Digital Commons Network^™

The Cannon-Thurston Map For Relatively Hyperbolic Free-By-Cyclic Groups, Kailey Beth Perry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Let F = H1 ∗ · · · ∗ Hk ∗ Fr be a splitting of a finitely generated free group, H = {H1 , . . . , Hk } a set of subgroups of F , and Φ ∈ Aut(F ) an automorphism such that for any i, Φ([Hi ]) = [Hj ] for some j. Consider the free-by-cyclic group Gϕ = ⟨F, t | t−1 xt = Φ(x)⟩. Suppose Gϕ is strongly hyperbolic relative to H̃ = {H̃1 , . . . , H̃k }, where H̃i = ⟨Hi , t | t−1 xt = Φ(x)⟩. In …

Differential Drivers Of Psychological Constructs: A Comparative Analysis Using Conditional Inference Tree And Spatially Varying Coefficient Models, Frank Amo Agyei-Owusu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Psychological constructs such as Anxiety, Depression, Fatalism, Divine Control, Luck, Helplessness, and Internality are pressing subjects in the United States (US). Although several studies have explored how specific covariates influence these constructs, less is known about how combinations of predictors interact to predict these constructs and how these relationships vary across different geographic regions. This study addresses the gap by combining Conditional Inference Trees (CIT) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) to explore the interaction effects of the covariates in predicting the constructs and spatial variability in the determinants of psychological constructs respectively Using a nationally representative survey of 2000 respondents, …

The Impact Of Politics And Identity On Instagram: Exploring The Impacts On Social Connections, Kaslyn Tidmore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how political and identity signals on Instagram-specifically pronoun usage, LGBTQ+ representation, support for political figures, and religious expression-influence perceptions of political leaning, perceived similarity (homophily), and willingness to connect or engage with both individuals and brands. Using a between-subjects experimental design, 222 participants were exposed to mock Instagram profiles systematically varying these indicators. Results from a chi-square test of independence revealed that political indicators in profiles significantly shaped participants’ perceptions of users’ political leanings. Among the indicators, support for a political figure repeatedly reported as the strongest predictor of perceived political leaning, social similarity, and willingness to …

Constraining The Properties And Formation Pathways Of Low Mass X-Ray Binaries In Early-Type Galaxies, Andrew Paul Ferrell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we explore how low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) form and evolve in nearby early-type galaxies. We investigate X-ray binary (XRB) luminosity function (XLF) scaling relations for Chandra-detected populations of LMXBs within the footprints of 24 early-type galaxies. Our sample includes Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope observed galaxies at D ≲ 25Mpc that have estimates of the globular cluster (GC) specific frequency (SN) reported in the literature. As such, we are able to directly classify X-ray-detected sources as being coincident with unrelated background/foreground objects, GCs, or sources that are within the fields of the galaxy targets. We model the …

Nanoparticle Iron Based Catalysts For Clean Water And Other Applications, Shelby Lynn Foster

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the development, characterization, and application of iron-based catalysts for environmental remediation and energy generation. The research focuses on Fe-based nanomaterials for water purification, electrochemical ammonia production, and ethanol oxidation enhancement. The first section of the dissertation investigates the removal of water contaminants using nickel-iron (NiFe) bimetallic nanoparticles. Various NiFe ratios were synthesized and tested for their efficiency in degrading the azo dye (Orange G), with lower Ni content formulations achieving 80–99% dye removal within 60 minutes. Results show that changing the molar ratio of nickel to iron caused different removal rates, as well as the extent of …

A Security Worth Having: The Pursuit Of Happiness Through Reading Burney, Radcliffe, And Austen, Samantha Meeks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the works of three female authors of female protagonists in the long 18th century: Frances Burney’s Camilla and Evelina; Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian; and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. By following the paths to security the female protagonists of these novels fashion, and identifying the elements of Stoicism and related Hellenism and the aspects of cybernetics, this dissertation delves into the choices female protagonists make along the way regarding their security and how such choices lead to agency and self-fashioning for these women. Emotional, economic, and …

Emerald Ash Borer Detection Map, Cooperative Extension, Steven S. Roberge

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Public Support For And Reactive Behavior Toward Technological Risk Interventions: An Extension Of Secondary Risk Theory, Hye Kyung Kim, Rui Gu, Fiona Goh, Sonny Rosenthal, Shirley S. Ho

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Project Wolbachia is a dengue control initiative in Singapore. Guided by Secondary Risk Theory, this study examined how primary (dengue) and secondary (Wolbachia) threat and coping appraisals shape public support and reactive behavior toward the project. A nationally representative survey of 1,000 Singaporeans showed that support was positively linked to the perceived primary risk, the efficacy of the project and the government, while negatively related to the perceived secondary risk. Reactive behavior was positively associated with perceptions of both primary and secondary risk. Media attention and trust in the government indirectly influenced support and behavior moderated by knowledge.

Iot Sensors As A Tool For Assessing Spatiotemporal Risk To Extreme Heat, Kijin Seong, Seung Jun Choi, Junfeng Jiao

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The safety of urban populations sensitive to extreme heat is under increasing threat. Few studies examine the potential benefits of deploying IoT environmental sensors in the urban context and their integration with large-scale human activity data. This paper examines the deployment of IoT sensors in high-resolution extreme heat risk assessment in the case of Seoul, South Korea. This study conducted spatiotemporal analysis on heat exposure with IoT sensors, compared it with an existing land surface temperature map for validation, combined it with human activity data for risk assessment, and finally discussed the benefits of IoTs in detecting abnormal weather events. …

The Return Of Chinese Emigrants: Legal Barriers And Local Practices, Jiaqi M. Liu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

While China has observed an increasing influx of foreign nationals, a notable phenomenon involves Chinese emigrants opting for return migration to reestablish themselves in their country of origin. The process of emigrants returning to China, referred to as “return and resettlement” (huiguo dingju 回国定居) in official terminology, however, is not automatic. Emigrant returnees must fulfill a set of selective and documentary criteria, implying that only economically affluent and duly documented migrants are permitted to resettle in China. Through a comprehensive review of national policies and an analysis of local practices in a diaspora hometown, this chapter argues that the hukou …

Reimagining U.S. Tort Law For Deepfake Harms: Comparative Insights From China And Singapore, Huijuan Peng, Pey Woan Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This Article explores how U.S. tort law can respond more effectively to the distinct harms posed by deepfakes, including reputational injury, identity appropriation, and emotional distress. Traditional tort doctrines, such as defamation, the right of publicity, and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED), remain fragmented and ill-suited to the speed, scale, and anonymity of deepfake dissemination. Using a comparative functionalist approach, the Article analyzes how China and Singapore respond to deepfake harms through structurally divergent but functionally instructive frameworks. China’s model combines codified personality rights with intermediary obligations under a civil law regime, while Singapore adopts a hybrid approach that …

The Regulatory Challenges Raised By The Evolution From Open Banking To Banking-As-A-Service, Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In May 2024, a company in California suddenly made headlines across the financial press. Synapse Financial Technologies, once hailed as a pioneer in the next wave of financial innovation, filed for bankruptcy. The company had promised to revolutionize banking by providing “Banking-as-a-Service” (BaaS): an invisible layer of technology that allowed apps to plug directly into the financial system.

The Cool, Quiet City Machine Learning Competition: Overview And Results, Clayton Miller, M. Ibrahim, I.S. Akbar, B. Picchetti, Y.X. Chua, M. Frei, F. Biljecki, A. Chong, M. Quintana, C. Fu

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The prediction of thermal and noise-based preferences in the urban context is valuable in characterizing interventions to mitigate the challenges of health, productivity, and satisfaction of urban dwellers. The growth of crowd-sourced data and data-driven techniques provides an opportunity to increase the understanding of which machine learning models are most accurate and applicable for this context. This paper outlines the results of a machine learning competition aiming to enhance the accuracy of predicting human comfort in the city context. The competition asks contestants to use contextual data to predict noise distraction and thermal preference in various indoor and outdoor spaces. …

Crwr 511.01: Poetry Workshop, Brian A. Blanchfield

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Irsh 101.50: Elementary Irish I, Traolach O'Riordain, Melissa M. Scully, Abigail N. Moriarty

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Ling 270s.01: Introduction To Linguistics, Mizuki Miyashita

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Phl 110e.50: Introduction To Ethics, Armond J. Duwell

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

The Psychosocial Impact Of Covid-19 Mitigation Measures On Frontline Staff Providing Sexual Health And Family Planning Services In Kenya: A Mixed-Methods Study, Ferdinand Okwaro, Abdu Mohiddin, Marleen Temmerman

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

Background The recognition of the unintended impact of COVID-19 mitigation measures to the availability of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services led to the initiation of mitigation and health systems support mechanisms within public health facilities by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Kenya to maintain pre-Covid-19 levels of SRH service provision. These recovery mechanisms however concentrated on policy and infrastructural elements of service provision with limited attention given to the psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 on health care workers (HCWs). This paper examines the psychosocial impact of COVID-19 on front line family planning (FP) and sexually transmitted infections (STI) management …

Routine Antenatal Ultrasound By Nurse-Midwives In Rural Kenya: A Pragmatic Trial Assessing Feasibility And Effects Of The Mimba Yangu (My Pregnancy) Project, Claudia Hanson, Lucy Nyaga, Nidhi Leekha, Michaela Mantel, Sarah Kedenge, Caroline Gitonga, Violet Naanyu, Jasmit Shah, Marleen Temmerman

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

Introduction: Task-sharing of obstetric ultrasound between nurse-midwives and doctors has the potential to operationalize the World Health Organization’s recommendation of at least one ultrasound before 24 weeks of gestational age for every pregnant woman. Here, we report on the feasibility, acceptability, and effects of the Mimba Yangu (My Pregnancy) task-sharing approach in rural Kenya.

Methods: We conducted a pragmatic trial including 28 primary care facilities between April 2021 and March 2022, selected based on feasibility criteria. Fourteen facilities received the ultrasound intervention composed of (i) task-sharing with nurse-midwives, (ii) the use of portable ultrasound devices (Lumify™) connected to a tablet, …

Whole Genome Sequence Analysis Of Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Across 246 K Individuals, Margaret Sunitha Selvaraj, Xihao Li, Zilin Li, Eric Van Buren, Sara Haidermota, Darina Postupaka, Whitney Hornsby, Joshua C. Bis, Joanne Curran, John Blangero

Human Genetics Publications

Background: Rare genetic variation provided by whole genome sequence datasets has been relatively less explored for its contributions to human traits. Meta-analysis of sequencing data offers advantages by integrating larger sample sizes from diverse cohorts, thereby increasing the likelihood of discovering novel insights into complex traits. Furthermore, emerging methods in genome-wide rare variant association testing further improve power and interpretability.

Results: Here, we conduct the largest meta-analysis of whole genome sequencing for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), a therapeutic target for coronary artery disease, analyzing data from 246 K participants and integrating 1.23B variants from the UK Biobank and the Trans-Omics …

Recurrent Autoregressive Linear Model For Next-Basket Recommendation, Tereza Zmeskalova, Antoine Ledent, Martin Spisak, Pavel Kordik, Rodrigo Alves

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Next-basket recommendation aims to predict the (sets of) items that a user is most likely to purchase during their next visit, capturing both short-term sequential patterns and long-term user preferences. However, effectively modeling these dynamics remains a challenge for traditional methods, which often struggle with interpretability and computational efficiency, particularly when dealing with intricate temporal dependencies and inter-item relationships. In this paper, we propose ReALM, a Recurrent Autoregressive Linear Model that explicitly captures temporal item-to-item dependencies across multiple time steps. By leveraging a recurrent loss function and a closed-form optimization solution, our approach offers both interpretability and scalability while maintaining …

An Efficient Security-Enhanced Accountable Access Control For Named Data Networking, Jianfei Sun, Yuxian Li, Xuehuan Yang, Guomin Yang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Named Data Networking (NDN) is embraced as the crucial implementation of Information-Centric Networking (ICN), enhancing content distribution and caching efficiency through edge routers. However, existing NDN architectures face significant security and privacy challenges, including: (a) a lack of secure and efficient access control; (b) inadequate support for flexible and selective content management by content publishers; (c) insufficient implementation of accountability and privilege revocation mechanisms. To handle these challenges, we propose ESAS, the first-ever Efficient Security-enhanced Accountable Access Control Scheme for NDN. Specifically, our ESAS incorporates anonymous authentication using group signatures at network routers to prevent unauthorized access, employs key-aggregation-based access …

Lighttransfer: Your Long-Context Llm Is Secretly A Hybrid Model With Effortless Adaptation, Xuan Zhang, Fengzhuo Zhang, Cunxiao Du, Chao Du, Tianyu Pang, Wei Gao, Min Lin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Scaling language models to handle longer contexts introduces substantial memory challenges due to the growing cost of key-value (KV) caches. Motivated by the efficiency gains of hybrid models and the broad availability of pretrained large transformer backbones, we explore transitioning transformer models into hybrid architectures for a more efficient generation. In this work, we propose LightTransfer, a lightweight method that transforms models such as LLaMA into hybrid variants. Our approach identifies lazy layers -- those focusing on recent or initial tokens -- and replaces their full attention with streaming attention. This transformation can be performed without any training for long-context …

Ponzilens+: Visualizing Bytecode Actions For Smart Ponzi Scheme Identification, Xiaolin Wen, Tai D. Nguyen, Shaolun Ruan, Qiaomu Shen, Jun Sun, Feida Zhu, Yong Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the prevalence of smart contracts, smart Ponzi schemes have become a common fraud on blockchain and have caused significant financial loss to cryptocurrency investors in the past few years. Despite the critical importance of detecting smart Ponzi schemes, a reliable and transparent identification approach adaptive to various smart Ponzi schemes is still missing. To fill the research gap, we first extract semantic-meaningful actions to represent the execution behaviors specified in smart contract bytecodes, which are derived from a literature review and in-depth interviews with domain experts. We then propose PonziLens+, a novel visual analytic approach that provides an intuitive …

Max-Share Misidentification, Liyu Dou, Paul Ho, Thomas Lubik

Research Collection School Of Economics

While max-share identiffcation has become increasingly popular in a wide range of applications, we show that its validity requires necessary and suffffcient conditions that are rarely satisffed in practice—the target variable’s response to the target shock must be (i) orthogonal to its responses to untargeted shocks and (ii) larger than combinations of those responses. Imposing additional restrictions on the target shock weakens but does not fully eliminate these conditions. We show that in practice, the weight max-share places on an identiffed untargeted shock can be obtained by projecting the response to that shock on the max-share response. We also theoretically …

Speculative Bubbles In The Recent Ai Boom: Nasdaq And The Magnificent Seven, Rerotlhe B. Basele, Peter C. B. Phillips, Shuping Shi

Research Collection School Of Economics

The recent artificial intelligence (AI) boom covers a period of rapid innovation and wide adoption of AI intelligence technologies across diverse industries. These developments have fueled an unprecedented frenzy in the Nasdaq, with AI-focused companies experiencing soaring stock prices that raise concerns about speculative bubbles and real-economy consequences. Against this background, this study investigates the formation of speculative bubbles in the Nasdaq stock market with a specific focus on the so-called Magnificent Seven (Mag-7) individual stocks during the AI boom, spanning the period from January 2017 to January 2025. We apply the real-time PSY bubble detection methodology of Phillips et …

Learning Camp, Language Of Instruction, And Education Outcomes: Evidence From A Field Experiment In Malawi, Hyuncheol Bryant. Kim, Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

We conducted a randomized experiment to study the impacts of a summer learning camp and the language of instruction on education outcomes. The program, covering social studies and mathematics, provided additional high-quality learning time for 4th and 5th graders in Malawi. The program significantly increased test scores in social studies and mathematics (0.24–0.36 standard deviations). We find suggestive evidence that the impact on test scores in social studies was greater for students instructed in Chichewa, the local language, than for those instructed in English. However, we find no such evidence of differential impacts on test scores in mathematics by the …

Policy Evaluation With Nonlinear Trended Outcomes: Covid-19 Vaccination Rates In The United States, Lynn Bergeland Morgan, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper discusses pitfalls in two way fixed effects (TWFE) regressions when the outcome variables contain nonlinear and possibly stochastic trend components. If a policy change shifts trend paths of outcome variables, TWFE estimation can distort results and invalidate inference, especially in a context of evolving policy decisions. A robust solution is proposed by allowing for dynamic club membership empirically using a relative convergence test procedure. The determinants of respective club memberships are assessed by panel ordered logit regressions. The approach allows for policy evolution and shifts in outcomes according to a convergence cluster framework with transitions over time and …

A General Test For Functional Inequalities, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao, Wenyu Zhou

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a nonparametric test for general functional inequalities that include conditional moment inequalities as a special case. It is shown that the test controls size uniformly over a large class of distributions for observed data, importantly allowing for general forms of time series dependence. New results on uniform growing dimensional Gaussian coupling for general mixingale processes are developed for this purpose, which readily accommodate most applications in economics and finance. The proposed method is applied in a portfolio evaluation context to test for “all-weather” portfolios with uniformly superior conditional Sharpe ratio functions.

A Settlement By “Any Other Name”: Evaluating The Sustainability Of Settlement Mechanisms, Dorcas Quek Anderson

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Private settlements have been consistently encouraged by the Singapore civil justice system. Depending on the context, the settlement may take on many forms, including consent orders and settlement agreements. This begs the question of whether the exact form of settlement matters, or whether a settlement “by any other name” suffices. This article proposes the concept of “sustainable settlements” – comprising the measures of ease of enforcement, finality, and confidentiality – to holistically appraise the effectiveness of settlement mechanisms. The assessment of six settlement mechanisms using these measures clearly indicates that not every mechanism is equally sustainable. Exploring settlement amidst the …