Business Commons^™

Three Essays On Opinion Mining Of Social Media Texts, Shuyuan Deng

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research is a collection of three essays on opinion mining of social media texts. I explore different theoretical and methodological perspectives in this inquiry. The first essay focuses on improving lexicon-based sentiment classification. I propose a method to automatically generate a sentiment lexicon that incorporates knowledge from both the language domain and the content domain. This method learns word associations from a large unannotated corpus. These associations are used to identify new sentiment words. Using a Twitter data set containing 743,069 tweets related to the stock market, I show that the sentiment lexicons generated using the proposed method …

The Phenomenon Of Outbound Medical Tourism In The United States, Tanner Douglas Cabbage

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Empirical Studies On Interest Rate Derivatives, Xudong Sun

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Interest rate models are the building blocks of financial market and the interest rate derivatives market is the largest derivatives market in the world. In this dissertation, we shall focus on numerical pricing of interest rate derivatives, estimating model parameters by Kalman filter, and studying various models empirically. We shall propose a front-fixing finite element method to price the American put option under the quadratic term structure framework and compare it with a trinomial tree method and common finite element method. Numerical test results show the superiority of our front-fixing finite element method in the aspects of computing the option …

Methane Production By A Packed-Bed Anaerobic Digester Fed Dairy Barn Flush Water, Sean Richard Thomson

Master's Theses

Packed-bed digesters are an alternative to covered lagoon digesters for methane production and anaerobic treatment of dilute wastewaters such as dairy barn flush water. The physical media of packed-beds retain biofilms, often allowing increased treatment rates. Previous studies have evaluated several types of media for digestion of dilute wastewaters, but cost and media fouling have setback commercial development. A major operational cost has been effluent recirculation pumping.

In the present effort, a novel approach to anaerobic digestion of flush dairy water was developed at pilot-scale: broken walnut shells were used as a low-cost packed-bed medium and effluent recirculation was replaced …

An Investigation Of The Key Factors That Affect The Adoption Of Smartphones In Global Midmarket Professional Service Firms, Mark S. Kocour

CCE Theses and Dissertations

The evolution and proliferation of mobile devices (m-devices) in the workplace have been rapid. In comparison to conventional services provided by mobile phones (m-phones), smartphones feature sophisticated functionality, such as Internet access, video/audio streaming, and business productivity applications. As a consequence of increased demand for smartphones in the workplace, an understanding of the factors that determine the decision to adopt smartphones in business settings is necessary. The goal of this investigation was to identify the key factors that have an impact on the adoption of smartphones.

This dissertation investigation provided an understanding of the key factors that affect the adoption …

Intent-Based User Segmentation With Query Enhancement, Wei Xiong

Dissertations

With the rapid advancement of the internet, accurate prediction of user's online intent underlying their search queries has received increasing attention from the online advertising community. As a rich source of information on web user's behavior, query logs have been leveraged by advertising companies to deliver personalized advertisements. However, a typical query usually contains very few terms, which only carry a small amount of information about a user's interest. The tendency of users to use short and ambiguous queries makes it difficult to fully describe and distinguish a user's intent. In addition, the query feature space is sparse, as only …

Research On The Safety Management Of Yacht In Tianjin Under The Development Of Yacht Economy, Yongbin Chen

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Customer Satisfaction Analysis In Loading & Unloading At Indonesia Vehicle Terminal With Servqual Method, Audy Nirsa Kusuma

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Forecast And Analysis Of Seaborne Import Oil Freight From South Africa To China, Qingying Xu

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Business Intelligence Techniques In Supply Chain Performance, Jue Gu

Open Access Theses

Who likes data? Businesses are always loyal data followers. Companies analyze various forms of data to maintain businesses and identify their current performance in different areas so they can find business opportunities to improve and obtain more market share in advance (Qrunfleh & Tarafdar, 2012). When Big Data comes to businesses, companies who can take advantage of data the best tend to regularly get more business and customers (Waller & Fawcett, 2013). Collecting, analyzing, and demonstrating data could be essential to a single business, a company's supply chain performance and its sustainability. As an intelligent data processing product in terms …

Field To Flight: A Techno-Economic Analysis Of Stover To Aviation Biofuels Supply Chain, Amanda C. Bittner

Open Access Theses

Greenhouse gas emissions have been a growing concern. The transportation sector contributes to one-third of GHG emissions in the United States from fossil fuel burning. The Renewable Fuel Standard set a requirement for 16 billion gallons (ethanol equivalent) of cellulosic biofuels to be used in the market. Aviation biofuels can help to meet both of these problems as well as improve U.S. energy security.

Investment in the biofuel industry carries a lot of risk. The biofuel industry is run by the private sector, but can be incentivized by government. Cellulosic biofuels carry even more risk than first generation biofuels, because …

Use Of System Dynamics Modeling To Explicate The Theory-Of-Change Of A Social Marketing Innovation, Brian J. Biroscak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community coalitions are an important part of the public health milieu and thus subject to many of the same external pressures as public health organizations--including changes in required strategic orientation. Many funding agencies have shifted their funding agenda from program development to policy change. Thus, the Florida Prevention Research Center created the Community-Based Prevention Marketing for Policy Development framework to teach community coalitions how to apply social marketing to policy change. The dissertation research reported here was designed to explicate the framework's theory-of-change. The research question was: "What are the linkages and connections between CBPM inputs, activities, immediate outcomes, intermediate …

Common Method Variance: An Experimental Manipulation, Alison Wall

Doctoral Dissertations

Although common method variance has been a subject of research concern for over fifty years, its influence on study results is still not well understood. Common method variance concerns are frequently cited as an issue in the publication of self-report data; yet, there is no consensus as to when, or if, common method variance creates bias. This dissertation examines common method variance by approaching it from an experimental standpoint. If groups of respondents can be influenced to vary their answers to survey items based upon the presence or absence of procedural remedies, a better understanding of common method variance can …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Variation In Mean Time Between Demand On Air Force Fleet Level Aircraft Parts Inventories, Andrew J. Berger, Caleb S. Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis researched the accuracy of demand forecasting and impact of demand variation on requirements definition for Air Force aircraft secondary items. Specifically, this thesis sought to answer three questions: How does the Air Force calculate item requirements? , How accurate is the current system at predicting future item requirements? , and How do variations in predicted demand change item requirements? The literature review described the Air Force supply system for aircraft secondary items. Analysis into current demand forecast accuracy found that the level of error between actual and predicted historic demand was as high as 92% for the items …

Water In The 21st Century, Grayson Michael Shor

Social Sciences

The aim of this research project is to provide a comprehensive and global analysis of water use in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive grasp of current and impending issues. The included five (5) chapters discuss water distribution, conservation, purification, law, international development, economic debates, ethical consideration, as well as educated estimations of the effects water related issues may cause in the next one-hundred years.

Connecting The Disciplinary Dots: Faculty Attitudes Toward The Professionalization Of Web Development, Kathleen Mary Kalata

Dissertations

Professionalization offers rewards such as prestige, financial benefits and autonomy. Fields such as nursing and social work have undergone the professionalization process. This exploratory study examined faculty attitudes regarding the professionalization of web development as defined by the Hall model of professionalism. The purpose of the study was to understand how faculty view web development as a profession. Based on the Hall’s Professionalism Scale (1968) and modified survey by Snizek (1972), the Web Development Professionalism Inventory (WDPI) was used to explore faculty attitudes toward professionalization.

This study surveyed faculty about their views on the structural and attitudinal components of web …

Risky Business: Recommendations For The Insurance Industry To Contribute To Greater Disaster Risk Reduction And Climate Change Adaptation, Jessie G. Rountree

Master's Projects and Capstones

The private insurance industry is susceptible to increasing risk from climate change and can serve as a catalyst to change behavior to minimize loss. The research examined the current impact and future potential of the insurance industry to reduce both physical and financial risk. The insurance industry currently raises awareness, assigns an economic value to risk, advocates for climate change action, and takes measures to reduce physical risk through mitigation. As well, the industry has proven to be a critical influencer to encourage risk-adverse behavior and regulation. Recommendations to the industry to have a greater impact include: 1) pursue more …

A Decrepit New York: Synthesizing New York’S Infrastructure Problems, Connor Farrell

2014 Student Theses

Coastal living has become a very popular, often fantasized, way of life. This lifestyle is easy, relaxing, and, above all, it soothes the stress. However, mankind’s innate desire to live near America’s oceans, rivers, and other bodies of water have allowed its population to become vulnerable to super storms. Super storms, such as Hurricane Sandy, have become more prevalent over recent years, and America needs to take into account the massive population whom call the East coast home. Focusing in on the New York area, I will be able to show how our thoughtless designs and locations of towns/cities have …

Indefinite Knapsack Separable Quadratic Programming: Methods And Applications, Jaehwan Jeong

Doctoral Dissertations

Quadratic programming (QP) has received significant consideration due to an extensive list of applications. Although polynomial time algorithms for the convex case have been developed, the solution of large scale QPs is challenging due to the computer memory and speed limitations. Moreover, if the QP is nonconvex or includes integer variables, the problem is NP-hard. Therefore, no known algorithm can solve such QPs efficiently. Alternatively, row-aggregation and diagonalization techniques have been developed to solve QP by a sub-problem, knapsack separable QP (KSQP), which has a separable objective function and is constrained by a single knapsack linear constraint and box constraints. …

Water Use On The Las Vegas Strip: Assessment And Suggestions For Conservation, Suzanne H. Trabia

Honors College Theses

Due to stresses on the water supply in southern Nevada, which include an average of three million tourists per month and an ongoing drought since the year 2000, water conservation is imperative in order to sustain the growing urban area of Las Vegas. The purpose of this study is to assess water use in fourteen casinos on and off the Las Vegas Strip (the main boulevard of the largest casinos in Las Vegas) in order to suggest approaches for water conservation, such as reducing, reusing, and modifying the current system. Since data on water consumption is not publicly available, five …

Spreading The Char: The Importance Of Local Compatibility In The Diffusion Of Biochar Systems To The Smallholder Agriculture Community Context, Laura C. V. Munoz

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis enters the context of smallholder agriculture communities in the developing world. It explores the potentials of biochar and what biochar systems could bring to the smallholder communities while simultaneously bringing environmental benefits. It then acknowledges the challenges of diffusion –the spreading of an unfamiliar innovation. It seeks to answer the question of what will make diffusion of biochar systems more successful in the smallholder context, fixating on the characteristic of compatibility as well as the role local community members can play in making a new biochar system more visible to the rest of the communities.

Unifying Specific Climate Research With A Molar Climate Measure: A Situational Affordances Approach, Alice Brawley

All Theses

Organizational climate - briefly, the shared perceptions of a workplace - was originally studied as a molar concept, but this approach generally lacked focus and thus resulted in unmanageable measures. Organizational climate research has been subdivided into many areas of specific climate research focusing on particular organizational factors or outcomes, such as safety or customer service (Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2013). While the study of specific climates has been and remains worthwhile, recent literature in the area has called for a return to the molar or global conceptualization of organizational climate (Kuenzi & Schminke, 2009; Schneider et al., 2013). In …

Three Research Essays On The Effects Of Charity Website Design On Online Donations, Dong-Heon Austin Kwak

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, which comprises three essays, examines the effects of charity website characteristics on people's attitudes and online donation behaviors based on the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (Essay 1), the halo effect (Essay 2), and self-schema, congruity, and visual rhetoric (Essay 3).

Essay 1: The Elaborating Role of Personal Involvement with Charity Giving and Helper's High on the Effects of Website Quality: Multiple Roles of Variables

Although the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) has been utilized for decades, researchers have not leveraged its full capabilities and richness in understanding the multiple roles postulate and employing the central and peripheral routes …

Three Essays On The Role Of It In Environmental Sustainability: Motivating Individuals To Use Green It, Enhancing Their User Experience, And Promoting Electricity Conservation, Abdullah Al Bizri

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the role of IT in environmental sustainability and electricity conservation through three research essays. The first essay makes a case for behavior research, with the focus on individuals' use of Green IT. Moreover, environmental studies lack a coherent theory that could identify the motivators of Green-IT beliefs. We develop the hedonic motivation theory, which synthesizes theoretical and philosophical thoughts on hedonism with concepts from environmental research. Using this theory, we develop a conceptual model that identifies the motivators of context-specific beliefs, attitudes, and uses of Green IT. We theorize that there are significant generational differences in …

Lattice Methods For The Valuation Of Options With Regime Switching, Atul Sancheti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, we have developed two numerical methods for evaluating option prices under the regime switching model of stock price processes: the Finite Difference lattice method and the Monte Carlo lattice method.

The Finite Difference lattice method is based on the explicit finite difference scheme for parabolic problems. The Monte Carlo lattice method is based on the simulation of the Markov chain. The advantage of these methods is their flexibility to compute the option prices for any given stock price at any given time. Numerical examples are presented to examine these methods. It has been shown that the proposed …

Scalable, Efficient And Optimal Discrete-Time Rebalancing Algorithms For Log-Optimal Investment Portfolio, Sujit Ranjan Das

Theses and Dissertations

Portfolio rebalancing decisions are crucial to today's portfolio managers especially in high frequency algorithmic trading environment. These decisions must be made fast in dynamic market conditions. We develop computational algorithms to determine optimal rebalance frequency (ORF) of a class of investment portfolio for a finite investment horizon. We choose log-optimal investment portfolio which is deemed to be impractical and cost-prohibitive due to inherent need for continuous rebalancing and significant overhead of trading cost. Optimality of such portfolio is assured only when for very long term investor horizon. We study the question of how often a log-optimal portfolio be rebalanced for …

Table Games Revenue Management: A Bayesian Approach, Daryl F. Boykin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With growing competition for casino floor space, the Table Games department is under increased pressure to improve revenues. Current systems in the department rely upon a supervisor's intuitive knowledge about business trends hourly to respond to business levels. By using Bayesian analysis, it is possible to develop a functional revenue management system for making optimal business decisions in the Table Game Departments.

The Financial Crisis Was Good For Something: Improved Nonprofit Efficiency, Caitlin Paige Britt

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study explores the need for financial performance measures in the nonprofit sector and the impact the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis had upon nonprofits’ efficiency. This analysis tests the hypothesis that the financial crisis actually improved nonprofit efficiency by forcing nonprofits to eliminate unnecessary costs, continue to produce their services, thus improving operational efficiency, despite decreased donor contributions and increased user need. Entries reported on nonprofits’ IRS 990 forms from 2003-2010 determined whether nonprofit efficiency was significantly different after the crisis. The efficiencies used to measure the impact of the Financial Crisis include: Program Expense Efficiency, Administrative Expense Efficiency, Fundraising Expense …

Assessing The User Experience When Using Mobile Augmented Reality In Advertising, Shanshan Li

Open Access Theses

Facing huge profits brought by applying augmented reality (AR) to advertising on mobile devices, this study investigated the user experience from four dimensions as emotional, instrumental, motivational and social experience when using AR as an advertising tool. It aims to help designers understand that how the user experience emerges during the use of AR advertising tool. In addition, providing some design suggestions to AR designer. Eighteen participants were recruited and the data were collected through observation and interviews. According to the results, users evaluated their emotional experience higher than the other three dimensions. The AR's value in building brand awareness …

Technological, Organizational, And Environmental Factors Affecting The Adoption Of Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp) Systems, John Njenga Kinuthia

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the differences between organizations that adopted Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (Cloud ERP) systems and organizations that did not adopt Cloud ERP systems based on the Technological, Organizational, and Environmental (TOE) factors. Relevant technological factors were identified as relative advantage of Cloud ERP systems, compatibility of Cloud ERP systems, and security concern of Cloud ERP system environment. Organizational factors included top management support, organizational readiness, size of the organization, centralization, and formalization. External environment factors were identified as competitive pressure and vendor support.

A survey was developed using constructs from existing studies of …