatalytic Co2 Reduction, Hamed Mehrabi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

CO2 released by the combustion of fossil fuels is driving significant changes to the earth’sclimate. The natural cycle for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, namely photosynthesis, cannot keep up with the rate at which it is being added. Developing engineering approaches to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is becoming essential to reduce these effects. Removal leads to further issues of carbon sequestration and favorable CO2 reuse strategies, including the electrochemical transformation of recovered CO2 to useful products such as fuels and materials. Copper is an important electrocatalyst for the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) because of its unique capability for producing …

Nitrogen Management In Rice Under Suboptimal Soil Conditions, Payton Suzanne Rhea

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Mid-South rice (Oryza sativa, L.) production, nitrogen (N) fertilizer management for pureline varieties is most often recommended as a single preflood (SPF) or two-way split (2WS) application in a direct-seeded, delayed-flood system. Most of the N fertilizer is typically applied at the four- to six-leaf stage onto dry soil, and the second application, if necessary, into the floodwater during early reproductive growth stages (referred to as midseason). Environmental factors frequently prohibit growers from applying early N fertilizer under optimal dry soil conditions. A study was conducted to determine the best N fertilization management practices to utilize in rice when …

Efficient Hierarchical Space-Time Models For Large Areal Datasets With Application To Forest Inventory Mapping Using Remote Sensing Imagery, Md Kamrul Hasan Khan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation is development of a novel hierarchical framework, that can be used for predictive modeling of Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data over large regions. This dissertation has two significant contributions. Based on a study region in north-central Wisconsin, we analyze satellite imagery, along with a sample of national forest inventory field plots, to monitor and predict changes in forest conditions over time. The auxiliary data from the satellite imagery of this region are relatively dense in space and time, and can be used to learn how forest conditions changed over that decade. However, these records …

First-Principles Study Of Doping Effects On Ferroelectricity And On Rashba Spin Splitting, Zegnet Yimer Muhammed

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we have thoroughly studied the effect of chemical and charge dopingon ferroelectrics (PbTiO3 and BaTiO3) and Rashba type semiconductor (BiTeI). In the first project, We investigate the polar instability and soft modes in electron-doped PbTiO3 using linear-response density functional calculations. Because, metallicity and ferroelectric-like polar distortion are mutually non-compatible, and their coexistence in the same system is an intriguing subject of fundamental interest in the field of structure phase transition. However, it is unclear what mechanism may extend the limit of metallicity that allows polar distortion. We find that ferroelectric instability can remarkably sustain up to an …

Prediction Of Radiography Certification Examination Scores Using Astin’S Input-Environment-Output Model, Deanna Barymon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous health profession fields, including radiology, have attempted to identify predictors of success on their respective credentialing exams. This preregistered study seeks to determine if available academic performance measures may predict radiography national certification examination scores and help educators identify students for remediation and support. The study will use the Astin Input-Environment-Output Model, which ascertains that student outcomes are a result of what they bring into an academic program and the environment experienced during the program. The non-experimental retrospective study will look at the 2018 to 2021 Arkansas State University radiography cohorts. Multiple regression will be used to determine if …

Thinking About Episodic Future Events As A Way To Reduce Smoking Behavior: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study, Stephanie Joann Kane

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With nearly 35 million Americans currently estimated to smoke and an approximate seven out of ten adult smokers wanting to quit, it is clear that there is a need for enhanced smoking cessation techniques. Encouraging people to think about a future smoke-free self may help to encourage and motivate changes in smoking behavior. The present study investigated the role of an episodic future thinking manipulation on the motivation to quit smoking using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Participants (N = 103) were randomly assigned to either an episodic future thinking (EFT) condition or an episodic recent thinking (ERT) condition, and were …

Lyubeznik Numbers Of Unmixed Edge Ideals, Sara Rae Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lyubeznik numbers, defined in terms of local cohomology, are invariants of local rings that are able to detect many algebraic and geometric properties. Notably they recognize topological behaviors of various structures associated to their rings. We will discuss computations of these numbers for unmixed edge ideals by giving a completely combinatorial construction which realizes the connectedness information captured by these numbers.

The Role Of Instructor Presence And Class Size In Promoting Engagement Among Adults Pursuing Undergraduate Degrees Online: A Preregistered Study., Ken S. Muessig

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adult learners who pursue undergraduate degrees online are an understudied group who have characteristics that separate them from traditional younger students or graduate students who might be the same age. These characteristics could give them a different experience in online courses. Do adult learners experience instructor presence in a way that makes them engage in their courses more? Is that measurable by a validated measurement of student engagement? This preregistered study seeks to answer how the student engagement of adult learners seeking an undergraduate degree in a 100% online environment is effected by the presence of the instructor. The data …

Deciphering Surfaces Of Trans-Neptunian And Kuiper Belt Objects Using Radiative Scattering Models, Machine Learning, And Laboratory Experiments, Al Emran

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Decoding surface-atmospheric interactions and volatile transport mechanisms on trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) involves an in-depth understanding of physical and thermal properties and spatial distribution of surface constituents – nitrogen (N2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), and water (H2O) ices. This thesis implements a combination of radiative scattering models, machine learning techniques, and laboratory experiments to investigate the uncertainties in grain size estimation of ices, the spatial distribution of surface compositions on Pluto, and the thermal properties of volatiles found on TNOs and KBOs. Radiative scattering models (Mie theory and Hapke approximations) were used to compare single …

Temporal Effects Of Acute Moderate Intensity Physical Activity On Working Memory Performance In Young Adults, Kimberly Loy Seibold

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An ample amount of research suggests that increases in physical activity in young adults could help improve memory and cognitive functions which may aid in academic success (Johnson & Loprinzi, 2019; Perini et al., 2016). A sufficient working memory is critical to learning because it allows us to temporarily store and compare multiple informational items at one time to form a new concept or solve a problem (Cowan, 2013). The purpose of this study was to examine the temporal effects of acute moderate intensity physical activity on working memory in young adults. This study utilized a within-groups (repeated measures) cross-over …

Disharmony Of The Soul: A Philosophical Analysis Of Psychological Trauma And Flourishing, Adam Blehm

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that psychological trauma hinders human flourishing by disrupting psychic harmony and hindering virtuous relationships. Given the negative symptomology of posttraumatic stress related disorders (i.e., PTSD) this conclusion may seem a bit obvious to some. However, making the case for trauma as a hindrance to human flourishing is more complicated than it may first appear.

First, in the extant literature, trauma as a concept tends to be unclear. In much of the empirical and philosophical literature, trauma can include a certain kind of event, experience, effect, or a combination of all three. Furthermore, because of practical …

Evaluation Of Cellulose Nanocrystal Inks And Their Structural Characteristics For 3d Bioprinting Of Customized Scaffolds, Patrick William Kuczwara

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

3D bioprinting of biological scaffolds requires control of the physicochemical properties of each unique structures. A promising material for control of properties is hydrogels, which can help create biomimetic scaffolds with controlled spatial arrangement of materials by integrating biological materials directly into layers during the bioprinting process. Nanocellulose offers a unique combination of properties including mechanical, biomimetic, and biocompatibility. These properties offer flexibility over the types, shapes, and applications of their printed hydrogel scaffolds, (i.e., tissue, drug, encapsulation). However, 3D bioprinting of nanocellulose-based hydrogels requires high loading percentages (i.e., >10 wt%) or chemical crosslinkers (i.e., bis(acyl)phosphane oxides (BAPO)). High solid …

Optimal Test Plan Of Step Stress Partially Accelerated Life Testing For Alpha Power Inverse Weibull Distribution Under Adaptive Progressive Hybrid Censored Data And Different Loss Functions, Refah Alotaibi, Ehab M. Almetwally, Qiuchen Hai, Hoda Rezk

Mathematics Faculty Publications (Archived)

Accelerated life tests are used to explore the lifetime of extremely reliable items by subjecting them to elevated stress levels from stressors to cause early failures, such as temperature, voltage, pressure, and so on. The alpha power inverse Weibull (APIW) distribution is of great significance and practical applications due to its appealing characteristics, such as its flexibilities in the probability density function and the hazard rate function. We analyze the step stress partially accelerated life testing model with samples from the APIW distribution under adaptive type II progressively hybrid censoring. We first obtain the maximum likelihood estimates and two types …

Wood Turtle (Glyptemys Insculpta) Spatial Ecology, Habitat Selection, And Use Of Restored Oak-Pine Barrens In Northwestern Michigan, Diana Paige Methner

Masters Theses

Habitat fragmentation and loss, predation, and illegal collection are among the many threats plaguing turtle species worldwide which have caused substantial population declines. In the United States and Canada, approximately 38% of turtle and tortoise species are under significant threat. The wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) a freshwater turtle species experiencing declines and in 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will determine if this species should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. We studied the spatial ecology of wood turtles in northwestern Michigan, USA to fill knowledge gaps that exist throughout their geographic range. Between May 2021 …