Digital Commons Network^™

Knowledge For Equitable Mathematics Teaching: The Case Of Latino Ells In U.S. Schools, Aaron T. Wilson

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper reports the exploration of an aspect of knowledge needed for equitable mathematics teaching. Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics to English Language Learners (PCK-MELL) was proposed as a theoretical knowledge construct, a subdomain of MKT, and the construct was investigated through a process of survey instrument development and administration. The survey contained items intended to measure teachers’ knowledge of the obstacles encountered by ELLs in math classes, of the resources that ELLs draw upon, and of instructional strategies for teaching ELLs. Analysis of middle school mathematics teachers’ responses (N = 42) offered insights into how to improve the …

Depression In Mexican Americans With Diagnosed And Undiagnosed Diabetes, Rene L. Olvera, Susan P. Fisher-Hoch, Douglas E. Williamson, Kristina Vatcheva, Joseph B. Mccormick

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Depression and diabetes commonly co-occur; however, the strength of the physiological effects of diabetes as mediating factors towards depression is uncertain.

Method: We analyzed extensive clinical, epidemiological and laboratory data from n = 2081 Mexican Americans aged 35-64 years, recruited from the community as part of the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort (CCHC) divided into three groups: Diagnosed (self-reported) diabetes (DD, n = 335), Undiagnosed diabetes (UD, n = 227) and No diabetes (ND, n = 1519). UD participants denied being diagnosed with diabetes, but on testing met the 2010 American Diabetes Association and World Health Organization definitions of diabetes. …

Social Accountability: Introducing A New Dimension In Optometric Education, Vanessa Raquel Moodley, James Loughman, Kovin Naidoo

Articles

Optometry globally has undergone major developments yet poor eye health statistics remain. The World Health Organization (WHO) cites social accountability as key to addressing health challenges, urging the education sector to be more socially accountable and train according to the needs of society. A qualitative, descriptive study was used to determine the integration of social accountability within optometric education in sub-Saharan Africa. Eleven academic leaders and two student groups participated in key stakeholder interviews and focus group discussions respectively. Data was thematically analysed using interpretive content analysis. The study found that social accountability policies or practices were not formally integrated …

How Long Can Pope Francis Expect To Live, J Stander, Valle L Dalla, Borja M Cortina

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

First Low Frequency All-Sky Search For Continuous Gravitational Wave Signals, J. Aasi, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper we present the results of the first low frequency all-sky search of continuous gravitational wave signals conducted on Virgo VSR2 and VSR4 data. The search covered the full sky, a frequency range between 20 and 128 Hz with a range of spin-down between -1.0 x 10^-10 and +1.5 x 10^-11 Hz/s, and was based on a hierarchical approach. The starting point was a set of short fast Fourier transforms, of length 8192 s, built from the calibrated strain data. Aggressive data cleaning, in both the time and frequency domains, has been done in order to …

Multiagent-Based Route Guidance For Increasing The Chance Of Arrival On Time, Zhiguang Cao, Hongliang Guo, Jie Zhang, Ulrich Fastenrath

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Transportation and mobility are central to sustainable urban development, where multiagent-based route guidance is widely applied. Traditional multiagent-based route guidance always seeks LET (least expected travel time) paths. However, drivers usually have specific expectations, i.e., tight or loose deadlines, which may not be all met by LET paths. We thus adopt and extend the probability tail model that aims to maximize the probability of reaching destinations before deadlines. Specifically, we propose a decentralized multiagent approach, where infrastructure agents locally collect intentions of concerned vehicle agents and formulate route guidance as a route assignment problem, to guarantee their arrival on time. …

Analytical Model For Calibrating Laser Intensity In Strong-Field-Ionization Experiments, Song-Feng. Zhao, Anh-Thu Le, Cheng Jin, Xu Wang, C. D. Lin

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The interaction of an intense laser pulse with atoms and molecules depends extremely nonlinearly on the laser intensity. Yet experimentally there still exists no simple reliable methods for determining the peak laser intensity within the focused volume. Here we present a simple method, based on an improved Perelomov-Popov-Terent'ev model, that would allow the calibration of laser intensities from the measured ionization signals of atoms or molecules. The model is first examined by comparing ionization probabilities (or signals) of atoms and several simple diatomic molecules with those from solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. We then show the possibility of using this …

Calculated Vibrational States Of Ozone Up To Dissociation, Steve Alexandre Ndengué, Richard Dawes, Xiaogang Wang, Tucker Carrington Jr., Zhigang Sun, Hua Guo

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new accurate global potential energy surface for the ground electronic state of ozone [R. Dawes et al., J. Chem. Phys. 139, 201103 (2013)] was published fairly recently. The topography near dissociation differs significantly from previous surfaces, without spurious submerged reefs and corresponding van der Waals wells. This has enabled significantly improved descriptions of scattering processes, capturing the negative temperature dependence and large kinetic isotope effects in exchange reaction rates. The exchange reactivity was found to depend on the character of near-threshold resonances and their overlap with reactant and product wavefunctions, which in turn are sensitive to the potential. Here …

Ict-Travel: Mobile Public Transport Companion For The Visually Impaired, Linting Cui, Kenny Ngo, Benjamin Kok Siew Gan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The smartphone application widespread adoption has brought about many conveniences to the general population. Unfortunately, like most technology adoption, the focus lacks behind for people with disabilities. Yet, the potential for IT to personalize the mobile application for these groups is high. In our capstone project at Singapore Management University, we developed an iOS application for the visually impaired to use the public transport in Singapore. Beyond meeting the initial requirements, we tested with the visually impaired in order to empathize and cater to their specific needs. This software engineering project is a lesson in iterative software development with changing …

Capstone Course On Facilitating Business Brainstorming In A Global Workplace, Edison Jun Hao Lim, Benjamin Gan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper describes our capstone team’s experience toward building a IT system for business brainstorming at work. The Canvas project aims to facilitate the Business Model Canvas exercise between employees at NEC Corporation. Traditional brainstorming meetings require employees to be in the same location, are hard to organize and are hard to archive. Our team, Rokoo, developed a web application that resolves these challenges by allowing global employees to brainstorm together on the same platform.

Paper 1: Work After Service: Developing Workforce Readiness And Veteran Talent For The Future, Deborah A. Bradbard, Nicholas Armstrong, Rosalinda Maury

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This paper covers several related topics such as: Understanding how the concept of workforce readiness applies to transitioning service members and veterans; examining interactions between career preferences, job matching, performance, and retention; exploring the links between financial readiness, spouse employment, and workforce readiness; and employer perspectives on workforce readiness and key factors and practices that influence retention and job satisfaction among veteran employees.

Acoustic Sequences In Non-Human Animals: A Tutorial Review And Prospectus, Arik Kershenbaum, Daniel T. Blumstein, Marie A. Roch, Çağlar Akçay, Gregory Backus, Mark A. Bee, Kirsten Bohn, Yan Cao, Gerald Carter, Cristiane Cäsar, Michael Coen, Stacy L. Deruiter, Laurance Doyle, Shimon Edelman, Ramon Ferreri Cancho, Todd M. Freeberg, Ellen C. Garland, Morgan Gustison, Heidi E. Harley, Chloé Huetz, Melissa Hughes, Julia Hyland Bruno, Amiyaal Ilany, Dezhe Z. Jin, Michael T. Johnson, Chenghui Ju, Jeremy Karnowski, Bernard Lohr, Marta B. Manser, Brenda Mccowan, Eduardo Mercado Iii, Peter M. Narins, Alex Piel, Megan Rice, Roberta Salmi, Kazutoshi Sasahara, Laela Sayigh, Yu Shiu, Charles Taylor, Edgar E. Vallejo, Sara Waller, Veronica Zamora Gutierrez

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Animal acoustic communication often takes the form of complex sequences, made up of multiple distinct acoustic units. Apart from the well-known example of birdsong, other animals such as insects, amphibians, and mammals (including bats, rodents, primates, and cetaceans) also generate complex acoustic sequences. Occasionally, such as with birdsong, the adaptive role of these sequences seems clear (e.g. mate attraction and territorial defence). More often however, researchers have only begun to characterise – let alone understand – the significance and meaning of acoustic sequences. Hypotheses abound, but there is little agreement as to how sequences should be defined and analysed. Our …

Granger Causality And Structural Causality In Cross-Section And Panel Data, Xun Lu, Liangjun Su, Halbert White

Research Collection School Of Economics

Granger non-causality in distribution is fundamentally a probabilistic conditional independence notion that can be applied not only to time series data but also to cross-section and panel data. In this paper, we provide a natural definition of structural causality in cross-section and panel data and forge a direct link between Granger (G-) causality and structural causality under a key conditional exogeneity assumption. To put it simply, when structural effects are well defined and identifiable, G- non-causality follows from structural non-causality, and with suitable conditions (e.g., separability or monotonicity), structural causality also implies G-causality. This justifies using tests of G- non-causality …

One Size Does Not Fit All: A Game-Theoretic Approach For Dynamically And Effectively Screening For Threats, Matthew Brown, Arunesh Sinha, Aaron Schlenker, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An effective way of preventing attacks in secure areas is to screen for threats (people, objects) before entry, e.g., screening of airport passengers. However, screening every entity at the same level may be both ineffective and undesirable. The challenge then is to find a dynamic approach for randomized screening, allowing for more effective use of limited screening resources, leading to improved security. We address this challenge with the following contributions: (1) a threat screening game (TSG) model for general screening domains; (2) an NP-hardness proof for computing the optimal strategy of TSGs; (3) a scheme for decomposing TSGs into subgames …

Identification Of Aphid (Hemiptera: Aphididae) Species Of Economic Importance In Kenya Using Dna Barcodes And Pcr-Rflp-Based Approach, G. Kinyanjui, F. M. Khamis, S. Mohamed, L. O. Ombura, M. Warigia, S. Ekesi

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Aphids are among pests of economic importance throughout the world. Together with transmitting plant viruses, aphids are capable of inflicting severe crop production losses. They also excrete honeydew that favours the growth of sooty mold which reduces the quality of vegetables and fruits and hence their market values. Rapid and accurate identification of aphids to the species level is a critical component in effective pest management and plant quarantine systems. Even though morphological taxonomy has made a tremendous impact on species-level identifications, polymorphism, morphological plasticity and immature stages are among the many challenges to accurate identification. In addition, their small …

Information Anxiety And Information Overload Of Undergraduates In Two Universities In South-West Nigeria, Olufemi J. Ojo Mr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Information anxiety and information overload have no single generally accepted definition and term. They are all state based academic anxiety that serve as a barrier to the use of information particularly by students. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the influence of age and gender on information anxiety as well as information overload by undergraduates in University of Ibadan and Tai-Solarin University of Education in South-West Nigeria. The study population were 193 undergraduates in four faculties similar to both universities sampled using purposive and stratified random sampling technique with proportionate to sample while six hypotheses were formulated and …

Ranking Of High-Value Social Audiences On Twitter, Siaw Ling Lo, Raymond Chiong, David Cornforth

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Even though social media offers plenty of business opportunities, for a company to identify the right audience from the massive amount of social media data is highly challenging given finite resources and marketing budgets. In this paper, we present a ranking mechanism that is capable of identifying the top-k social audience members on Twitter based on an index. Data from three different Twitter business account owners were used in our experiments to validate this ranking mechanism. The results show that the index developed using a combination of semi-supervised and supervised learning methods is indeed generic enough to retrieve relevant audience …

Shortest Path Based Decision Making Using Probabilistic Inference, Akshat Kumar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present a new perspective on the classical shortest path routing (SPR) problem in graphs. We show that the SPR problem can be recast to that of probabilistic inference in a mixture of simple Bayesian networks. Maximizing the likelihood in this mixture becomes equivalent to solving the SPR problem. We develop the well known Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm for the SPR problem that maximizes the likelihood, and show that it does not get stuck in a locally optimal solution. Using the same probabilistic framework, we then address an NP-Hard network design problem where the goal is to repair a network of …

Online Cross-Modal Hashing For Web Image Retrieval, Liang Xie, Jialie Shen, Lei Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cross-modal hashing (CMH) is an efficient technique for the fast retrieval of web image data, and it has gained a lot of attentions recently. However, traditional CMH methods usually apply batch learning for generating hash functions and codes. They are inefficient for the retrieval of web images which usually have streaming fashion. Online learning can be exploited for CMH. But existing online hashing methods still cannot solve two essential problems: Efficient updating of hash codes and analysis of cross-modal correlation. In this paper, we propose Online Cross-modal Hashing (OCMH) which can effectively address the above two problems by learning the …

Solving Risk-Sensitive Pomdps With And Without Cost Observations, Ping Hou, William Yeoh, Pradeep Varakantham

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are often used to model planning problems under uncertainty. The goal in Risk-Sensitive POMDPs (RS-POMDPs) is to find a policy that maximizes the probability that the cumulative cost is within some user-defined cost threshold. In this paper, unlike existing POMDP literature, we distinguish between the two cases of whether costs can or cannot be observed and show the empirical impact of cost observations. We also introduce a new search-based algorithm to solve RS-POMDPs and show that it is faster and more scalable than existing approaches in two synthetic domains and a taxi domain generated …

Robust Decision Making For Stochastic Network Design, Akshat Kumar, Arambam James Singh, Pradeep Varakantham, Daniel Sheldon

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We address the problem of robust decision making for stochastic network design. Our work is motivated by spatial conservation planning where the goal is to take management decisions within a fixed budget to maximize the expected spread of a population of species over a network of land parcels. Most previous work for this problem assumes that accurate estimates of different network parameters (edge activation probabilities, habitat suitability scores) are available, which is an unrealistic assumption. To address this shortcoming, we assume that network parameters are only partially known, specified via interval bounds. We then develop a decision making approach that …

Online Advertising, Retail Platform Openness, And Long Tail Sellers, Jianqing Chen, Zhiling Guo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

Exploring Heterogeneous Features For Query-Focused Summarization Of Categorized Community Answers, Wei Wei, Zhaoyan Ming, Liqiang Nie, Guohui Li, Jianjun Li, Feida Zhu, Tianfeng Shang, Changyin Luo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Community-based question answering (cQA) is a popular type of online knowledge-sharing web service where users ask questions and obtain answers contributed by others. To enhance knowledge sharing, cQA also provides users with a retrieval function to access the historical question-answer pairs (QAs). However, it is still ineffective in that the retrieval result is typically a ranking list of potentially relevant QAs, rather than a succinct and informative answer. To alleviate the problem, this paper proposes a three-level scheme, which aims to generate a query-focused summary-style answer in terms of two factors, i.e., novelty and redundancy. Specifically, we first retrieve a …

Mobile App Tagging, Ning Chen, Steven C. H. Hoi, Shaohua Li, Xiaokui Xiao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Mobile app tagging aims to assign a list of keywords indicating core functionalities, main contents, key features or concepts of a mobile app. Mobile app tags can be potentially useful for app ecosystem stakeholders or other parties to improve app search, browsing, categorization, and advertising, etc. However, most mainstream app markets, e.g., Google Play, Apple App Store, etc., currently do not explicitly support such tags for apps. To address this problem, we propose a novel auto mobile app tagging framework for annotating a given mobile app automatically, which is based on a search-based annotation paradigm powered by machine learning techniques. …

Effects Of Traditional And Online Instructional Models On Student Achievement Outcomes, Vanessa Wrenn

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Although virtual education options have rapidly expanded in recent years, little academic research has examined the effectiveness of these courses. Furthermore, little research has been conducted at the secondary school level for public school students. Policymakers and school leaders need reliable research in order to make informed decisions about online learning and to implement programs, which add value to the quality of instruction and provide students with the support they need to be successful. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of instructional model on student achievement for public high school English II students. The high school …

Do College Rankings Matter? Examining The Influence Of “America’S Best Black Colleges” On Hbcu Undergraduate Admissions, Willis A. Jones

Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation Faculty Publications

College rankings have become a ubiquitous part of American higher education. As the popularity of rankings has increased, so have the number of research studies attempting to better understand the impact rankings have on college/university admissions outcomes. In the past, these studies have focused almost exclusively on elite national universities and liberal arts colleges. This study broadens research in this area by examining how the introduction of U.S. News and World Report’s “America’s Best Black Colleges” section influenced undergraduate admissions among historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The findings suggest that college rankings have little correlation with admissions outcomes …

Salem Keizer Prenatal-Grade Three Evaluation & Technical Assistance, Center For Improvement Of Child And Family Services

Early Childhood

The purpose of this document is to provide information and resources to schools, early childhood programs, and others who are seeking to improve school readiness, family engagement, and school success within a Prenatal-Grade 3 framework. While the information presented is not a comprehensive list of programs and strategies, the list reflects resources that have been identified as potentially useful within Oregon and/or strategies that have been used in Oregon to strengthen child and family outcomes. This document is one of three compilations of programs, activities, and resources. This document includes resources related to (1) Children’s Kindergarten Readiness and Transition to …

Distributed Modeling Of Ablation (1996–2011) And Climate Sensitivity On The Glaciers Of Taylor Valley, Antarctica, Matthew J. Hoffman, Andrew G. Fountain, Glen E. Liston

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica host the coldest and driest ecosystem on Earth, which is acutely sensitive to the availability of water coming from glacial runoff. We modeled the spatial variability in ablation and assessed climate sensitivity of the glacier ablation zones using 16 years of meteorological and surface mass-balance observations collected in Taylor Valley. Sublimation was the primary form of mass loss over much of the ablation zones, except for near the termini where melt, primarily below the surface, dominated. Microclimates in ~10 m scale topographic basins generated melt rates up to ten times higher than over smooth …

In Defense Of Culturally-Specific Organizations: Understanding The Rationale And The Evidence, Ann Curry-Stevens, Jennifer Sita Muthanna

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Racial disparities abound in human services, with communities of color facing grave impediments to positive progress. Mainstream institutions move painstakingly slowly on reforms—movement too slow to offer this generation prospects for real hope in equity. This paper builds the rationale for expanding funding for culturally-specific organizations, detailing the ways that the literature and the tacit knowledge of culturally-specific organizations improve outcomes for clients and communities of color. The article identifies the service benefits in terms of client outcomes, accountability practices, community benefits, cultural affirmation and inclusion, building community and political capital, and lessening investments in white-centric services. We also identify …

The Log-Exponential Smoothing Technique And Nesterov’S Accelerated Gradient Method For Generalized Sylvester Problems, N. T. An, Daniel J. Giles, Nguyen Mau Nam, R. Blake Rector

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Sylvester or smallest enclosing circle problem involves finding the smallest circle enclosing a finite number of points in the plane. We consider generalized versions of the Sylvester problem in which the points are replaced by sets. Based on the log-exponential smoothing technique and Nesterov’s accelerated gradient method, we present an effective numerical algorithm for solving these problems.