Digital Commons Network^™

Usma Space Cadets: The First Class, Chalie L. Galliand, Alex L. Kedrowitsch, Diana C. Loucks

Small Satellite Conference

The United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point has been developing leaders of character since 1802. This year’s graduating class, the Class of 2020, includes West Point’s first Space Science majors. The United States Army has officially had space professionals in its ranks since 1997 with the inception Space Operations Officer career field, also known as Functional Area 40 (FA40). It is only recently that the Army has shifted its focus to building the FA40 ranks from officer accessions programs (USMA, ROTC, and OCS). The establishment of the Space and Missile Defense Program under USMA’s Physics and Nuclear Engineering …

Merging Diverse Architecture For Multi-Mission Support, Kyle Colton, Joseph Breu, Bryan Klofas, Sydney Marler, Chad Norgan, Matthew Waldram

Small Satellite Conference

Planet Labs Inc. (“Planet”) currently operates the world’s largest commercial earth observation constellation with over 150 active on-orbit satellites collecting daily medium resolution imagery of the whole earth, and high resolution imagery of targeted areas of interest. In 2017, Planet combined the SkySat high-resolution satellite constellation with its own existing medium resolution Dove constellation to expand its ability to make global change visible, accessible, and actionable. While the two satellite designs use largely similar ground station architectures, nuances in implementation caused early operations to focus on maintaining separate, siloed ground station networks with unique software and hardware.

As Planet looks …

Negative Effects Of Coming Out As Lgbtq+ In A Non-Supportive Family, Ashley Nicole Hemphill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study will explore the effects of coming out in a non-supportive family. The coming out process is when an individual discloses their sexual identity to another person. Coming out can be a wonderful experience for some or a negative life-changing moment. This interpretive phenomenological study examined the patterns and themes found through four extensive interviews. The four participants recruited through social media and flyers participated in an interview where they were asked questions about their coming out experience. The minor common themes were experiences by three out of the four participants. These minor common themes were failed parenting, coming …

Application Of Artificial Intelligence And Geographic Information System For Developing Automated Walkability Score, Md Mehedi Hasan

Dissertations

Walking is considered as one of the major modes of active transportation, which contributes to the livability of cities. It is highly important to ensure walk friendly sidewalks to promote human physical activities along roads. Over the last two decades, different walk scores were estimated in respect to walkability measures by applying different methods and approaches. However, in the era of big data and machine learning revolution, there is still a gap to measure the composite walkability score in an automated way by applying and quantifying the activityfriendliness of walkable streets. In this study, a street-level automated walkability score was …

Charter School Leadership Teams: Exploring The Effects Of Leadership Structures On School-Level Achievement, Jason C. Mellen

Education Doctoral

This quantitative study adds to previous research on school leadership effects on school performance. Utilizing existing school level data from Washington D.C. charter schools, this study explores the shift to distributed leadership structures and presence of emerging school-level leadership roles, including academic, behavior, and operational leaders. Then using organizational rosters to create new leadership variables, the study completes controlled multivariate regression modeling to explore the relationships between the presence or absence of these roles with school performance. Overall, the findings show that leadership predictors, despite having intuitive and theoretical links to school performance, had effects of less than 1% on …

Financial Technology And Inclusion In Asean, David Fernandez, Marc Rakotomalala

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Financial technology (FinTech) has the potential to be a positive, game-changing force for boosting financial inclusion in ASEAN, as mobile money and greater access to basic financial services have the capacity to improve the economic well-being of households. Indeed, technology has been shown to drive broader increases in economic growth, which itself interacts positively with financial inclusion. In a more direct way, new, specific fintech developments globally and in ASEAN itself can be beneficial for financial inclusion. In this paper, we look at financial inclusion and technology, and how cooperative efforts between ASEAN policymakers, the private sector, and their broader …

Patterns And Drivers In Counts Of Migratory Raptors At Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Usa, Patricia Kaye Tahura Dumandan

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the mechanisms driving biodiversity patterns amidst an era of global environmental change is the core of modern ecological research. The magnitude of biodiversity losses associated with anthropogenic activities has prompted resource managers and ecologists alike to identify strategies to address conservation issues. Broadly, two types of approaches are employed to answer ecological research questions: 1) single-species and 2) ecosystem-based approach. Single-species approaches are often useful to elucidate mechanisms driving population trajectories of individual species. On the other hand, ecosystem-based approaches can help in identifying general patterns that may be useful for multi-species management.

Here, I used both approaches in …

When Doing More Requires Knowing More: Explaining The Intention To Seek Procedural Information About Recycling, Sonny Rosenthal, Yan Wah Leung

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study examines the relationship between the intention to recycle more and the intention to seek procedural information, in this case, information about how to recycle. In contrast to prior research that used information seeking as a predictor of behavior change, this study considers behavioral intention as a predictor of intention to seek information. Regression analysis of survey data from Singapore residents confirms that prediction, explaining 27% of the variance in intention to seek procedural information. Moderation analysis suggests the effect of intention to recycle more is stronger among individuals with low recycling self-efficacy. An alternative analysis suggests the greater …

Surveying Silicon Valley On Cycling, Travel Behavior, And Travel Attitudes, Kevin Fang

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the results from a March 2020 survey of Santa Clara County residents about their current travel behavior, overall thoughts on travel, and opinions about various forms of transportation in particular. While the instrument inquired about all modes of transportation, the survey was particularly focused on attitudes and behavior related to cycling. A total of 1,009 responses were included in the analysis. Overall, the study confirms that private motor vehicle travel dominates, with approximately 90 percent of respondents reporting that they drive in an average week and own cars. However, the results also show greater use of alternatives …

The Assessment Of Co2 Exposures, Workload Demands, And Musculoskeletal Disorder Risk On Heart Rate For Select Craft Brewery Job Tasks, David L. Huizen

Dissertations

Americans have embraced craft beer, and the ensuing demand has resulted in an ever-increasing number of craft breweries opening over the past 20 years. Craft brewers are generally small employers and, as such, lack the resources necessary to address the safety and health of their employees adequately. Brewers face many safety and health hazards in their work environment. These hazards include exposures to carbon dioxide (CO₂), workload demand, and MSD risk. It is essential to evaluate these hazards in craft breweries as they handle carbon dioxide (CO₂) differently than large breweries by having the CO_{2 …}

Essays On Climate Change-Related Extreme Events, Alvin E. Harris

Dissertations

There are increasing and urgent calls for global economies to join in the fight against the impacts of climate change (World Bank, 2020). With reports such as the World Bank (2020) of climate change costing billions of dollars in losses for economies, the purpose of my dissertation is to examine the effects of climate change-related extreme events and their potential economic effects in three areas: agriculture, migration, and the labor market.

My first essay focuses on the factors that influence farmers’ perception of risk and adaptive strategies against the effects of climate change-related extreme events. I examine whether farmers’ social …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Attitudes Toward The U.S.-Mexico Border Policy: Evaluating Perspectives On Border Security And Building A Wall In The Rio Grande Valley, National Hispanic And General U.S. Populations, Dongkyu Kim, Mi-Son Kim, Natasha Altema Mcneely

Political Science Faculty Publications

Recently, there has been a surge of national attention toward the U.S.-Mexican border in South Texas, known as the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Despite the attention and potential impact, which the wall would directly have on the RGV community, there has been no systemic attention paid to the opinions of the RGV residents regarding the proposed wall and other related immigration policies. This article, therefore, aims to fill this gap by comparing immigration policy attitudes in the borderland communities to both the national Hispanic and the general national populations. By utilizing original data from an RGV public opinion survey we …

Research Focal Areas, Asli Aslan, Brenda Blackwell, Tracy Linderholm

Research & Economic Development

Executive Summary

Georgia Southern University is well-positioned to serve the local region and global community by engaging in public impact research. Public impact research matches community (broadly defined) needs with University resources to help solve the most pressing societal problems. Positioning Georgia Southern University as a public impact research institution aligns well with its recently established Strategic Plan (2019-2024), which calls for building research infrastructure to support interdisciplinary collaborations, better engage within our local, regional, and global communities, and build mutually beneficial partnerships. To move the University in this direction, the Vice Provost for Research, Dr. Chris Curtis, initiated the …

Countering Exclusivism, Promoting Inclusivism: The Way Forward For Singapore, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods, Acmal Zuheyr Iefan Abdul Wahid

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper addresses the situation in Singapore, where a state of religious harmony has prevailed over the past few decades, though evidencing skirmishes and tensions periodically. These skirmishes are a consequence of exclusivist attitudes held by those with religion and those without religion. While some of the strategies that have been in place to address such exclusivist behaviours have been largely effective, the extent to which they have been successful in addressing, more fundamentally, exclusivist attitudes and beliefs is more questionable. Three key dialectics that operate in everyday interreligious encounter are identified to be consequential in countering exclusivism and promoting …

The Study Of Motivation For Defection Within The Intelligence Community: Hindering The Government's Ability To Prevent And Detect Defection, William Virgili

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Since its inception, the global community has been marred by insecurities about the intentions of other states, which led to states creating intelligence agencies to engage in human intelligence operations. In defense against foreign intelligence services, the U.S. has implemented policies and procedures, informed by defection research, to prevent and detect defection. However, this leads to the question does current research on motivation for defection adequately inform government policies and procedures to prevent and detect defection within the intelligence community? To interrogate this question, I present an in-depth analysis of motivation; the ways in which these conclusions have or have …

International Student Recruitment, Retention, And Transfer Efforts At Top Community Colleges Hosting International Students In The United States, Alejandra Diaz-Rangel

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The number of international students enrolled at community colleges across the U.S. has significantly shifted in recent years. As a result, higher education institutions across the country have developed and integrated rationales for attracting and retaining international students to their campuses. The purpose of this research study was to examine international student recruitment, retention, and transfer efforts taking place at community colleges in the U.S. The data that influence the international student recruitment, retention, and transfer plans set forth by community colleges in the U.S. was collected from decision makers at 15 U.S. higher education institutions through the means of …

Quasi-School Leaders: The Lived Experiences Of High School Counseling Directors And Their Role In Schools, Andrea Cherice Simon

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The aim of this study is to explore the lived experiences of high school counseling director’s and how their principal and district school counseling supervisor shape their experiences as leaders. The role of high school counseling director’s is increasingly complex, unique, and oftentimes misunderstood. They are often viewed as leaders and change agents in student’s overall success due to their unique skill levels in advocacy and collaboration (Kaffenberger, Murphy, & Bemak, 2006; McMahon, Mason, Daluga-Guenther, & Ruiz, 2014; Young, Millard, & Kneale, 2013). However, principal’s and district school counseling supervisors are key players in defining the role and responsibilities of …

Bootstrapping Web Archive Collections From Micro-Collections In Social Media, Alexander C. Nwala

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

In a Web plagued by disappearing resources, Web archive collections provide a valuable means of preserving Web resources important to the study of past events. These archived collections start with seed URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) hand-selected by curators. Curators produce high quality seeds by removing non-relevant URIs and adding URIs from credible and authoritative sources, but this ability comes at a cost: it is time consuming to collect these seeds. The result of this is a shortage of curators, a lack of Web archive collections for various important news events, and a need for an automatic system for generating seeds. …

Faits Accomplis In The Shadow Of Shifting Power, Joshua Adam Hastey

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The military fait accompli is so understudied a phenomenon in the international relations literature that even its definition is not widely known. A fait accompli is a unilateral revision to the status quo in an ongoing dispute over some distribution of benefits. Though recent work has demonstrated that faits accomplis are relatively common events in international history and current international relations, the subject remains undertheorized and empirically underexplored. This dissertation seeks to open up the conversation about faits accomplis in two complementary ways. First, it advances an original formal model of faits accomplis in the shadow of power shifts, …

Deep Learning For Remote Sensing Image Processing, Yan Lu

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Remote sensing images have many applications such as ground object detection, environmental change monitoring, urban growth monitoring and natural disaster damage assessment. As of 2019, there were roughly 700 satellites listing “earth observation” as their primary application. Both spatial and temporal resolutions of satellite images have improved consistently in recent years and provided opportunities in resolving fine details on the Earth's surface. In the past decade, deep learning techniques have revolutionized many applications in the field of computer vision but have not fully been explored in remote sensing image processing. In this dissertation, several state-of-the-art deep learning models have been …

Correlates Of Access To Hand Hygiene Resources In Ghanaian Households: An Exploratory Analysis Of The 2014 Demographic And Health Survey, Paul Lawer Kenney, Herman Nuake Kofi Agboh, Florence Akosua Agyemang, Seth Sylvester Dadzie, Henry Ofori Duah, Pascal Agbadi

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Objectives

Handwashing with soap and water remains the most effective public health measure to reduce the risk of infectious diseases, which kill over 2.5 million people annually, mostly children in developing countries. The absence of hand hygiene resources in homes put many at risk of these infectious diseases. In the wake of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) and governments around the world have stressed the importance of regular handwashing to prevent the spread of the virus. This suggests that research on water, sanitation, and hygiene issues deserve continuous scholarly attention. In Ghana, studies on …

Sustaining International Trade With China: Does Acfta Improve Asean Export Efficiency?, Antonio Alleyne, Zhaoyong Zhang, Yifei Mu

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. The business of international trade has never been identified as zero-sum. Yet, dependence on regional agreements to provide alternate means for countries to overlook shortcomings persists. China's recent rise up the trade value-chain has fostered an assumption that the regional agreement provides various advantages to exports from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries. This paper provides an empirical assessment of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) impact on ASEAN export efficiency into the Chinese market, in pre and post eras. Using a structured gravity approach to estimate potential export pattern at aggregate and …

Exploring The Louisiana Purchase And Its Borderlands: The Lewis And Clark, Hunter And Dunbar, Zebulon Pike, And Freeman And Custis Expeditions In Perspective [Part 1], Jay H. Buckley

Faculty Publications

When Americans contemplate the exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the names Meriwether Lewis and William Clark quickly come to mind. Their historic journey was well conceived, well executed, and well documented. It was one of the first and longest U.S. government-backed explorations of the American West. The name Zebulon Pike, for some, conjures up notions of a lost explorer who was arrested by the Spanish as an alleged American spy. Fewer still have heard of the names William Dunbar, George Hunter, Thomas Freeman, and Peter Custis. Even those who have heard of these men may be hard-pressed to identify any …

Marketing To The New Generations Of Lgbtq+ Tourists, George Smith

Master's Theses

As social acceptance for LGBTQ+ people grows, it is essential to research and understand more about tourism and its important role in the lives of LGBTQ+ populations. There are tourism communities around the country that may not be familiar with this market segment and are not sure where to start. This can leave the LGBTQ+ market segment under-represented in the tourism industry. This research sets out to answer the question, “Can tourism communities who wish to expand to newer generations of LGBTQ+ travelers market to them successfully?” Mixed research methods include an exploration of city tourism websites, interviews with tourism …

China Maritime Report No. 7: Gwadar: China's Potential Strategic Strongpoint In Pakistan, Isaac B. Kardon, Conor M. Kennedy, Peter A. Dutton

CMSI China Maritime Reports

This China Maritime Report on Gwadar is the second in a series of case studies on China’s Indian Ocean “strategic strongpoints” (战略支点). People’s Republic of China (PRC) officials, military officers, and civilian analysts use the strategic strongpoint concept to describe certain strategically valuable foreign ports with terminals and commercial zones owned and operated by Chinese firms.

Perioperative Anticoagulation Management In Spine Surgery: Initial Findings From The Ao Spine Anticoagulation Global Survey., Philip Louie, Garrett Harada, James Harrop, Thomas Mroz, Khalid Al-Saleh, Giovanni Barbanti Brodano, Jens Chapman, Michael Fehlings, Serena Hu, Yoshiharu Kawaguchi, Michael Mayer, Venugopal Menon, Jong-Beom Park, Sheeraz Qureshi, Shanmuganathan Rajasekaran, Marcelo Valacco, Luiz Vialle, Jeffrey C Wang, Karsten Wiechert, K Daniel Riew, Dino Samartzis

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional, international survey.

OBJECTIVES: This study addressed the global perspectives concerning perioperative use of pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis during spine surgery along with its risks and benefits.

METHODS: A questionnaire was designed and implemented by expert members in the AO Spine community. The survey was distributed to AO Spine's spine surgeon members (N = 3805). Data included surgeon demographic information, type and region of practice, anticoagulation principles, different patient scenarios, and comorbidities.

Results: A total of 316 (8.3% response rate) spine surgeons completed the survey, representing 64 different countries. Completed surveys were primarily from Europe (31.7%), South/Latin America (19.9%), and …

A Practical Guide To Intergovernmental Entities In Oregon: Creating And Managing An Intergovernmental Entity Under Ors 190.010(5), Jim Johnson

National Policy Consensus Center Publications

The National Policy Consensus Center houses programs that work with government entities and their stakeholders to resolve public policy disputes or implement collaborative solutions to community problems. At times, government collaboration projects evolve into a more permanent arrangement that leads to formation of an intergovernmental entity. This guide addresses the most common questions the National Policy Consensus Center receives about forming intergovernmental entities. The guide provides general answers based on the center’s years of experience with collaborative groups, but it does not provide legal advice. It is meant as a tool for considering the use of an intergovernmental entity. You …

Trajectories Of Initiation For The Heroin-Based Drug Whoonga – Qualitative Evidence From South Africa, Griffin A. Tyree, Nzwakie Mosery, Elizabeth F. Closson, Zonke Mabude, Carol Du Toit, David Bangsberg, Steven A. Safren, Kenneth H. Mayer, Jennifer A. Smit, Matthew J. Mimiaga, David J. Grelotti

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Whoonga is a smoked heroin-based street drug that first emerged in South Africa a decade ago. While previous scientific reports suggest that use is growing and youth are particularly vulnerable, trajectories of initiation are not well characterized. Methods: In 2015, 30 men undergoing residential addiction treatment for this smoked heroin drug in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa participated in semi-structured interviews about their experiences using the drug. Interview data were coded using qualitative content analysis. Results: Participant trajectories to initiating smoked heroin were “vertical” in the context of marijuana use or “horizontal” in the context of other hard drug use. Participants …

The Role Of Information And Communication Technology (Ict) In Securing Books In Irish Academic Libraries., Emmanuel Oguche

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study examined how effective the ICT gadgets are used in securing books in academic libraries and what technological approach the libraries will adopt in the future to ensure books are secured from mutilation and theft. The study was also to understand why students steal or mutilate books. A semi-structured interview was the qualitative research design used to collect data from six librarians. It was discovered that the libraries had adopted the use of ICT security gadgets like Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, surveillance cameras, self-service machine, magnetic strips. The combined use of these gadgets led to the drastic reduction of …

Journeying “Home”: Negotiating Belonging As Vietnamese American Việt Kiều, Mary Yee

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

For Southeast Asian young people who left as adolescents from their home countries, their connections to those places are often fraught with ambiguity. As for almost all first-generation immigrant youth, issues of belonging in America have touched multiple aspects of their lives, including issues of identity. Not belonging is the diasporic experience of the immigrant (Christou, 2011; Skrbis, 2008). This qualitative study examined the lived experience of three Vietnamese American young people returning home as Việt Kiều, or diasporic Vietnamese. For these emerging adults, it was an important developmental task to figure out one’s place in the world: one’s belief …