Digital Commons Network^™

Kentucky Traffic Collision Facts 2020, Eric Green, Paul Ross, Christopher Blackden, Michael Fields, Kenneth Agent

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

KENTUCKY’S TRAFFIC COLLISION FACTS report is based on collision reports submitted to the Kentucky State Police Records Branch. As required by Kentucky Revised Statutes 189.635:

“Every law enforcement agency whose officers investigate a vehicle accident of which a report must be made...shall file a report of the accident...within ten days after investigation of the accident upon forms supplied by the bureau.”

The stated purpose of this requirement is to utilize data on traffic collisions for such purposes as will improve the traffic safety program in the Commonwealth.

Analysis Of Traffic Crash Data In Kentucky 2016-2020, Eric Green, Paul Ross, Christopher Blackden, Michael Fields, William Staats

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

This report documents analysis of traffic crash data in Kentucky. A primary objective of this study was to determine average crash statistics for Kentucky highways. Where used, rates were calculated for various highway types and for counties and cities. Difference criteria were used for exposure.

Average and critical numbers, SPFs, and crash rates were calculated for various highway types in rural and urban areas. These metrics rely on crashes identified on highways where Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) volumes were available. Data in this report may be used to help identify problem areas.

The other primary objective of this study …

Crash Data Analysis Tool 2.0 Research Report And User Guide, Eric Green, Paul Ross

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

No abstract provided.

In-Cab Alert System For Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers, Brian Howell, Jennifer Walton, Jeeyen Koo

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

In-cab telematic devices use an increasingly robust data platform and can be used to share safety alerts with other commercial vehicle drivers (CMV) drivers. Real-time alert data can come from state transportation agencies as well as from private companies. To address common quality and coordination issues among differing data sources, the Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) partnered with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) and a private vendor, PrePass, to share its App used to send information to CMV drivers. The project demonstrated a proof of concept for the delivery of timely in-cab alerts to warn CMV drivers of approaching roadway hazards. …

A Cdzntese Gamma Spectrometer Trained By Deep Convolutional Neural Network For Radioisotope Identification, Sandeep K. Chaudhuri, Joshua W. Kleppinger, Ritwik Nag, Kaushik Roy, Rojina Panta, Forest Agostinelli, Amit Sheth, Utpal N. Roy, Ralph B. James, Krishna C. Mandal

Publications

We report the implementation of a deep convolutional neural network to train a high-resolution room-temperature CdZnTeSe based gamma ray spectrometer for accurate and precise determination of gamma ray energies for radioisotope identification. The prototype learned spectrometer consists of a NI PCI 5122 fast digitizer connected to a pre-amplifier to recognize spectral features in a sequence of data. We used simulated preamplifier pulses that resemble actual data for various gamma photon energies to train a CNN on the equivalent of 90 seconds worth of data and validated it on 10 seconds worth of simulated data.

Stabilization Of Energy Level Sets Of Underactuated Mechanical Systems Exploiting Impulsive Braking, Nilay Kant, Ranjan Mukherjee, Hassan Khalil

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Recent investigations of underactuated systems have demonstrated the benefits of control inputs that are impulsive in nature. Here we consider the problem of stabilization of energy level sets of underactuated systems exploiting impulsive braking. We consider systems with one passive degree-of-freedom (DOF) and the energy level set is a manifold where the active coordinates are fixed and the mechanical energy equals some desired value. A control strategy comprised of continuous inputs and intermittent impulsive braking inputs is presented. The generality of the approach is shown through simulation of a three-DOF Tiptoebot; the feasibility of implementation of impulsive control using standard …

Comparing Adobe’S Unsharp Masks And High-Pass Filters In Photoshop Using The Visual Information Fidelity Metric, Nhung T. Pham

Theses

The present study examines image sharpening techniques quantitatively. A technique known as unsharp masking has been the preferred image sharpening technique for imaging professionals for many years. More recently, another professional-level sharpening solution has been introduced, namely, the high-pass filter technique of image sharpening. An extensive review of the literature revealed no purely quantitative studies that compared these techniques. The present research compares unsharp masking (USM) and high-pass filter (HPF) sharpening using an image quality metric known as Visual Information Fidelity (VIF). Prior researchers have used VIF data in research aimed at improving the USM sharpening technique. The present study …

How Has The Covid-19 Pandemic Affect The Rejection Rates And Repeat Reasoning Of Digital Radiography?, Duaa F. Jastaniyyah, Abdulkarim A. Jawhari, Abdullah T. Mugharbel, Mawya A. Khafaji, Sarah H. Albahiti

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To compare the digital radiology rejection rates and reasoning pre-COVID-19 (PC) and during COVID-19 (DC) from September 2019 to August 2020. Methods: This record-base retrospective study where data were extracted from the radiography equipment (Carestream Health, Rochester, New York, USA) at the Department of Radiology, King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia over 12 months. The data were equally divided into PC and DC. Results: The DC rejection rate decreased from PC by 2.6% with a significant p =0.00001. During COVID-19 there were 15,376 images of different body parts, versus 23,861 images during PC. Position errors were the main …

A Surrogate-Based Approach To Nonlinear, Non-Gaussian Joint State-Parameter Data Assimilation, John Maclean, Elaine T. Spiller

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

Many recent advances in sequential assimilation of data into nonlinear high-dimensional models are modifications to particle filters which employ efficient searches of a high-dimensional state space. In this work, we present a complementary strategy that combines statistical emulators and particle filters. The emulators are used to learn and offer a computationally cheap approximation to the forward dynamic mapping. This emulator-particle filter (Emu-PF) approach requires a modest number of forward-model runs, but yields well-resolved posterior distributions even in non-Gaussian cases. We explore several modifications to the Emu-PF that utilize mechanisms for dimension reduction to efficiently fit the statistical emulator, and present …

A Phenomenological Study Of High School Academic Subject Teachers’ Experiences Differentiating For English Language Learners, Valerie Jean Campbell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of core academic subject high school teachers with differentiating instruction and assessment for English language learners (ELLs) in central Virginia. Two theories provided the theoretical framework for this study including the socio-cultural theory by Lev Vygotsky (1978) and the social cognitive theory by Albert Bandura (1989). These two theories explain learning as an interaction of social and cultural experiences between teacher and student and address the role of efficacy in teacher expertise. The central research question that guided this study was “How do select high school academic content …

A Phenomenological Exploration Of Adjunct Faculty Perceptions Of Job Satisfaction With Multi-Year Teaching Appointments, Nestor Montilla

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Grounded in the extant literature, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore adjunct faculty perceptions of job satisfaction with multi-year teaching appointments at two campuses of a public urban university system in the Northeastern United States. The study utilized Herzberg et al.'s motivation-hygiene theory, also known as two-factor theory, and Husserl's transcendental phenomenological research design. The central research question was "What are adjunct faculty perceptions of job satisfaction with multi-year teaching contracts?" The data collection consisted of a demographic questionnaire, open-ended semi-structured interviews with twelve adjunct faculty who taught under multi-year contracts from 2017 to 2020, a focus …

The Impact Of National Board Teacher Certification On School Capacity, Sandra Kaye Michels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this ex post facto causal-comparative study is to examine whether a greater number of National Board certified teachers on a school staff has an effect on school-wide standardized assessment outcomes. National Board teacher certification has been examined by researchers as a potential school improvement initiative to address persistent gaps in achievement as measured by state-mandated standardized assessments. The impact of National Board teacher certification on student outcomes has been examined at the individual classroom level and at the statewide level through analysis of scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This study explored the impact …

Building Services Engineering September/October 2021

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Expert Opinion Evidence In Criminal Proceedings: An Updated Framework, Siyuan Chen, Zhi Jia Koh, Jian Wei Joel Soon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The 2012 amendments to the Evidence Act2 “significantly broadened the admissibility criteria for expert evidence”;3 at the same time, the judicial discretion to deny admissibility of relevant expert opinion evidence was also introduced. This article considers the key developments pre- and post-amendments, and in doing so provides an updated framework for prosecutors and defence counsel alike to admit and challenge expert opinion evidence in criminal proceedings. Since it complements earlier articles in this series on similar fact4 and hearsay evidence,5 readers are assumed to be broadly familiar with the features of the Evidence Act, such as its admissibility paradigm, the …

History Of Science (Hos) As A Vehicle To Communicate Aspects Of Nature Of Science (Nos): Multiple Cases Of Hos Instructors’ Perspectives Regarding Nos, Noushin Nouri, William F. Mccomas

Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

Science educators generally accept that the nature of science (NOS) should have a prominent place in school science curricula. This study highlights the special opportunity offered by the history of science (HOS) as a context for teaching NOS, by revealing HOS instructors’ perspectives. We collected data from 15 instructors at 11 institutions who teach a HOS class as part of a national science and math teacher preparation program. This resulted in multiple case studies and interesting cross-case conclusions. The results show several aspects of NOS that these instructors focused on in addition to HOS goals, accompanied by a variety of …

Emergency Procurement And Responses To Covid-19: The Case Of Singapore, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As one of the busiest trade and travel hubs in the world, Singapore quickly became the worst affected of all countries by COVID-19 in the very early stages of the pandemic. For example, on 5 February 2020, two weeks after the unprecedented lockdown in Wuhan by the Central Government of China, Singapore had the highest infection rate (24 cases out of a population of 5 million) in the world, higher than China (20,502 cases out of a population of 1.5 billion).1 Alongside the health emergency, Singapore also had to cope with another emergency as countries around the world, in a …

‘Choice Of Law For Formation Of Contracts: Solomon Lew V Kaikhushru Shiavax Nargolwala, Adeline Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The appropriate choice of law rule for the formation of a contract is an intractable question. Various solutions have been offered, with none enjoying universal approval. In Solomon Lew v Kaikhushru Shiavax Nargolwala, the Singapore Court of Appeal held in favour of the application of a nuanced version of the putative proper law of a contract. It further held that that there was no role for the lex fori in resolving this classic conflict of laws conundrum. While the SGCA emphasised that the reasonable expectations of the parties would be accommodated through its approach, this note argues that this would …

Humanity: Lost And Restored In Comenius's Consultation, Jan Habl

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Biological Resurfacing In A Canine Model Of Hip Osteoarthritis, Bradley T. Estes, Masataka Enomoto, Franklin T. Moutos, Megan A. Carson, Jeffrey M. Toth, Peter Eggert, Jonathan Stallrich, Vincent P. Willard, Deborah J. Veis, Dianne Little, Farshid Guilak, B. Duncan X. Lascelles

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Articular cartilage has unique load-bearing properties but has minimal capacity for intrinsic repair. Here, we used three-dimensional weaving, additive manufacturing, and autologous mesenchymal stem cells to create a tissue-engineered, bicomponent implant to restore hip function in a canine hip osteoarthritis model. This resorbable implant was specifically designed to function mechanically from the time of repair and to biologically integrate with native tissues for long-term restoration. A massive osteochondral lesion was created in the hip of skeletally mature hounds and repaired with the implant or left empty (control). Longitudinal outcome measures over 6 months demonstrated that the implant dogs returned to …

Don’T Roll The Dice On Respiratory Health: How Covid-19 Can Spark Change In Casino Smoking Laws, Madyson B. Bathke

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Pathogenesis, Symptomatology, And Transmission Of Sars-Cov-2 Through Analysis Of Viral Genomics And Structure, Halie M. Rando, Adam L. Maclean, Alexandra J. Lee, Ronan Lordan, Sandipan Ray, Vikas Bansal, Ashwin N. Skelly, Elizabeth Sell, John J. Dziak, Lamonica Shinholster, Lucy D’Agostino Mcgowan, Marouen Ben Guebila, Nils Wellhausen, Sergey Knyazev, Simina M. Boca, Stephen Capone, Yanjun Qi, Yo Son Park, David Mai, Yuchen Sun, Joel D. Boerckel, Christian Brueffer, James Brian Byrd, Jeremy P. Kamil, Jinhui Wang, Ryan Velazquez, Gregory L. Szeto, John P. Barton, Rishi Raj Goel, Serghei Mangul, Tiago Lubiana, Anthony Gitter

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which emerged in late 2019, has since spread around the world and infected hundreds of millions of people with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). While this viral species was unknown prior to January 2020, its similarity to other coronaviruses that infect humans has allowed for rapid insight into the mechanisms that it uses to infect human hosts, as well as the ways in which the human immune system can respond. Here, we contextualize SARS-CoV-2 among other coronaviruses and identify what is known and what can be inferred about its behavior once inside a human host. Because the …

Autobiographical Narratives Of Sexual Violation: Trauma, Genre, And The Politics Of Telling, Sarah M. Hildebrand

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation engages with literary trauma theory and rape studies by investigating how scholars through the 1990s theorized the relationship among trauma, narration, and silence, and how the #MeToo movement causes us to rethink these views. Attending to the specific silence generated in the wake of sexual violation reveals how power structures influence the act of telling, challenging the idea that trauma is untellable. I argue that literary trauma theory needs to push beyond its foundation in biomedical models of trauma—in which the (in)ability to recall or articulate traumatic events is rooted in neurology—to examine the ways traumatic narratives are …

Automatic Cerebrovascular Segmentation Methods - A Review, Fatma Taher, Neema Prakash

All Works

Cerebrovascular diseases are one of the serious causes for the increase in mortality rate in the world which affect the blood vessels and blood supply to the brain. In order, diagnose and study the abnormalities in the cerebrovascular system, accurate segmentation methods can be used. The shape, direction and distribution of blood vessels can be studied using automatic segmentation. This will help the doctors to envisage the cerebrovascular system. Due to the complex shape and topology, automatic segmentation is still a challenge to the clinicians. In this paper, some of the latest approaches used for segmentation of magnetic resonance angiography …

Developmental Histories Facilitating The Emergence Of Creative Scientific Expertise: The Role Of Developed Cognitive Talents, Education, And Social And Cultural Contexts, Jonathan Wai, Matt I. Brown

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Understanding how individual and contextual factors collectively contribute to the developmental histories that facilitate the emergence of creative expertise in science is improved by considering the contribution of the broad structure of developed cognitive abilities to creativity, prospective research on the high achieving or gifted students who may choose careers in and end up as creative scientists later in life, as well as retrospective studies of established creative scientists themselves and what their educational histories reveal. We first review and elaborate on these connections as documented in research which explore the development of talent, including cognitive mechanisms that include math …

Application Of Vortex Tubes To Gas Turbine Film Cooling, Matthew N. Fuqua

Theses and Dissertations

To improve thermal efficiency and reduce fuel consumption, gas turbine engines typically operate at increasingly higher turbine inlet temperatures--well in excess of turbine blade material limits--and film cooling schemes are normally employed to reduce metal temperatures within acceptable limits and prevent structural failure. Cooling requirements vary across a blade surface, but there currently exists no means by which coolant temperatures can be locally adjusted to facilitate optimized usage across a blade. Ranque-Hilsch vortex tubes were investigated as a means of adjusting coolant temperatures solely by fluidic means, induced by the phenomenon of temperature separation. Analytical frameworks were developed to determine …

Effects Of Thermal And Non-Thermal Methods On The Chemical Composition And Bacterial Inactivation Of Camel Milk, Namariq Dhahir

Dissertations

Understanding the composition of camel milk coupled with studying the effects of thermal and non-thermal treatments on its components and bacterial inactivation were the general objectives of this dissertation. In the first study (Chapter 2), the gross composition of camel milk including milk protein, fat, casein, total solids, lactose, ash, and mineral content were analyzed. In addition, fatty acid profile, amino acid profile, protein fractions, and volatile compounds were evaluated as well. Our results revealed that camel milk has its unique nutrients profile. These findings make it easier for the researchers and consumers to understand some of the nutritional attributes …

Safe And Brave Spaces: What Comprises A Fruitful Multicultural Supervision Learning Environment?, Monica Becerra

Dissertations

Researchers continue to emphasize the important role supervisors have in creating a safe space for supervisees to effectively navigate and engage in honest multicultural conversations while also addressing potential biases (e.g., Ancis & Marshall, 2010). However, much of the literature on multicultural supervision provides limited guidance on what characteristics define a safe space. The purpose of this study was to examine accounts of counseling psychology graduate students to learn about their understanding and definitions of safe space and brave space within multicultural supervision, using grounded theory methodology (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). Specifically, the purpose of the study was threefold: (a) …

Information Needs And Information Seeking Behaviour Of Agricultural Research Fraternity Of West Bengal, India: An Evaluative Study, Priyanka Neogi, Bhanu Partap Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present study was undertaken with a view to know the information needs and information seeking behaviour of agricultural research fraternity of Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya (UBKV), Pundibari, Cooch Behar, West Bengal (India), which comprises of teachers, scientists and extension specialists. The study employed the survey method with the help of self designed questionnaire. The findings reveal that 76.40% of the respondents visited the library for issue/return of books, while 59.55% respondents visited the library for accessing electronic information resources. Furthermore, 69.66% of the respondents were seeking their desired information from the library for research work, while 55% respondents seeking …

Holistic Prediction For Public Transport Crowd Flows: A Spatio Dynamic Graph Network Approach, Bingjie He, Shukai Li, Chen Zhang, Baihua Zheng, Fugee Tsung

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper targets at predicting public transport in-out crowd flows of different regions together with transit flows between them in a city. The main challenge is the complex dynamic spatial correlation of crowd flows of different regions and origin-destination (OD) paths. Different from road traffic flows whose spatial correlations mainly depend on geographical distance, public transport crowd flows significantly relate to the region’s functionality and connectivity in the public transport network. Furthermore, influenced by commuters’ time-varying travel patterns, the spatial correlations change over time. Though there exist many works focusing on either predicting in-out flows or OD transit flows of …

Adversarial Attacks And Mitigation For Anomaly Detectors Of Cyber-Physical Systems, Yifan Jia, Jingyi Wang, Christopher M. Poskitt, Sudipta Chattopadhyay, Jun Sun, Yuqi Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The threats faced by cyber-physical systems (CPSs) in critical infrastructure have motivated research into a multitude of attack detection mechanisms, including anomaly detectors based on neural network models. The effectiveness of anomaly detectors can be assessed by subjecting them to test suites of attacks, but less consideration has been given to adversarial attackers that craft noise specifically designed to deceive them. While successfully applied in domains such as images and audio, adversarial attacks are much harder to implement in CPSs due to the presence of other built-in defence mechanisms such as rule checkers (or invariant checkers). In this work, we …