Business Commons^™

Dallas, Tx: The Staggering Wealth Gap, Macy Golman

School of Professional Studies

In the summer of 2019, I had the privilege of serving as an AmeriCorps member with an organization called Equal Heart. One of Equal Heart’s main initiatives was to provide meals to children in underserved populations, to make sure that without school in session, these children would still be receiving food. Unfortunately, in many instances, without these meals, many of the children we served would likely not know when they would be eating their next fulfilling meal. There were certain pockets of Dallas that we would travel to everyday, places that were fifteen minutes maximum from my house, but places …

Negotiations Between Mother Nature And Man's Most Powerful Creation: The Environmental Crisis And The Corporate Paradigm, Drew Zaweski

Accounting

I came to the University at Albany intending to study accounting. While here I decided to add communication as a minor and was privileged to enroll in courses beyond the scope of, yet still relatable to, accounting. Such courses include the Theory of Organizational Communication, Studies in Public Persuasion - Communication in Professional Contexts, and Conference and Group Leadership all taught by Dr. Patricia Gettings; another was Environmental Economics taught by Mary Mallia. Throughout my time at the University at Albany, one of my favorite educational experiences has been when I am able to make connections between classes and across …

Chefs' Perceptions Of Zero Waste Cooking In Restaurants, Josephine Reardon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine chefs’ perceptions and practices relative to current and potentially future efforts to decrease food waste. Through qualitative inquiry, this research aims to identify food waste reduction practices in Northwest Arkansas restaurants; chef’s perceptions of these practices and zero waste cooking; the impact these practices have on successfully implementing sustainability; and the biggest challenges in reducing food waste in restaurants. The results of this study will assist chefs and restaurant owners by providing guidance on practices easily utilized in restaurants currently.

An interview protocol, with five sections, was conducted with ten chefs at …

An Analysis Of Dredge Efficiency For Surfclam And Ocean Quahog Commercial Dredges, Leanne Poussard

Master's Theses

Between 1997 and 2011, The National Marine Fisheries Service conducted 50 depletion experiments to estimate survey gear efficiency and stock density for Atlantic surfclam (Spisula solidissima) and ocean quahog (Arctica islandica) populations using commercial hydraulic dredges. The Patch Model was formulated to estimate gear efficiency and organism density from the data. The range of efficiencies estimated is substantial, leading to uncertainty in the application of these estimates in stock assessment. Analysis of depletion experiment simulations showed that uncertainty in the estimates of gear efficiency from depletion experiments was reduced by higher numbers of dredge tows per experiment, more tow overlap …

Analyzing Competitive Balance In Professional Sport, Kevin Alwell

Honors Scholar Theses

In this paper we review several measures to statistically analyze competitive balance and report which leagues have a wider variance of performance amongst its competitors. Each league seeks to maintain high levels of parity, making matches and overall season more unpredictable and appealing to the general audience. Here we quantify competitive advantage across major sports leagues in numbers using several statistical methods in order for leagues to optimize their revenue.

Pmkt: Privacy-Preserving Multi-Party Knowledge Transfer For Financial Market Forecasting, Zhuoran Ma, Jianfeng Ma, Yinbin Miao, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Ximeng Liu, Xiangyu Wang, Tengfei Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While decision-making task is critical in knowledge transfer, particularly from multi-source domains, existing knowledge transfer approaches are not generally designed to be privacy preserving. This has potential legal and financial implications, particularly in sensitive applications such as financial market forecasting. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a Privacy-preserving Multi-party Knowledge Transfer system (PMKT), based on decision trees, for financial market forecasting. Specifically, in PMKT, we leverage a cryptographic-based model sharing technique to securely outsource knowledge reflected in decision trees of multiple parties, and design a secure computation mechanism to facilitate privacy-preserving knowledge transfer. An encrypted user-submitted request from the target …

The Equifax Hack Revisited And Repurposed, Hal Berghel

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Reports on the recent indictments against Chinese hackers regarding Equifax.

Data Breach Consequences And Responses: A Multi-Method Investigation Of Stakeholders, Hamid Reza Nikkhah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The role of information in today’s economy is essential as organizations that can effectively store and leverage information about their stakeholders can gain an advantage in their markets. The extensive digitization of business information can make organizations vulnerable to data breaches. A data breach is the unauthorized access to sensitive, protected, or confidential data resulting in the compromise of information security. Data breaches affect not only the breached organization but also various related stakeholders. After a data breach, stakeholders of the breached organizations show negative behaviors, which causes the breached organizations to face financial and non-financial costs. As such, the …

A 2020 Perspective On "Client Risk Informedness In Brokered Cloud Services: An Experimental Pricing Study", Di Shang, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cloud computing and the cloud services market have advanced in the past ten years. Cloud services now include most information technology (IT) services from fundamental computing services to more cutting- edge artificial intelligence (AI) services. Accordingly, opportunities have emerged for research on the design of new market features to improve the cloud services market to benefit providers and users. Based on our observation of the recent development of cloud services, in this short research commentary, we share our agenda for future studies of this important sector of IT services.

Semantic Understanding Of Smart Contracts: Executable Operational Semantics Of Solidity, Jiao Jiao, Shuanglong Kan, Shang Wei Lin, David Sanan, Yang Liu, Jun Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Bitcoin has been a popular research topic recently. Ethereum (ETH), a second generation of cryptocurrency, extends Bitcoin's design by offering a Turing-complete programming language called Solidity to develop smart contracts. Smart contracts allow creditable execution of contracts on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) without third parties. Developing correct and secure smart contracts is challenging due to the decentralized computation nature of the blockchain. Buggy smart contracts may lead to huge financial loss. Furthermore, smart contracts are very hard, if not impossible, to patch once they are deployed. Thus, there is a recent surge of interest in analyzing and verifying smart contracts. …

Values Of Artificial Intelligence In Marketing, Yingrui Xi, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is causing radical changes in marketing and emerging as a competent assistant supporting all areas of the marketing field. The influences and impacts AI has created in various marketing segments have aroused much interest among marketing professionals and academic scholars. Comprehensive and systematic studies on the values of AI in marketing, however, are still lacking and the existing literature fragmented. This research provides a comprehensive review of the existing literature in the relevant fields as well as a series of systematic interviews using the Value-Focused Thinking approach to understand the values of AI in marketing. This research …

Platform Pricing With Strategic Buyers: The Impact Of Future Production Cost, Mei Lin, Xiajun Amy Pan, Quan Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Two-sided platforms are often coupled with exclusive hardware products that connect two sides of users, the consumers of the hardware product (i.e., buyers) and the application developers (i.e., sellers). The hardware product in the platform business model introduces three important issues that are not yet well understood in the literature of platform pricing: potentially downward-trending production cost, product quality improvements, and consumers' strategic behaviors. Using analytical modeling, our study explicitly factors in these issues in analyzing a monopoly platform owner's two-sided pricing problem. The platform sequentially introduces and prices quality-improving hardware products, for which the costliness of quality may decrease. …

The Future Of Work Now: Cyber Threat Attribution At Fireeye, Thomas H. Davenport, Steven M. Miller

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

One of the most frequently-used phrases at business events these days is “the future of work.” It’s increasingly clear that artificial intelligence and other new technologies will bring substantial changes in work tasks and business processes. But while these changes are predicted for the future, they’re already present in many organizations for many different jobs. The job and incumbent described below is an example of this phenomenon. It’s a clear example of an existing job that’s been transformed by AI and related tools.

Demand Forecasting In Wholesale Alcohol Distribution: An Ensemble Approach, Tanvi Arora, Rajat Chandna, Stacy Conant, Bivin Sadler, Robert Slater

SMU Data Science Review

In this paper, historical data from a wholesale alcoholic beverage distributor was used to forecast sales demand. Demand forecasting is a vital part of the sale and distribution of many goods. Accurate forecasting can be used to optimize inventory, improve cash ow, and enhance customer service. However, demand forecasting is a challenging task due to the many unknowns that can impact sales, such as the weather and the state of the economy. While many studies focus effort on modeling consumer demand and endpoint retail sales, this study focused on demand forecasting from the distributor perspective. An ensemble approach was applied …

Demand Forecasting For Alcoholic Beverage Distribution, Lei Jiang, Kristen M. Rollins, Meredith Ludlow, Bivin Sadler

SMU Data Science Review

Forecasting demand is one of the biggest challenges in any business, and the ability to make such predictions is an invaluable resource to a company. While difficult, predicting demand for products should be increasingly accessible due to the volume of data collected in businesses and the continuing advancements of machine learning models. This paper presents forecasting models for two vodka products for an alcoholic beverage distributing company located in the United States with the purpose of improving the company’s ability to forecast demand for those products. The results contain exploratory data analysis to determine the most important variables impacting demand, …

Data-Driven Investment Decisions In P2p Lending: Strategies Of Integrating Credit Scoring And Profit Scoring, Yan Wang

Doctor of Data Science and Analytics Dissertations

In this dissertation, we develop and discuss several loan evaluation methods to guide the investment decisions for peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. In evaluating loans, credit scoring and profit scoring are the two widely utilized approaches. Credit scoring aims at minimizing the risk while profit scoring aims at maximizing the profit. This dissertation addresses the strengths and weaknesses of each scoring method by integrating them in various ways in order to provide the optimal investment suggestions for different investors. Before developing the methods for loan evaluation at the individual level, we applied the state-of-the-art method called the Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) …

2020 - The Twenty-Fourth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twenty-fourth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 16, 2020. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

A Credit Analysis Of The Unbanked And Underbanked: An Argument For Alternative Data, Edwin Baidoo

Doctor of Data Science and Analytics Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the statistical and economic significance of non-traditional credit data for individuals who do not have sufficient economic data, collectively known as the unbanked and underbanked. The consequences of not having sufficient economic information often determines whether unbanked and underbanked individuals will receive higher price of credit or be denied entirely. In terms of regulation, there is a strong interest in credit models that will inform policies on how to gradually move sections of the unbanked and underbanked population into the general financial network.

In Chapter 2 of the dissertation, I establish the …

The Expanded View Of Individualism And Collectivism: One, Two, Or Four Dimensions?, Jennifer L. Priestley, Kamal Fatehi, Gita Taasoobshirazi

Faculty Articles

Recent research to analyze and discuss cultural differences has employed a combination of five major dimensions of individualism–collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, femininity– masculinity (gender role differentiation), and long-term orientation. Among these dimensions, individualism–collectivism has received the most attention. Chronologically, this cultural attribute has been regarded as one, then two, and more recently, four dimensions of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. However, research on this issue has not been conclusive and some have argued against this expansion. The current study attempts to explain and clarify this discussion by using a shortened version of the scale developed by Singelis et …

Medication Errors Within The Clinical Setting: A Quality Improvement Project, Gracie Smith, Mary Thornburg, Connor Noble, Breanna Markwell, Sarah Rigsby, Suzi White

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

During a clinical rotation at a large urban teaching hospital, the occurrence of medication errors noted resulted in negative impacts on patient wellness. Research studies indicate that the U.S. spends more than $40 billion each year as a result of medication errors. A large portion of these medication errors are preventable. A thorough literature review of 40 research studies was conducted to identify issues associated with medication errors. This quality improvement project aims to identify the prevalence of medication errors, their effect on patient wellness, its monetary effects in healthcare, and what preventative interventions can be implemented to prevent such …

Examining The Role Of Environmental Nonprofits In Shoreline Management For Coastal Resilience In Virginia, Taiwo Oguntuyo, Ogechukwu Agim, Ren-Neasha Blake, Juita-Elena Wie Yusuf, Marina Saitgalina, Michelle Covi

College of Business (Strome) Posters

Environmental Nonprofits emerged over the years to attend to the environmental needs of communities and individuals, as well as address environmental issues that concern the public. These issues are usually those that have been neglected, given insufficient attention, or cannot be singularly handled by the government. In advocating for coastal resilience, environmental nonprofits have been identified in the literature as actors with critical roles in addressing coastal issues such as sea-level rise, flooding and shoreline management. In recent times, shoreline management has emerged as one of the foremost areas of focus expedient for the achievement of coastal resilience, and the …

Craft Academy Solar Powered Racing (Caspr) Team, Andrew Dorn, Ally Hall, Bryce Watkins, Hayley Milner, Kaleb Trent, Owen Day, Sawyer Putnam, Joyce Stubbs, Steve Stubbs

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

The ultimate goal of the CASPR team is to build a solar powered car to race in the solar car for the Solar Car Challenge Classic Division, and race in a cross-county race or at the famous Texas Motor Speedway. The car must have taillights, blinkers, headlights, and extra suspension. For the fall semester of 2021, we researched different parts and other solar cars to see what would be the best fit most beneficial. We were able to find all the parts needed for the construction of the car. The Solar Car Challenge website provides some resources to make finding …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 61 Number 2, Spring 2020 [Print Issue V.61:1], Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

14 - THE UPSTART How Michael Mondavi ’66 helped get Napa on the wine map. By Ron Hansen.

18 - OF WOMEN AND MEN Emeritus professors dish on their research into wine and women. By Tracy Seipel.

22 - A SIGN OF LIGHT A Jesuit priest finds meaning on death row. By George Williams, S.J.

26 - FIRE AND WINE As the climate changes, what’s next for wine remains murky. By Tracy Seipel.

A Monte Carlo Analysis Of Standard Error-Based Methods For Computing Confidence Intervals, Elayna Wichert

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The objective of this study is to empirically test existing techniques to calculate the likely range of values for a Classical Test Theory true score given an observed score. The traditional method for forming these confidence intervals has used the standard error of measurement (SEM) as the basis for this confidence interval. An alternate equation, the standard error of estimate (SEE), has been recommended in place of the SEM for this purpose, yet it remains overlooked in the field of psychometrics. It is important that the correct equation be used in various applications in personnel psychology. Monte Carlo analyses were …

Preparing For The Future: The Effects Of Financial Literacy On Financial Planning For Young Professionals, Tanay Singh

Senior Theses

Purpose – Many people between the age of 20 and 34 have not considered planning financially for the future in any significant capacity and in doing so, they limit their potential savings. The purpose of this study is to examine what financial expectations are for people in the early stages of their career and determine if improving financial literacy and revealing financial realities helps to produce more accurate or realistic expectations. Ultimately, the goal is to better prepare participants in the study for the working world and increased responsibilities outside of the college/university environment by getting them to start thinking …

Prescribing Public-Private Partnerships To Global Health Initiatives, Elizabeth Rhoads

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

For six weeks I served as a finance intern with the Toilet Board Coalition (TBC) and created a Portfolio Presentation to deliver to TBC’s corporate board members in May. With my background in Public Health and interest in Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability, I was interested in learning how cross-sector partnerships can help accelerate global health development. My internship with TBC provided me with valuable firsthand experience in my topic of research, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), which I was able to compare alongside a formal literature review. In this research paper I combine my research with my internship experience to …

Spring 2020, Joëlle Walls

The Investigator Research Magazine

Dear readers,

We are proud to present the spring issue of The Investigator, giving you an inside look into the varied research and scholarly activities taking place at Kennesaw State.

In a new interview, President Pamela Whitten discusses KSU's growing research reputation and lessons learned from her own experiences as a researcher and mentor. Similarly, our cover story follows three First-Year Scholars as they explore the possibilities of research in Martin Hudson's lab through a new Office of Undergraduate Research initiative.

This publication would not have been possible without the contributions of the editorial team, including undergraduates Kaelyn Ireland, Geena …

Using Alteryx Designer In Audit, Nolan Asiala

Honors Projects

My senior project was built around data analysis and how it relates to the auditing profession. Initially, I was planning on attending a data analytics competition, but that was canceled due to the events of COVID-19. This project utilized the Alteryx Designer program to demonstrate how it can be used during an audit engagement. By creating a workflow in Alteryx Designer, a report from a client can be cleaned and reformatted into a working dataset. My project includes two Excel files, a Microsoft Word document that serves as a brief introduction to the program, and a video describing the workflow …

Text Analytics, Nlp, And Accounting Research, Richard M. Crowley

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The presentation covered: What is text analytics and NLP?; How text analytics has evolved in the accounting literature since the 1980s; What current (as of 2020) methods are used in the literature; What methods are on the horizon.

Raising Funds In The Era Of Digital Economy, Deserina Sulaeman

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The rapid advancement in technology and internet penetration have substantially increased the number of economic transactions conducted online. Platforms that connect economic agents play an important role in this digital economy. The unbridled proliferation of digital platforms calls for a closer examination of the factors that could affect the welfare of the increasing number of economic agents who participate in them.

This dissertation examines the factors that could affect the welfare of agents using the setting of a crowdfunding platform where fundraisers develop campaigns to solicit funding from potential donors. These factors can be broadly categorized into three distinct groups: …