Technology and Innovation Commons^™

Predictive Modeling Of Webpage Aesthetics, Ang Chen

Masters Theses

"Aesthetics plays a key role in web design. However, most websites have been developed based on designers' inspirations or preferences. While perceptions of aesthetics are intuitive abilities of humankind, the underlying principles for assessing aesthetics are not well understood. In recent years, machine learning methods have shown promising results in image aesthetic assessment. In this research, we used machine learning methods to study and explore the underlying principles of webpage aesthetics"--Abstract, page iii.

Big Five Personality Traits In Learning Complex Information Systems: A Case Study, Bih-Ru Lea, Katherine Yu, Amanda Engelke, Carol Koob

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

This research explores the influence of personality traits on the performance of learning a complex information system. The personality traits studied are conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and agreeableness and the complex information system is represented by an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System. The preliminary results indicate Openness, the interaction of Openness and Agreeableness, the interaction of Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, the interaction of Openness, Agreeableness, and Extraversion, and the interaction Openness and Extraversion are statistically significant on influencing ERP learning performance.

The U.S. - Mexico Border Wall - A Sentiment Analysis, Jeffrey Easter, Qiuyue Yang, Choji Daches, Wen Bin Yu, Craig C. Claybaugh

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

The central focus of our study is to apply a computer-based sentiment analysis on twitter data on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. we want to be able to validate the results from traditional polling method and also create a pointer for decision making. From our results, we were able to show that a computer-based sentiment analysis is as valid as a traditional base method on topics such as the considered for the study. Our results compared favorably with the results obtained by organizations who did a polling survey on the issue. Also, we were able to visualize our results to present …

Exploring Structure-Property Relationships Of Gags To Tailor Ecm-Mimicking Hydrogels, Ralf Zimmermann, Carsten Werner, James Sterling

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are a class of linear polysaccharides that are ubiquitous in the extracellular matrix (ECM) and on cell surfaces. Due to their key role in development, homeostasis, pathogenesis, and regeneration, GAGs are increasingly used in the design of ECM-mimicking hydrogels to stimulate tissue formation and regenerative processes via specifically orchestrated cell-instructive signals. These applications first and foremost build on the ability of GAGs to effectively bind, protect, and release morphogens. The specificity and strength of morphogen-GAG interactions are largely governed by the number and spatial distribution of negatively charged sulfate groups carried by GAGs. Herein, we summarize a mean-field …

Arrayed Lyser And Homogenizer Systems With Multiple Agitator Devices, Robert W. Doebler, Mark Brown, Tanya Ferguson, Bruce Irvine, James D. Sterling

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Systems and methods for the efficient agitation of tissue samples. A device may include a plurality of chambers that each receives samples therein. The plurality of chambers may be uniformly spaced with respect to a least one dimension, to form a one dimensional or two-dimensional array. Each of the chambers may include an opening and an agitator device in fluid contact with the sample disposed within the chamber. The agitator devices may include a micromotor which provides rotational motion to a shaft and an impeller fixed to the shaft such that the impeller and the shaft rotate together upon provision …

A Continuum Model Of Mucosa With Glycan-Ion Pairing, James D. Sterling, Shenda M. Baker

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Advances in the study of glycosoaminoglycan biohydrogels, label-free electrokinetic analysis of soft-diffuse layers in contact with saline solutions, and elucidation of ion-specific behavior in many biochemical systems offer the opportunity to marry these principal features in a new mathematical model of the mucosal glycocalyx. The model is based on the electroquasistatic subset of Maxwell's equations in the form of the steady-state continuum Poisson–Boltzmann equation for electrostatics with explicit incorporation of pairwise binding of ions to fixed charged-groups in the hydrogel. The pairwise association is modeled using reversible bimolecular reactions via stoichiometric dissociation constants that represent the rule of matching water …

Classification Of Eeg Signals Of User States In Gaming Using Machine Learning, Chandana Mallapragada

Masters Theses

"In this research, brain activity of user states was analyzed using machine learning algorithms. When a user interacts with a computer-based system including playing computer games like Tetris, he or she may experience user states such as boredom, flow, and anxiety. The purpose of this research is to apply machine learning models to Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals of three user states -- boredom, flow and anxiety -- to identify and classify the EEG correlates for these user states. We focus on three research questions: (i) How well do machine learning models like support vector machine, random forests, multinomial logistic regression, and …

Impact Of Probable And Guaranteed Monetary Value On Cybersecurity Behavior Of Users, Santhosh Kumar Ravindran

Masters Theses

"This research examines the impact of probable and guaranteed monetary gains and losses on users' cybersecurity behavior. It also examines perceptual outcomes such as threat severity, trust, and fear that are associated with users' cybersecurity behavior. Drawing on Prospect Theory in the behavioral economics and decision-making literature, hypotheses were generated for the research. The hypotheses state that: (i) users are more willing to engage in risky computer security behavior to avoid a loss than to receive a gain, (ii) users exhibit a higher tipping point of expected monetary value to receive a gain than to avoid a loss for engaging …

Neural Correlates Of Flow, Boredom, And Anxiety In Gaming: An Electroencephalogram Study, Tejaswini Yelamanchili

Masters Theses

"Games are engaging and captivating from a human-computer interaction (HCI) perspective as they can facilitate a highly immersive experience. This research examines the neural correlates of flow, boredom, and anxiety during video gaming. A within-subject experimental study (N = 44) was carried out with the use of electroencephalogram (EEG) to assess the brain activity associated with three states of user experience - flow, boredom, and anxiety - in a controlled gaming environment. A video game, Tetris, was used to induce flow, boredom, and anxiety. A 64 channel EEG headset was used to track changes in activation patterns in the frontal, …

Automated Scientifically Controlled Screening Systems (Ascss), Nathan W. Twyman, Jay F. Nunamaker

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

The ability to detect when a person is hiding important information has high value in many applications. A new class of systems, termed autonomous scientifically controlled screening systems (ASCSS), is designed to detect individuals' purposely hidden information about target topics of interest. ASCSS represents a systematic synthesis of structured interviewing, orienting theory, defensive response theory, non-invasive psychophysiological measurement, and behavioral measurement. To evaluate and enhance the design principles, an automated screening kiosk (ASK) system was constructed. The ASK system has been used in a physical security screening scenario in which participants constructed and attempted to smuggle a fake improvised explosive …

Specialist Communities In China’S Aerospace Technology And Innovation System: The Cultural Dimension, Alanna Krolikowski

History and Political Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Only two decades ago, China was a marginal player in the global aerospace industry. Today, the pace of China’s space programs is unparalleled and it has joined the sector’s leading ranks. China is the only country after the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States to independently send humans into orbit and a rover to touch down on the Moon. A Chinese station will likely soon be only the only long-term human habitat circling the Earth alongside the International Space Station. Within a decade, China could become only the second country in history to land a person on the Moon’s surface. …

Extending Time Series Forecasting Methods Using Functional Principal Components Analysis, Isaac Michael Wagner-Muns

Masters Theses

"Traffic volume forecasts are used by many transportation analysis and management systems to better characterize and react to fluctuating traffic patterns. Most current forecasting methods do not take advantage of the underlying functional characteristics of the time series to make predictions. This paper presents a methodology that uses Functional Principal Components Analysis (FPCA) to create smooth and differentiable daily traffic forecasts. The methodology is validated with a data set of 1,813 days of 15 minute aggregated traffic volume time series. Both the FPCA based forecasts and the associated prediction intervals outperform traditional Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) based methods"--Abstract, …

Sentiment Analytics: Lexicons Construction And Analysis, Bo Yuan

Masters Theses

"With the increasing amount of text data, sentiment analysis (SA) is becoming more and more important. An automated approach is needed to parse the online reviews and comments, and analyze their sentiments. Since lexicon is the most important component in SA, enhancing the quality of lexicons will improve the efficiency and accuracy of sentiment analysis. In this research, the effect of coupling a general lexicon with a specialized lexicon (for a specific domain) and its impact on sentiment analysis was presented. Two special domains and one general domain were studied. The two special domains are the petroleum domain and the …

Leveraging Knowledge At Startups, Amruta Anil Ranade

Masters Theses

"Startups contribute to the economy and job creation in the United States. One of the primary assets of startups is tacit knowledge of the employees of the startup. Technical communicators can help startups capture, share, and leverage the tacit knowledge at startups. Technical communicators could benefit from learning how knowledge management initiatives at startups work. The current study is an ethnographic case-study that was conducted at a fast-growing startup in California.

The data for the study was collected through observations, informal and semi-structured formal interviews with participants, and feedback from customers of the startup. The collected data was analyzed based …

Impact Of Framing And Priming On Users' Behavior In Cybersecurity, Kavya Sharma

Masters Theses

"This research examines the impact of framing and priming on users' behavior (i.e., action) in a cybersecurity setting. It also examines perceptual outcomes (i.e., confidence, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, trust, and fear) associated with the users' cybersecurity action. The research draws on prospect theory in the behavioral economics literature and instance-based learning theory in the education literature to generate the hypotheses for the research. A between-subject experimental design (N=129) was used. The results suggest that priming users to cybersecurity risks reduces their risk-taking behavior associated with cybersecurity whereas negative framing of messages associated with cybersecurity has no significant effect on …

Proposal For Two Model Undergraduate Curricula In Entrepreneurship, Jerome A. Katz, Ralph C. Hanke, Fred Maidment, K. Mark Weaver, Sharon Alpi

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper takes three important preliminary steps towards the development of undergraduate curricula in entrepreneurship. First, it provides one of the first analyses comparing the entrepreneurship education standards proposed by the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education and the European Commission's Education and Training in Entrepreneurship initiative. Next, it presents an analysis of results of a workshop of entrepreneurship educators regarding development of an undergraduate entrepreneurship standard for business schools. With these two elements in place, the paper makes recommendations for model undergraduate entrepreneurship curricula for majors and concentrations and concludes with a discussion of the issues in developing and implementing model …

Understanding User Experience In Gaming, Sri Chaitanya Sanaboina

Masters Theses

"This research examines the effect of virtual reality gaming versus desktop based gaming on spatial presence, social presence, and intention to play. It draws on cognitive theory of presence, social presence theory, and theory of reasoned action to generate the research hypotheses and explain the observed phenomenon. A within-subject experimental design (N=53) was used to evaluate the effects of virtual reality versus desktop based gaming. The results suggest that both spatial presence and social presence were significantly enhanced in the virtual reality gaming environment while intention to play was significantly greater in the desktop based gaming environment"--Abstract, page iii.

Bridging The Gap Between Supply Chain And Consumer Experience, Cui Zou

Masters Theses

Many researchers agree that supply chain management is at the root of addressing customer values and increasing customer satisfaction. However, in reality the route to accomplishing these goals is not so clearly defined. The studies herein attempt to shed some insight on a special perspective to bridge the gap between supply chain and customer experience. The ideas behind these studies explore the notion that customer experience can be impacted by a vast spectrum of factors from suppliers to even the specific mobile commerce (m-commerce) tools they use.

To gain insight into the supplier dimension of the supply chain, a survey …

Effect Of Cooperation On Players' Immersion And Enjoyment, Lakshmi Sushma Daggubati

Masters Theses

"This research examines the effect of cooperative versus non-cooperative game play on immersion and enjoyment in online games. It draws on the self-determination theory to generate the research hypotheses and explain the observed phenomenon. A within-subject experimental design (N=38) was used to evaluate the effects of cooperative versus non-cooperative game play on enjoyment and immersion by having participants play in a manipulated game mode in a controlled gaming environment. The participants' subjective responses were assessed to understand their user experience in cooperative and non-cooperative gaming environments. The results suggest that both immersion and enjoyment were significantly enhanced in cooperative game …

Yik Yak Posts: A Discourse Analysis, Snehal Ravindra Shirke

Masters Theses

"Anonymity and geolocation create a unique environment for users to communicate with each other. Discourse analysis was conducted to study the posts made on Yik Yak, an anonymous social networking mobile application to understand the communication patterns on an anonymous platform and the posts about taboo topics. The posts were analyzed specifically for patterns on taboo topics and how students interact on the anonymous platform on a particular campus (Missouri S&T campus). Student research assistants coded the collected posts into the pre-defined taboo categories namely sexual activity, non-sexual bodily functions, sexual orientation, mental/emotional health, and "other" taboo topics. I found …

Factors Influencing The Adoption Of Smart Wearable Devices, Apurva Adapa

Masters Theses

"This study aims to examine the factors and issues in adoption of smart wearable devices. Wearable devices have many functions to offer which make them very useful in our daily lives. However, factors influencing the adoption of these devices are not well understood. This research explores the inhibiting and contributing factors influencing the adoption of wearable devices by employing the laddering approach. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews using the laddering technique in order to understand these factors. Wearable devices that were examined include the Smart Glass (Google Glass) and the Smart Watch (Sony Smart Watch 3). After the …

Effect Of Timing And Source Of Online Product Recommendations: An Eye-Tracking Study, Qing Zeng

Masters Theses

"Online retail business has become an emerging market for almost all business owners. Online recommender systems provide better services to the consumers as well as assist consumers with their decision making processes. In this study, a controlled lab experiment was conducted to assess the effect of recommendation timing (early, mid, and late) and recommendation source (expert reviews vs. consumer reviews) on e-commerce users' interest and attention. Eye-tracking data was extracted from the experiment and analyzed. The results suggest that users show more interest in recommendation based on consumer reviews than recommendation based on expert reviews. Earlier recommendations do not receive …

Using Eye-Tracking To Understand User Behavior In Deception Detection System Interaction, Prashanth Kumar Lakkapragada

Masters Theses

"This research presents the analysis of data collected using eye-tracking devices on user interaction with a deception detection system. The differences between two groups of subjects, namely Innocent and Guilty, were compared, where Innocent subjects did not carry any explosive and hence, had nothing to hide in declaring objects that they were carrying whereas Guilty subjects had to lie to deceive the system. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in pupil dilation between the Innocent and Guilty subjects. However, the amount of fixations on the empty spaces of slides containing an explosive image can be used to …

Advances In Eye Tracking Technology: Theory, Algorithms, And Applications, Hong Fu, Ying Wei, Francesco Camastra, Pietro Arico, Hong Sheng

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Whose Talk Is Walked? It Decentralizability, Vendor Versus Adopter Discourse, And The Diffusion Of Social Media Versus Big Data, Shaila Miranda, Inchan Kim, Dawei David Wang

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Discourse plays a central role in organizing vision and computerization movement perspectives on IT innovation diffusion. While we know that different actors within a community contribute to the discourse, we know relatively little about the roles different actors play in diffusing different types of IT innovations. Our study investigates vendor versus adopter roles in social media and big data diffusion. We conceptualize the difference between the two IT innovations in terms of their decentralizability, i.e., extent to which decision rights pertinent to adoption of an organizational innovation can be decentralized. Based on this concept, we hypothesized: (1) adopters would contribute …

A Systematic Review Of Social Networks Research In Information Systems: Building A Foundation For Exciting Future Research, Jinwei Cao, Kamile Asli Basoglu, Hong Sheng, Paul Benjamin Lowry

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Social networking applications such as blogs, instant messengers, podcasts, social networking websites (e.g., Renren in China, Vkontakte in Russia, Facebook), professional networking websites (e.g., LinkedIn), Twitter, and virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) have become increasingly popular in the last few years. Because these applications have substantial implications for users, organizations, and society, social networks (SNs) have gained attention from information systems (IS) researchers and grown steadily as a research area since 2004 However, to organize the accumulated research and encourage researchers to examine new and pressing issues in SNs, available knowledge needs to be synthesized and research gaps need to …

The Impact Of Regulation Fd On The Information Environment: Evidence From The Stock Market Response To Stock Split Announcements, Lili Eng, Joohyung Ha, Sandeep Nabar

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper examines the information environment effects of regulation fair disclosure (Reg FD). We investigate the stock market response to stock splits in the pre- and post-regulation periods. We find that abnormal returns around split announcement are positive in both periods, but the magnitude of the returns is smaller in the post-FD period relative to the pre-FD period. The difference between the pre- and post-FD period abnormal returns persists even after we control for factors that may affect split announcement returns. We also find that the magnitude of the association between announcement returns, and the unexpected portion of the split …

Information Systems User Competency: A Conceptual Foundation, Brenda Eschenbrenner, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Research has identified a variety of factors that influence people's intentions to use IS and their degree of IS use. However, what has not been well understood are the characteristics of competent IS users who are proficient in using IS and are able to achieve quality IS usage. Considering that improving IS users' abilities to more efficiently and effectively use IS has always been and remains a challenge, research that provides a comprehensive view of the characteristics associated with competent IS users is warranted. This paper addresses this research question by proposing a conceptual foundation for IS user competency. Based …

Agent-Based Virtual Humans In Co-Space: An Evaluative Study, Yilin Kang, Ah Hwee Tan, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Co-Space refers to interactive virtual environment modelled after the real world in terms of look-and-feel, functionalities and services. We have developed a 3D virtual world named Nan yang Technological University (NTU) Co-Space populated with virtual human characters. Three key requirements of realistic virtual humans in the virtual world have been identified, namely (1) autonomy: Agents can function on their own, (2) interactivity: Agents can interact naturally with players, and (3) personality: Agents can exhibit human traits and characteristics. Working towards these challenges, we propose a brain-inspired agent architecture that integrates goal-directed autonomy, natural language interaction and human-like personality. We conducted …

Demographic Impacts On Environmentally Friendly Purchase Behaviors, Caroline Fisher, Shristy Bashyal, Bonnie Bachman

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Researchers have continued to study green consumer demographics with mixed results. The relevant literature since 1998 (the last review) was summarized to determine what demographics seemed to impact environmental purchasing. The greatest consistency was found for gender with women more likely to exhibit green behaviors. This research article analyzed survey responses to determine the environmentally friendly behaviors of consumers and their relationships to demographics. Several demographics were found to be related to a number of specific environmentally friendly behaviors, more than in prior research. The authors concluded that using specific behaviors, in contrast to general statements or attitudes, may be …