Digital Commons Network^™

Quantum Solutions For Training A Single Layer Binary Neural Network, Sabrina Ly

Theses

Quantum computing is a relatively new field starting in the early 1980s when a physicist named Paul Benioff proposed a quantum mechanical model of the Turing machine, introducing quantum computers. Previously, the focus of most quantum computers was in the study of quantum applications instead of broad applications due to the fact that quantum technology is a newer field with many technology constraints, such as limited qubits and noisy environments. However, quantum computers are still capable of using quantum mechanics to solve specific algorithms with an exponential speed-up in comparison to their classical counterparts. One key algorithm is the HHL …

Sku Time Series Forecasting Methods For Fmcgs, Mohammad Al Orbani

Theses

This research aims at using forecasting algorithm that predicts the demand that is to be needed on a monthly basis while factoring in occasional inconsistent patterns, seasonality, and non-stationary and cyclical patterns of the data. The prediction is to predict around 3000 SKUs in 19 end markets and since the data is necessary for marketing enhancement and strategies, the Forecasting accuracy must be high. Since market strategies will be based on those predictions and revenue will be lost in the case of an error. Hence, we need to keep in mind that the model is not overfitted and that it …

Identifying Psychological Mental Disorders Through Machine Learning, Mohammad Al Abdooli

Theses

Psychology is the Study of Human Behavior and the various ways of thinking in it’s both consciousness and unconsciousness mind as this field is still growing to various fields such as Sports, Criminal and even Administrative Psychology through, Furthermore, This Study aims to shape and accommodate both fields of Sciences together, There are very few Scholars and Researches done on Medical Mental Health from a Data Analytics perspective, examining the datasets of the patients ICD-11 or DSM-5 scores and correlating it with the patients well-being, family medical history or any accident the patient have been through, so the current study …

Sku Time Series Forecasting Methods For Fmcgs, Mohammad Al Orbani

Theses

This research aims at using forecasting algorithm that predicts the demand that is to be needed on a monthly basis while factoring in occasional inconsistent patterns, seasonality, and non-stationary and cyclical patterns of the data. The prediction is to predict around 3000 SKUs in 19 end markets and since the data is necessary for marketing enhancement and strategies, the Forecasting accuracy must be high. Since market strategies will be based on those predictions and revenue will be lost in the case of an error. Hence, we need to keep in mind that the model is not overfitted and that it …

Using Regression Analysis For Predicting Energy Consumption In Dubai Police, Amal Rashid Alqasim

Theses

The aim of this project is to build a machine learning algorithm to forecast electricity and water consumption for the 27 sites in Dubai Police facilities. This aim is to establish a central database with all the data to monitor the energy consumption in a systematic manner and feed the data in a visualized dashboard. The data was collected from the energy conservation department at Dubai Police for five years from 2017 to 2021 comprising of electricity and water consumption details data. Due to the numerous buildings and facilities any irregular behavior in consumption takes time to be identified using …

Using Data Analytics Techniques To Analyze And Predict Uae Trade, Ruba Alnajada

Theses

This research applies data analytics techniques and algorithms to analyze and forecast UAE’s trade. Regression model was applied to study the relationship between exports, imports, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is “the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. As a broad measure of overall domestic production, it functions as a comprehensive scorecard of a given country’s economic health” (Gross Domestic Product(GDP), 2022) . In this project we applied several data analytics techniques to analyze UAE trade data. We also concluded that, based on …

Deeprm: Deep Recurrent Matching For 6d Pose Refinement, Alexander Avery

Theses

Precise 6D pose estimation of rigid objects from RGB images is a critical but challenging task in robotics and augmented reality. To address this problem, we propose DeepRM, a novel recurrent network architecture for 6D pose refinement. DeepRM leverages initial coarse pose estimates to render synthetic images of target objects. The rendered images are then matched with the observed images to predict a rigid transform for updating the previous pose estimate. This process is repeated to incrementally refine the estimate at each iteration. LSTM units are used to propagate information through each refinement step, significantly improving overall performance. In contrast …

Illinois State University, One Hundred And Sixty-Third Annual Commencement, May 2022, Illinois State University

Commencement Programs

Illinois State University
One Hundred and Sixty-Third Annual Commencement
May 2022

Modeling Intra-Patient Planned Dose Change To Better Understand Dose Response In Cancer, Lauren Burke, Lin Hui Jiang, Tyler Frediani, Drew Haiber, James Winger

Theses

In this paper, we attempt to find the most efficient trial design to determine the optimal dose of cancer treatment. The two trial designs being evaluated are a standard trial design and intra-patient dose-switching trial. The optimal dose is the lowest dose that still causes a decrease in the tumor size. The most efficient trial is defined as the trial in which the distribution of parameters from the data set mostly closely matches the distribution from a simulated trial. We developed an ordinary differential equation to model the change in the sum of the length of tumor diameters over time. …

Understanding Customer Behaviour In Restaurants Based On Data Mining Prediction Technique, Abdulrahman Yousef Alshamsi

Theses

Customer’s behavior varies from person to person based on their segmentations, while understanding these differences is one of the key elements of success in food and beverage sector. By understanding customer’s behaviors, restaurant’s owners will be able to identify their targeted customers and will give a clear insight on their menu products. Additionally, it will allow them to target their marketing campaigns, increase the revenue and optimize the cost. Artificial intelligence applications in this field have a huge positive impact in operations of food and beverage sector and depending on of this technology will change the way of restaurant’s management. …

School Of Music Faculty/Staff Newsletter, May 2022, School Of Music, Illinois State University

School of Music Faculty/Staff Newsletter

Accomplishments and news from the faculty and staff of the School of Music at Illinois State University.

Solid-State Formation Mechanisms Of Core–Shell Microstructures In (Zr,Ta)B2 Ceramics, Anna N. Dorner, Frédéric Monteverde, William Fahrenholtz, Gregory E. Hilmas

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Transition metal diborides with core–shell microstructures have demonstrated excellent mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. Previous studies concluded that core–shell microstructures were formed by liquid-assisted mass transport mechanisms, but in this study, we propose a solid-state formation mechanism for core-shell microstructures in (Zr,Ta)B2 ceramics produced by reaction hot pressing and in ZrB2-TaB2 diffusion couples. Diffusion couple experiments demonstrated that core–shell microstructures developed as a result of Ta diffusion along ZrB2 grain boundaries, which occurred concurrently with lattice diffusion of Ta into ZrB2. These findings suggest that with optimization of batching and processing parameters, core–shell diboride materials may be formed through solid-state …

Feeding Preference Of The Sea Urchin Arbacia Punctulata For Algal Turf Over Kelp In A Degraded Kelp Forest Ecosystem, Kenneth J. Hamel

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Increasingly severe ocean warming and marine heatwave events are driving declines in habitat-forming kelps worldwide. Direct mortality from extreme temperatures, coupled with destabilization of kelp forest communities, commonly trigger ecological community shifts from dominant kelp forests to an algal turf dominated state. Opportunistic algal turf species are more resilient to warming and lack the fundamental structure of kelp forests, and thus reduce ecosystem services and biodiversity. Once in place, algal turf communities contain ecological feedback mechanisms, diminishing kelp recruitment, and potential recovery. The various feedback mechanisms and ecological thresholds that maintain or drive community shifts between kelp forest and algal …

How Will God And The Church Fit Into The Metaverse?, Grace Rose

Comm-entary

In this paper, I tell a story about the argument over whether God and the Church will be part of our coming “metaverse.” While we can be pretty sure that the metaverse will be good for the full range of “congregations,” good, reasonable citizens disagree about whether the metaverse will be just a tool in God’s creation or whether the metaverse will move us past traditional notions of God. In this story, I introduce some of the characters who engage in and contribute to this argument. My story also animates some of the argumentative moves that these characters make.

Tiger King: A Case Study In Environmental Media Representation And Effects, Ashley White

Comm-entary

Over the past decades, tiger populations have drastically fallen worldwide to the point where most tigers are listed as endangered or critically endangered. Furthermore, there are currently more tigers living in captivity in the US than in the wild. In this paper, the relationship between the environmental issue of conservation and the effects of mass media productions is explored through a critical analysis of Tiger King. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions. First, does Tiger King perpetuate or disrupt existing models of documentary narrative and cinematography? (Q1) Second, to what extent is Tiger King …

Rhetorical Analysis Of Setting: Boston Children’S Hospital, Aimee Rothman

Comm-entary

This paper sorts out the architectural and interior design of the hospital. It treats the place as an important aspect of the broad range of messages the hospital sends to its various publics.

Equity Vs. Equality: How Differing Viewpoints Choose To Portray History, Sara Donatello

Comm-entary

This paper explores the themes of equity and equality, defining the terms and applying them to projects done by civil rights activists Nikole Hannah-Jones and Robert Woodson, and a government commission created by Donald Trump. The 1619 Project, founded by Hannah-Jones, pushes the narrative of equity, following the idea of the politics of difference. 1776 Unites, founded by Robert Woodson, provided a counterargument to the 1619 Project, and follows the politics of universalism and equality, holding everyone in the same esteem. Finally, the 1776 Commission, created by Donald Trump, is not associated with 1776 Unites but follows the same narrative …

The Resurrection Of Yik Yak, Lily Neher

Comm-entary

In this paper, I discuss the impact of the app Yik Yak on college campuses, after it returned as a platform in 2021 post 2017 removal. The key aspects of the app include its location-based nature, anonymity, and user moderation system. I discuss advantages and disadvantages of the culture that it fosters, as well as greater social, political, and philosophical implications of Yik Yak as a hybrid space, or a space that permits communication both online and in the real world.

The Ruinous Northern Frontier: The Decline And Collapse Of Frontier And Roman Civilizational Integrity On The Danube, A.D. 370 - 500, James Knight

Masters Theses

The imperial Roman advance to and entrenchment along the Danube from the times of Augustus to Aurelian, mirrored by the slow development of various Germanic peoples beyond the 1,700-mile river’s northern bank, set the stage for a series of climactic engagements between the late Roman Empire and their various barbarous neighbors along what had quickly become the Empire’s most important and unstable frontier. The immigration and settlement of Goths from the Pontic Steppe, fleeing the Huns as they emerged from Central Asia, within the Roman Balkans undermined the Danube frontier, eviscerated the Eastern Roman field army, and enabled Alaric’s role …

Evolved Resistance To A Novel Cationic Peptide Antibiotic Requires High Mutation Supply, Alfonso Santos-Lopez, Melissa J. Fritz, Jeffrey B. Lombardo, Ansen H.P. Burr, Victoria A. Heinrich, Christopher Marshall, Vaughn S. Cooper

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Background and Objectives

A key strategy for resolving the antibiotic resistance crisis is the development of new drugs with antimicrobial properties. The engineered cationic antimicrobial peptide WLBU2 (also known as PLG0206) is a promising broad-spectrum antimicrobial compound that has completed Phase I clinical studies. It has activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria including infections associated with biofilm. No definitive mechanisms of resistance to WLBU2 have been identified.

Methodology

Here, we used experimental evolution under different levels of mutation supply and whole genome sequencing (WGS) to detect the genetic pathways and probable mechanisms of resistance to this peptide. We propagated populations …

Psychotherapeutic Skills Group For Parents And Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder And Co-Occurring Anxiety, Alexius R. Friesz

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder are often diagnosed with comorbid anxiety disorders. Anxiety for those with comorbid autism can have disastrous effects on the child’s physical, emotional, and social well-being, causing more physical symptoms and problem behaviors. These physical and emotional effects can have equally dangerous effects on their caregivers, resulting in parenting practices that are not supportive or meaningful to the children in their care. With the impact that anxiety can have on both the child with a comorbid diagnosis of autism and their caregivers, creating a psychotherapeutic skills group for both the child and the adult …

Covid-19 Conversation Analysis, Luca Tosi

Comm-entary

In this paper, I present the findings from an empirical project completed for a college-level Communication Analysis class. These findings, while containing scholarly terms and nomenclature, are highly applicable to any day-to-day interactions had between any multitude of participants. It is my goal, throughout this paper, to provide readers with a more in-depth look at the ways in which our words and actions convey our messages in ways we didn’t even consciously mean.

Relaxation Of Variational Principles For Z-Problems In Effective Media Theory, Kenneth Beard

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we consider a class of Z-problems and their associated effective operators on Hilbert spaces which arise in effective media theory, especially within the theory of composites. We provide a unified approach to obtaining solutions of the Z-problem, formulas for the effective operator in terms of generalized Schur complements, and their associated variational principles (e.g., the Dirichlet minimization principle), while allowing for relaxation of the standard hypotheses on positivity and invertibility for the classes of operators usually considered in such problems. The Hilbert space framework developed here is inspired by the methods of orthogonal projections and Hodge decompositions. …

Natural Attack For Pre-Trained Models Of Code, Zhou Yang, Jieke Shi, Junda He, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Pre-trained models of code have achieved success in many important software engineering tasks. However, these powerful models are vulnerable to adversarial attacks that slightly perturb model inputs to make a victim model produce wrong outputs. Current works mainly attack models of code with examples that preserve operational program semantics but ignore a fundamental requirement for adversarial example generation: perturbations should be natural to human judges, which we refer to as naturalness requirement. In this paper, we propose ALERT (Naturalness Aware Attack), a black-box attack that adversarially transforms inputs to make victim models produce wrong outputs. Different from prior works, this …

The Impact Of Upzoning On Housing Construction In Auckland, Ryan Greenaway-Mcgrevy, Peter C. B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

There is a growing debate about whether upzoning is an effective policy response to housing shortages and unaffordable housing. This paper provides empirical evidence to further inform debate by examining the various impacts of recently implemented zoning reforms on housing construction in Auckland, the largest metropolitan area in New Zealand. In 2016, the city upzoned approximately three quarters of its inner suburban land to facilitate construction of more intensive housing. We use a quasi-experimental approach to analyze the short-run impacts of the reform on construction, allowing for potential shifts in construction from non-upzoned to upzoned areas (negative spillovers) that would, …

The Relationship Between Perceived Support And Post Traumatic Growth Among Nurses During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Anna Nieman

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Background: Nurses continue to experience significant challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, putting them at risk of occupational stress, burnout, and turnover. The post-traumatic growth model focuses on growth and knowledge that comes from experiences of stress and trauma.

Aim: Identify post-traumatic growth (PTG) in a population of nurses affected by the COVID 19 pandemic.

Method: PTG was measured by the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory, a 21-item questionnaire with five factors: relating to others, new possibilities, appreciation of life, personal strength, and spiritual change. Participants (n=22) responded on a 6-point Likert scale, 0 for no change and 5 for great degree …

An Overview Of Extended Ventilation Requirements Related To Comorbidities., Kaitlyn Horrell

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mechanical ventilation is a machine that that allows patients to breathe when they are unable to adequately do it themselves. This could be due to illness or injury. Ventilators pump oxygen into the lungs through a tube that travels through the trachea. When a patient is put on a ventilator, they will be placed in the Intensive Care Unit. While ventilation is typically a short-term intervention, some patients require ventilation for extended periods of time, and some may not come off the ventilator, eventually dying. Dozens of patients were ventilated in the ICU at Mercy, and most of them spent …

Weight Management Program Using Myfitnesspal© In A Rural Primary Care Setting, Taylor Rittman

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing DNP Capstone Projects

Obesity is a growing health concern that is linked to the development of chronically debilitating physical and mental illnesses. Obesity is a result of a long-term positive imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure. Evidence has shown more than one third of U.S. adults suffer from obesity. Primary care providers in the United States report being overburdened in treating obesity, citing a lack of time, structured approach, and structured resources. Furthermore, the disparities in obesity are even more prevalent in rural areas where older adults are the fastest growing part of the population at risk for this disease. Evidence indicates …

Colorectal Cancer Screening In The Latino Population At A Family Medicine Clinic: A Quality Improvement Project, Michael S. Vinson

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing DNP Capstone Projects

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a preventable and curable disease that affects all genders, races, and ethnicities, and its impact on society can be reduced with early screening. The Latino population is at greater risk compared to groups or ethnicities due to social determinants and health disparities within the community. Review of Literature: Language barriers, low education levels, persistent social stressors, poor healthcare navigation, and structural barriers make it difficult for this population to be properly screened at appropriate intervals. Purpose: This quality improvement (QI) project was designed to combat reduced screening rates seen in the Latino population. The target …

To Flash Or Not To Flash, Christy Overly

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing DNP Capstone Projects

In 2015, healthcare-associated infection (HAI) prevalence survey found that there were an estimated 110,800 surgical site infections (SSIs) associated with inpatient surgeries in 2015. Consequently, instruments and implants sterilized by immediate use steam sterilization (IUSS) have been found to increase the patient’s risk for an SSIs. Due to these risks, the Joint Commission (TJC) determined that organizations should implement evidenced-based protocols to reduce IUSS use. A needs assessment revealed a gap in care in that the increasing SSI rates appeared to be correlated with the misuse of IUSS at the physician owned surgical hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This Doctor of …