Digital Commons Network^™

Legislative Brief, What Is Career And Technical Education In Tennessee?, Tennessee. Comptroller Of The Treasury.

Office of Research and Education Accountability

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Proportional Remittances On The Macroeconomy: Analysis From An Overlapping Generations Model For The Philippines, John Paolo Rivera

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The discourse on micro-foundations linking microeconomic and macroeconomic principles to establish relationships in macroeconomic models have been increasing, one of which is through an Overlapping Generations Model. From its standard form, it has been extended to incorporate migration and remittances. We contribute to the discussion by introducing proportional remittances in the model and trace its effects on the trajectory of aggregate income, consumption, capital stock, and factor prices. Calibration results showed that increases in proportional remittances induce higher aggregate income, consumption, and capital accumulation paths, albeit varying degrees with respect to the elasticity of substitution between current and future consumption. …

Freestanding Graphene Heat Engine Analyzed Using Stochastic Thermodynamics, J. Durbin, J. M. Mangum, M. N. Gikunda, F. Harerimana, P. Kumar, L. L. Bonilla, P. M. Thibado

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present an Ito-Langevin model for freestanding graphene connected to an electrical circuit. The graphene is treated as a Brownian particle in a double-well potential and is adjacent to a fixed electrode to form a variable capacitor. The capacitor is connected in series with a battery and a load resistor. The capacitor and resistor are given separate thermal reservoirs. We have solved the coupled Ito-Langevin equations for a broad range of temperature differences between the two reservoirs. Using ensemble averages, we report the rate of change in energy, heat, and work using stochastic thermodynamics. When the resistor is held at …

The Large Deficit Of Hmxb Emission From Luminous Infrared Galaxies: The Case Of The Circumnuclear Starburst Ring In Ngc 7552, Lacey West, Kristen Garofali, Bret D. Lehmer, Andrea Prestwich, Rafael Eufrasio, Wasutep Luangtip, Timothy P. Roberts, Andreas Zezas

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), the most extreme star-forming galaxies in the nearby (D < 30 Mpc) universe, show a notable X-ray emission deficiency (up to a factor of ∼10) compared with predictions from scaling relations of galaxy-wide high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) luminosity with star formation rate. In the nearby (≈20 Mpc) LIRG NGC 7552, the majority of the IR emission originates in a circumnuclear starburst ring, which has been resolved into several discrete knots of star formation. We present results from recent Chandra observations of NGC 7552, which reveal significant deficits in the 2–7 keV X-ray luminosities from two of the most powerful star-forming knots. We hypothesize that the expected luminous HMXB populations in these knots are either (1) obscured by very large column densities or (2) suppressed due to the knots having relatively high metallicity and/or very young ages (≲5 Myr). We distinguish between these possibilities using data from recent NuSTAR observations, whose sensitivity above 10 keV is capable of uncovering heavily obscured HMXB populations, since emission at these energies is more immune to absorption effects. We find no evidence of a heavily obscured HMXB population in the central region of NGC 7552, suggesting suppressed HMXB formation. We further show that metallicity-dependent scaling relations cannot fully account for the observed deficit from the most powerful star-forming knots or the central region as a whole. Thus, we suggest that recent bursts in local star formation activity likely drive the high L_IR within these regions on timescales ≲5 Myr, shorter than the timescale required for the formation of HMXBs.

An Ml Based Digital Forensics Software For Triage Analysis Through Face Recognition, Gaurav Gogia, Parag H. Rughani

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Since the past few years, the complexity and heterogeneity of digital crimes has increased exponentially, which has made the digital evidence & digital forensics paramount for both criminal investigation and civil litigation cases. Some of the routine digital forensic analysis tasks are cumbersome and can increase the number of pending cases especially when there is a shortage of domain experts. While the work is not very complex, the sheer scale can be taxing. With the current scenarios and future predictions, crimes are only going to become more complex and the precedent of collecting and examining digital evidence is only going …

Characterization And Estimation Of Musculoskeletal Pain Using Machine Learning, Boluwatife Faremi

Master's Theses

Traditional scales utilized for recording pain are known to be highly subjective and biased due to inaccuracies in recollecting actual pain intensities. As a result, machine learning (ML) models that are trained using these scores as ground truth are reported to have low performance for objective pain classification because of the huge disparity between what was felt in moments of pain and the scores recorded afterward.

In the present study, two devices were designed for gathering real-time, continuous in-session subjective pain scores and the recording of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) altered endodermal (EDA) activity. 24 participants were recruited to …

New Methodology For Benchmarking Hydrodynamics In Bubble Columns With Intense Internals Using The Radioactive Particle Tracking (Rpt) Technique, Omar J. Farid, Alexandre França Velo, Binbin Qi, Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new methodology for implementing radioactive particle tracking (RPT) in bubble columns with intense vertical rod internals was developed and implemented to investigate the effect of dense internals on hydrodynamics. The methodology utilizes a hybrid of Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) simulation and an automated RPT calibration device to generate a large number of calibration points for accurate reconstruction of the instantaneous positions of radioactive particles using a similarity algorithm. Measurements were conducted in a 6-inch (15.24 cm) Plexiglas column using an air–water system at a superficial gas velocity of 40 cm/s. Vertical Plexiglas rods 0.5 in (1.27 cm) in diameter …

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter, July 2023, University Of Northern Iowa. Iowa Waste Reduction Center.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter

Contents:

--- Registration Now Open for the IRA/ISOSWO Conference
--- 20 Years of STAR4D
--- Industry News

South Shore Of Long Island Reef Gis Data, Robert M. Cerrato, Matthew Sclafani

SoMAS Research Data

High-resolution backscatter and bathymetric maps created by multibeam sonar surveys were used to identify different seafloor bottom types within existing, potentially expanded, and newly proposed reef areas in New York waters. Existing sites included Smithtown in Long Island Sound (LIS), and Rockaway, Atlantic Beach, Hempstead, Yellowbar, Kismet, Fire Island, Twelve Mile along the South Shore. Potential expansions are proposed on the South Shore for McAllister, Moriches, and Shinnecock reefs in addition to a new site called Sixteen Fathom. In Long Island Sound, new sites are proposed for Huntington/Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson/Mount Sinai, and Mattituck. Grab samples were collected within these …

Advanced Prognostic Modeling For Breast Cancer Patients: Leveraging Data-Driven Approaches For Survival Analysis, Theophilus Gyedu Baidoo

Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second most prevalent form of cancer in women in the United States. Each year, about 264,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in women and of this number, about 42,000 women lose their lives as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Early detection and effective treatment are crucial for improving survival rates and reducing mortality. This study aimed to explore the influential factors that may risk the survival of women with the disease and compare their predictive abilities using several error and performance metrics. The study uses a dataset from the National Cancer …

Modeling Cyanotoxin Production, Fate, And Transport In Surface Water Bodies Using Ce-Qual-W2, Bernadel Rose Hintz Garstecki, Scott A. Wells

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cyanobacteria are frequently associated with forming toxic blooms. The toxins produced by cyanobacteria, cyanotoxins, are harmful to both humans and animals. Rising temperatures due to global climate change are expected to increase the occurrence of cyanobacteria, and it is vital that we protect our drinking water supplies and natural water resources. Modeling the production, fate, and transport of these toxins is an important step in limiting exposure to them and evaluating management strategies to mitigate their impact. The research provided here offers an overview of some of the main cyanotoxins of concern and presents preliminary models for the transport and …

How Equitable Teaching Practices Impact The Mathematical Identity Of English Language Learners From Teachers’ Perspectives, Xiaomei Segelstrom

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This mixed method research study examined the teacher’s perspectives on how equitable teaching practices impact the math identity of English language learners. A quantitative research survey instrument including five major themes that was generated from the frameworks in the literature review was used, and then followed by semi-structured interviews to address the research question. The data collected from the survey indicated that participants do believe that equitable teaching practices would impact the math identity of ELLs via: conveying high expectations, language support, modifying lessons, mathematical tasks and mathematical tools. Building on the survey results, interviewees furthermore informed that all these …

Factors Associated With Extraction Versus Non-Extraction Treatment Among Orthodontic Patients At Marquette University, Kelley Dentino

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Objective: This study aimed to use the available database (2017-2023) of the patients treated in the orthodontic graduate clinic at Marquette University School of Dentistry to survey epidemiologic characteristics and to determine the contributing diagnostic factors and their weights in decision-making for extraction vs. non-extraction treatment plans. Methods: Data were deidentified and extracted from the orthodontic module of the internal clinical records database in axiUm. We evaluated patients who presented between 2017-2023 for comprehensive treatment and collected the following parameters: age, race, gender, anteroposterior occlusal classification (Class I, II, III), skeletal vertical classification (high, normal, or low mandibular plane angle), …

Dynamic Tire Response And The Effect On Roughness-Induced Vehicle Energy Dissipation, Gabriela Ann Lukanus

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Vehicle dynamics models rely on accurate inputs to quantify dynamic loading and energy dissipation to design pavement structures and assess the environmental impacts. The tire’s response to loading is one of the inputs used in these models, and it is typically represented by a linear spring and dashpot connected in parallel. However, tires are made of rubber, a viscoelastic material, so their load response depends on the excitation frequency. Yet, existing models do not incorporate this parameter. This thesis will first examine the load response and its variation with excitation frequency of two truck tires – a dual tire assembly …

Current Vehicle Fleet Inventory And Future Implementation Of A Centralized Electric Fleet At Portland State University, Dane Kovaleski

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

As the effects of climate change continue to impact the world, many institutions have developed climate action goals to reduce their effects on the environment. Portland State University (PSU) has committed to an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2040. A part of this commitment must include looking at the contributions of transportation on campus to reduce carbon emissions. According to a greenhouse gas emissions report done by the Campus Planning and Sustainability Office in 2016, transportation contributed to 12% of total greenhouse gas emissions on campus.

This project aims to evaluate the management …

The Effectiveness Of Nedam's Constructive Model In Teaching Technology To Develop Productive Thinking Skills And Technological Awareness Among Middle School Students In Palestine, Mohamed S. Sharaf

Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies

The study aimed to reveal the effectiveness of using Needham's Constructivist Model in teaching technology to develop productive thinking skills and technological awareness among middle school students in Palestine. The study followed the semi-experimental approach. In order to achieve these goals, two study tools were prepared, which are a test of productive thinking skills, and a measure of technological awareness. The sample consisted of (90) female students, (45) students for the experimental group, and the other (45) students for the control group, from the ninth grade students at Ramez Fakhira Basic School for Girls. A teachers’ guideline was developed to …

A Dynamical Systems Approach To Characterizing Brain–Body Interactions During Movement: Challenges, Interpretations, And Recommendations, Derek C. Monroe, Nathaniel T. Berry, Peter C. Fino, Christopher K. Rhea

Rehabilitation Sciences Faculty Publications

Brain–body interactions (BBIs) have been the focus of intense scrutiny since the inception of the scientific method, playing a foundational role in the earliest debates over the philosophy of science. Contemporary investigations of BBIs to elucidate the neural principles of motor control have benefited from advances in neuroimaging, device engineering, and signal processing. However, these studies generally suffer from two major limitations. First, they rely on interpretations of ‘brain’ activity that are behavioral in nature, rather than neuroanatomical or biophysical. Second, they employ methodological approaches that are inconsistent with a dynamical systems approach to neuromotor control. These limitations represent a …

A Robotic System For In-Situ Measurement Of Soil Total Carbon And Nitrogen, Husein Harun

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Surges in the cost of fertilizer in recent times coupled with the environmental effects of their over-application have driven the need for farmers to optimize the amount of fertilizer they apply on the farm. One of the key steps in determining the right amount of fertilizer to apply in a given field is measuring the amount of nutrients present in the soil. To ascertain nutrient deficiencies, most farmers perform wet chemistry analysis of soil samples which requires a lot of time and is expensive. In this research project, a robotic system was designed and developed that could autonomously move to …

Dynamic Fallowing In The Middle Rio Grande: A Look At The Environmental Water Leasing Program, Jared Wood

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

The Environmental Water Leasing Program (EWLP) is a federally-funded collaborative effort of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that has paid irrigators in the Middle Rio Grande to temporarily lease water rights and forgo their water use so that it may be used to provide environmental flows for the endangered Rio Grande Silvery Minnow. The program operates in a sometimes socially contentious context, in a region with an overallocated, legally constrained water system, to offer much needed water management flexibility. While dynamic fallowing payments for ecosystem services programs like the EWLP are common policy …

Divine Forgetting And Perfect Being Theology, Christopher Willard-Kyle

Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence Tool For The Study Of Covid-19 Microdroplet Spread Across The Human Diameter And Airborne Space, Hesham H. Alsaadi, Monther Aldwairi, Faten Yasin, Sandra C.P. Cachinho, Abdullah Hussein

All Works

The 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19), with a point of origin in Wuhan, China, has spread rapidly all over the world. It turned into a raging pandemic wrecking havoc on health care facilities, world economy and affecting everyone’s life to date. With every new variant, rate of transmission, spread of infections and the number of cases continues to rise at an international level and scale. There are limited reliable researches that study microdroplets spread and transmissions from human sneeze or cough in the airborne space. In this paper, we propose an intelligent technique to visualize, detect, measure the distance …

Applications Of Environmental Dna (Edna) To Detect Subterranean And Aquatic Invasive Species: A Critical Review On The Challenges And Limitations Of Edna Metabarcoding, Sakib Tahmid Rishan, Richard Kline, Md Saydur Rahman

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

The world is struggling to solve a devastating biodiversity loss that not only affects the extinction of treasured species and irreplaceable genetic variation, but also jeopardizes the food production, health, and safety of people. All initiatives aimed to conserve biodiversity rely heavily on the monitoring of both species and populations to get accurate spatial patterns and overall population assessments. Conventional monitoring techniques, such as visual surveys and counting individuals, are problematic due to challenges in identifying cryptic species or immature life stages. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a relatively new technology that has the potential to be a faster, non-invasive, and …

Operationalizing The Duty Of Care Through Rubrics, Emily Faulconer

Publications

Laboratory experiments are a key aspect of science education. However, they do have risks, and accidents do happen. Science educators have a duty of care, which includes duty of instruction. One tool that can be leveraged for duty of instruction is course rubrics. Including clear safety criteria in the rubric operationalizes the duty of care and allows students to clearly understand safety expectations and competencies. Specifically, the use of organizing schemes such as RAMP (recognize hazards, assess risks, minimize risks, prepare for emergencies) in rubrics can provide clear communication to students.

Understanding The Role Of External Pull Requests In The Npm Ecosystem, Vittunyuta Maeprasart, Supatsara Wattanakriengkrai, Raula Gaikovina Kula, Christoph Treude, Kenichi Matsumoto

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The risk to using third-party libraries in a software application is that much needed maintenance is solely carried out by library maintainers. These libraries may rely on a core team of maintainers (who might be a single maintainer that is unpaid and overworked) to serve a massive client user-base. On the other hand, being open source has the benefit of receiving contributions (in the form of External PRs) to help fix bugs and add new features. In this paper, we investigate the role by which External PRs (contributions from outside the core team of maintainers) contribute to a library. Through …

The Impact Of A Continuous Integration Service On The Delivery Time Of Merged Pull Requests, João Helis Bernardo, Daniel Alencar Da Costa, Uirá Kulesza, Christoph Treude

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice that builds and tests software frequently (e.g., at every push). One main motivator to adopt CI is the potential to deliver software functionalities more quickly than not using CI. However, there is little empirical evidence to support that CI helps projects deliver software functionalities more quickly. Through the analysis of 162,653 pull requests (PRs) of 87 GitHub projects, we empirically study whether adopting a CI service (TRAVISCI) can quicken the time to deliver merged PRs. We complement our quantitative study by analyzing 450 survey responses from participants of 73 software projects. Our …

Socialz: Multi-Feature Social Fuzz Testing, Francisco Zanartu, Christoph Treude, Markus Wagner

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online social networks have become an integral aspect of our daily lives and play a crucial role in shaping our relationships with others. However, bugs and glitches, even minor ones, can cause anything from frustrating problems to serious data leaks that can have farreaching impacts on millions of users. To mitigate these risks, fuzz testing, a method of testing with randomised inputs, can provide increased confidence in the correct functioning of a social network. However, implementing traditional fuzz testing methods can be prohibitively difficult or impractical for programmers outside of the network’s development team. To tackle this challenge, we present …

Learning To Ask Clarification Questions With Spatial Reasoning, Yang Deng, Shuaiyi Li, Wai Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Asking clarifying questions has become a key element of various conversational systems, allowing for an effective resolution of ambiguity and uncertainty through natural language questions. Despite the extensive applications of spatial information grounded dialogues, it remains an understudied area on learning to ask clarification questions with the capability of spatial reasoning. In this work, we propose a novel method, named SpatialCQ, for this problem. Specifically, we first align the representation space between textual and spatial information by encoding spatial states with textual descriptions. Then a multi-relational graph is constructed to capture the spatial relations and enable spatial reasoning with relational …

Towards Robust Personalized Dialogue Generation Via Order-Insensitive Representation Regularization, Liang Chen, Hongru Wang, Yang Deng, Wai-Chung Kwan, Zezhong Wang, Kam-Fai Wong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Generating persona consistent dialogue response is important for developing an intelligent conversational agent. Recent works typically fine-tune large-scale pre-trained models on this task by concatenating persona texts and dialogue history as a single input sequence to generate the target response. While simple and effective, our analysis shows that this popular practice is seriously affected by order sensitivity where different input orders of persona sentences significantly impact the quality and consistency of generated response, resulting in severe performance fluctuations (i.e., 29.4% on GPT2 and 83.2% on BART). To mitigate the order sensitivity problem, we propose a model-agnostic framework, ORder Insensitive Generation …

Semantic-Based Neural Network Repair, Richard Schumi, Jun Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recently, neural networks have spread into numerous fields including many safety-critical systems. Neural networks are built (and trained) by programming in frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch. Developers apply a rich set of pre-defined layers to manually program neural networks or to automatically generate them (e.g., through AutoML). Composing neural networks with different layers is error-prone due to the non-trivial constraints that must be satisfied in order to use those layers. In this work, we propose an approach to automatically repair erroneous neural networks. The challenge is in identifying a minimal modification to the network so that it becomes valid. …

Proactive Conversational Agents In The Post-Chatgpt World, Lizi Liao, Grace Hui Yang, Chirag Shah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

ChatGPT and similar large language model (LLM) based conversational agents have brought shock waves to the research world. Although astonished by their human-like performance, we find they share a significant weakness with many other existing conversational agents in that they all take a passive approach in responding to user queries. This limits their capacity to understand the users and the task better and to offer recommendations based on a broader context than a given conversation. Proactiveness is still missing in these agents, including their ability to initiate a conversation, shift topics, or offer recommendations that take into account a more …