Digital Commons Network^™

Dialogconv: A Lightweight Fully Convolutional Network For Multi-View Response Selection, Yongkang Liu, Shi Feng, Wei Gao, Daling Wang, Yifei Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Current end-to-end retrieval-based dialogue systems are mainly based on Recurrent Neural Networks or Transformers with attention mechanisms. Although promising results have been achieved, these models often suffer from slow inference or huge number of parameters. In this paper, we propose a novel lightweight fully convolutional architecture, called DialogConv, for response selection. DialogConv is exclusively built on top of convolution to extract matching features of context and response. Dialogues are modeled in 3D views, where DialogConv performs convolution operations on embedding view, word view and utterance view to capture richer semantic information from multiple contextual views. On the four benchmark datasets, …

Opportunities And Challenges In Code Search Tools, Chao Liu, Xin Xia, David Lo, Cuiying Gao, Xiaohu Yang, John Grundy

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Code search is a core software engineering task. Effective code search tools can help developers substantially improve their software development efficiency and effectiveness. In recent years, many code search studies have leveraged different techniques, such as deep learning and information retrieval approaches, to retrieve expected code from a large-scale codebase. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive comparative summary of existing code search approaches. To understand the research trends in existing code search studies, we systematically reviewed 81 relevant studies. We investigated the publication trends of code search studies, analyzed key components, such as codebase, query, and modeling technique …

Beer: Fast O(1/T) Rate For Decentralized Nonconvex Optimization With Communication Compression, Haoyu Zhao, Boyue Li, Zhize Li, Peter Richtarik, Yuejie Chi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Communication efficiency has been widely recognized as the bottleneck for large-scale decentralized machine learning applications in multi-agent or federated environments. To tackle the communication bottleneck, there have been many efforts to design communication-compressed algorithms for decentralized nonconvex optimization, where the clients are only allowed to communicate a small amount of quantized information (aka bits) with their neighbors over a predefined graph topology. Despite significant efforts, the state-of-the-art algorithm in the nonconvex setting still suffers from a slower rate of convergence $O((G/T)^{2/3})$ compared with their uncompressed counterpart, where $G$ measures the data heterogeneity across different clients, and $T$ is the number …

Soteriafl: A Unified Framework For Private Federated Learning With Communication Compression, Zhize Li, Haoyu Zhao, Boyue Li, Yuejie Chi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To enable large-scale machine learning in bandwidth-hungry environments such as wireless networks, significant progress has been made recently in designing communication-efficient federated learning algorithms with the aid of communication compression. On the other end, privacy-preserving, especially at the client level, is another important desideratum that has not been addressed simultaneously in the presence of advanced communication compression techniques yet. In this paper, we propose a unified framework that enhances the communication efficiency of private federated learning with communication compression. Exploiting both general compression operators and local differential privacy, we first examine a simple algorithm that applies compression directly to differentially-private …

How Developers Engineer Test Cases: An Observational Study, Maurício Aniche, Christoph Treude, Andy Zaidman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

One of the main challenges that developers face when testing their systems lies in engineering test cases that are good enough to reveal bugs. And while our body of knowledge on software testing and automated test case generation is already quite significant, in practice, developers are still the ones responsible for engineering test cases manually. Therefore, understanding the developers’ thought- and decision-making processes while engineering test cases is a fundamental step in making developers better at testing software. In this paper, we observe 13 developers thinking-aloud while testing different real-world open-source methods, and use these observations to explain how developers …

False Promise To Marry And Other Forms Of Sex By Deception In India And Singapore, Wing Cheong Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Dishonesty is unfortunately a sad fact of life in human relationships. When a woman is duped by a man intohaving sex by lies and deception, what should the response of the criminal law be? Is it rape or just a game of seduction or something in between? This article sets out and evaluates the different approaches taken by India and Singapore in cases of sex by deception. It suggests that the approach adopted in Singapore could be a model for criminal law reform in this contentious area.

Trade And Transfer Of Environmentally Sound Technology In Asean: Mapping Priorities To Economic Treaty Negotiations, Locknie Hsu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (“ASEAN”) share common objectives in economic, sociocultural and political-security integration. Addressing environmental concerns is animportant consideration which traverses different areas of integration policymaking. ASEAN has, in recent years, emphasised the importance of environmental considerations, including environmentally sound technologies (“ESTs”) which may contribute to its climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, in its law and policymaking. This article discusses the nexus between ASEAN’s needs for the transfer of ESTs and the group’s economic treaty negotiations. Through a “mapping” of such needs to free trade agreementareas, it aims to provide a pathway …

On The Merge Of K-Nn Graph, Wan-Lei Zhao, Hui Wang, Peng-Cheng Lin, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

k-nearest neighbor graph is a fundamental data structure in many disciplines such as information retrieval, data-mining, pattern recognition, and machine learning, etc. In the literature, considerable research has been focusing on how to efficiently build an approximate k-nearest neighbor graph (k-NN graph) for a fixed dataset. Unfortunately, a closely related issue of how to merge two existing k-NN graphs has been overlooked. In this paper, we address the issue of k-NN graph merging in two different scenarios. In the first scenario, a symmetric merge algorithm is proposed to combine two approximate k-NN graphs. The algorithm facilitates large-scale processing by the …

A Hybrid Model Of Event Comprehension Predicts Human Activity At Human Scale, Tan Nguyen

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

To act effectively, humans store event schemas and use them to predict the near future. How are schemas learned and represented in memory, and used in online comprehension? One means to answer these questions is modeling event comprehension. What are, then, computational principles of event comprehension? We proposed three candidate properties: 1) abstract representation of visual features, 2) predictive mechanism and prediction error as feedback, and 3) contextual cues to guide prediction, and adapted a computational model embodying these properties. The model learned to predict activity dynamics from one pass through an 18-hour corpus of naturalistic human activity. Evaluated on …

Dei Without Equity: Lab Coat Culture And Persistent Racism In Bioengineering Laboratories, Janet Canady

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

From biased algorithms to discriminatory devices to medical racism, it is clear that biomedical products are created in ways that reproduce racial disparities in access and use. Yet the most common solutions recommended by biomedical research institutions emphasize diversity, equity, and inclusion practices that research has already proven ineffective and sometimes harmful. In fact, labs rarely scrutinize whether and how their research products reflect racial bias, assumptions, or ideals. In this paper, I shift the focus to consider how bioengineering laboratories function as a site in which racial processes contribute to product outcomes. I ask, what are the racial dynamics …

Blood Pressure Responses Are Dependent On Call Type And Related To Hypertension Status In Firefighters, Paige J Rynne, Cassandra C Derella, Carly Mcmorrow, Rachel L Dickinson, Stephanie Donahue, Andrew A Almeida, Megan Carty, Deborah L Feairheller

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

Background: Impaired cardiovascular health is a concern for firefighters, with over 50% of line-of-duty deaths having cardiac causes. Many firefighters have hypertension and <25% have their blood pressure (BP) controlled. The alarm response could be an unidentified cardiac risk, but interestingly, the BP response to different calls and on-the-job activity is unknown.

Purpose: We aimed to measure the physiological stress resulting from different call types (fire, medical) and job activity (riding apparatus, pre-alert alarms) through ambulatory BP (ABP) monitoring in a population of firefighters.

Materials and methods: During 111 12-h work shifts firefighters wore an ABP monitor. BP was measured at 30-min intervals and manual measurements were prompted when the pager went off or whenever they felt stress.

Results: Firefighters were hypertensive (124.3 ± 9.9/78.1 ± 6.7 mmHg), overweight …

Factors Influencing The Treatment Outcome Of Intentional Replantation On Teeth With Periapical Periodontitis: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Teng Kai Ong, Daniel Lim, Maharaj Singh, Alissa V. Fial

Library Faculty Research and Publications

Objectives

The purpose of this review was to appraise the quality of evidence of the existing publications on IR, and to perform a meta-analysis on the treatment outcomes of IR.

Methods

The specific PIO questions were as follows: Population: Patients with periapical periodontitis either before or after nonsurgical endodontic therapy. Intervention: IR performed with retrograde preparation and retrograde filling. Outcomes: the healing, treatment complications, and the factors influencing these outcomes after IR. Electronic and hand searches were performed in the Web of Science, PubMed, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library databases. Two authors independently screened the titles and abstracts for eligibility. The …

Community Outreach For Spanish-Speakers: Informing The Community About Monterey County, Emilia Gallegos Perez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Monterey County Rape Crisis Center (MCRCC) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advocate for and serve the people of Monterey County who are experiencing sexual violence. The main issue was that few Spanish speakers had knowledge about MCRCC services and programs despite Monterey County having a large Hispanic population. The community engagement team is the division in the organization that conducts community outreach within the Monterey County population. The idea for the project is to advertise a commercial and create an advertisement using a local radio station. The new initiative can help promote awareness in the community by …

Community Improvement Projects For Marginalized Populations In Monterey County, Alizha Barrera

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

CHISPA is a non profit organization that is located downtown of Salinas, California within Monterey County. Their mission is to improve people’s lives and create healthy neighborhoods by developing, selling, owning and managing affordable homes for low income families and senior citizens. Within the senior citizen housing they have a program that is known as the lunch program that provides meals Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. The main property that I focused on was Los Abuelitos Senior Housing. For my capstone project I came up with a questionnaire that helped me figure out what they eat, …

Evaluating Post-Training Engagement, Caitlyn Dawn Gonzalez, Alyssa Trinity

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Impact Launch (IL) is a collective of social impact professionals dedicated to creating sustainable and equitable change. IL provides strategic planning, project design, collaborative capacity building, individual and team coaching, and leadership intensives for leaders, businesses, and organizations. Similar to those who have undergone other training programs, alumni of IL’s leadership training are prone to becoming disengaged with the tools they have learned and stagnant in their learning. The purpose of this project was to begin efforts to increase alumni engagement with the tools and each other through conducting a series of interviews; 6 alumni were interviewed to collect feedback …

Improving Self Regulation In Early Adolescents, Nicole Lopez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

My capstone project focuses on the development of self-regulation in early adolescent middle school years. Self-regulation is the ability to understand and manage your behavior and reactions to feelings and things happening around you. Adolescence is the transition from childhood to adulthood that begins with the onset of puberty and ends with successful independence from the parent.

Volunteer Opportunities For Bilinguals And Monolinguals, Jocelyn Tafolla

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Community Builders for Monterey County is a non-profit agency that connects volunteers with local volunteer opportunities. These local volunteer opportunities are offered to residents of the 831 area code. However, these opportunities are easily accessible to those fluent in English. This is largely due to the limited advertised and available volunteer opportunities for bilinguals in the area. On the other hand, a micro level issue for this is that not enough agencies take bilingual volunteers into consideration. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to create a brochure so that volunteers who are fluent in English can be informed of …

Increasing Utilization Of Covid-19 Vaccinations, Riley Labaw

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

VNA, a non-profit organization, has been providing care for residents of Monterey, San Benito, Santa Cruz, and South Santa Clara counties since 1951. When the vaccination for COVID-19 came out they began vaccinating those in Monterey County and providing clinics in many different locations where residents could have easier access to a vaccine. Throughout the majority of clinics data was being gathered to compare the attendance rates. Recommendations were made to VNA about how to improve their attendance rates at clinics after going through the data and having different conversations. Based on the data collected, there was evidence that suggested …

Recognition Of Childrens’ Benefits While Participating In Sports To Parents, Melida Carmona

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone project focuses on the development of life skills through children’s participation in sports activities. Involving the success and failures involving, technology, social media and its effect on the human mind and body.

Campos Seguros In Santa Cruz County, Patricia Barajas Villasenor

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Monarch Services is a non-profit organization within Santa Cruz county. The agency provides services for domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Campos Seguros focuses on providing resources and advocacy to vulnerable populations, specifically Campesinos (farmworkers). Violence and abuse perpetrated against farm workers is an issue that demands more public attention and advocacy. Campesinos are highly vulnerable because of different contributing factors, these include immigration status, work uncertainty, and language barriers. Consequences include trauma, lack of reporting, and vulnerability to labor trafficking. Sexual abuse is highly prevalent within the agricultural realm; many employers can take advantage of Campesino’s vulnerable position. …

Medical Needs Grant, Tabark Ahmed

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Children Miracle Network (CMN) is a nonprofit organization under the Salinas Memorial Hospital that serves Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito. The Medical Needs Grant (MNG) is an application that provides medical assistance for families who have children under 17 years of age and may not be able to afford services. The majority of the MGN applications come from Monterey/Santa Cruz county leaving out San Benito due to a lack of outreach in that area.. This project's purpose is to promote the Medical Needs Grant in all areas that connect with children, pediatric hospitals and schools in San Benito County …

Important Activities For Infants And Toddlers / To Support A Foster Child, Vanessa Salas

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) is a non-profit organization that serves children in the foster care system as mentors and advocates. There was a need for more resources to be available for CASA’s when appointed an infant or toddler and the activities that would be aged appropriate. The purpose of this project was to have a resource tool that is easily accessible during weekly visits with the infant or toddler so that the time spent together is used to its fullest potential. The desired outcome is that CASA’s develop meaningful relationships with their infants and their guardians throughout this difficult …

Benefits Of Implementing Culturally Responsive Teaching In Latino Elementary Classrooms, Lisa Hernandez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The benefits of implementing culturally responsive teaching strategies into the elementary classroom empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural references to impart knowledge and skills. Culturally responsive educators see themselves as part of a community of learners and desire to learn collaboratively. This capstone investigates the relationship between culturally responsive teaching and its effect on predominantly Latino elementary school students’ learning. Teachers who use culturally responsive teaching strategies see culture as an asset which can be used to enhance academic and social achievement. This study not only defines, but also highlights effective teaching strategies that reflect a …

The Nationwide Teacher Shortage: Factors Influencing Educators To Leave The Profession, Abby Keegan

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This senior capstone research examines the nationwide teacher shortage, which has been apparent in America since the early 1960’s. However, this crisis did not begin to reach such levels of severity until recent years. There are currently thousands of vacancies in the teaching profession nationwide; not a single school across the nation is able to fill all the gaps. Research reveals that factors such as low salary, maltreatment from administrators, students, and parents, classroom safety concerns, a lack of teacher autonomy, and an overall societal disrespect for the profession can be to blame for this high resignation period. As these …

California's Impact Of Attrition Practices On Latinx English Learners, Dulce Ramirez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone examines the impact of attrition practices on Latinx English learners in California. The project explores three recommendations from Guadalupe Valdes' book, Learning and Not Learning English. The three are age-appropriate academic content, revolving door policies involving classification/ reclassification, and the importance of teacher preparation. The discussion covers how the three impact English learners' attrition rate, causing negative self-efficacy, lack of college preparedness, and employment opportunities. Given this, the school districts allocated funding to create programs to prevent attrition problems among English learners, including the Latinx ELs. The literature review and interviews with educators indicated that Latinx English learners' …

The Benefits Of Dual Immersion Programs On Elementary School Students, Allison E. Williams

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone aims to share the benefits of Dual Immersion Programs at the Elementary school years. Understanding what a Dual Immersion Program is and knowing that there are different models within the program allow for parents to select which program is best suited for their students. A key point in clarification is that a Dual Immersion program does not aim to replace an English, or standard, education program, but add a target language to enhance the learning of the students. This study looks at the short- and long-term academic and social benefits students can gain from kindergarten through fifth grade …

Informing Educators On The Importance Of Teaching Latino Immigrant Parents About Children's Learning Disabilities, Guadalupe Lobato Vega

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The project focuses on informing educators and aspiring educators of the importance of teaching immigrant parents about children’s learning disabilities. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), learning disabilities are defined as a type of neurodevelopmental disorder that impedes the ability to learn or use specific academic skills. Examples of main learning disabilities are dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. Parents immigrate to a new country in search of better opportunities for themselves and their children. Once in a new country, they face the unique challenge of being unfamiliar with the English language and American culture (Turney & …

Increasing English Language Learners Vocabulary And Spelling Through Game Interactions, Lucila Chavez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

My Capstone Project was intended to increase the language development of English Language Learners due to language barriers. Games became the method to address the need to increase the language and to motivate the students while learning. The audience was third-grade students at Chualar Elementary School. Vocabulary Definitions, syllables awareness, and spelling development were the three learning outcomes of the project. Diversity was also thought about while implementing this capstone project which was addressed through the student's ability to take what they learned from the games outside the class and play it with others. Lev Vygotsky's theory of the importance …

Improving Kindness In A Preschool Classroom, Mayari Chavez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Improving Kindness within a preschool classroom.

Monterey County Health Department Health Equity Plan, Zahara Ahmed

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Monterey County Health Department (MCHD) is working to create a health equity strategy that would effectively integrate equity practices and establish a roadmap for the department's long-term sustainability of health equity initiatives. Despite decades of acknowledgement of health inequalities and legislative demands to remove them, racial/ethnic minority, rural, and low-income people in the United States continue to have inadequate access to and quality of health care. Many health-care efforts intended to achieve health equity fall short due to knowledge and translation barriers. This project analyzes these inadequacies and emphasizes novel strategies that can help fill them, and also provide …