Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Can They Use It? Studying The Usability Of The Canvas Learning Management System At Bowling Green State University, James Faisant

Honors Projects

Students’ use of the Canvas learning management system (LMS) as implemented by Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a substantial part of their learning experience. A well designed and easy to use LMS not only allows students to be more efficient, it allows students to engage effectively with their coursework. Students’ ability to effectively use the LMS is examined to understand whether the system is usable, and if not, what changes should be made. Research included two distinct elements. First, students were asked to complete nine tasks identified as common tasks within Canvas, while being timed. Additionally, students responded to …

Bringing The Outside In: Examining The Impacts That Climate, Exchange, And Identity Processes Have On Organizationally-Beneficial Employee Green Behavior, Sashi C. Sekhar

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation contributes to growing practitioner and researcher interest in the corporate social responsibility topic of employee green behavior, a key strategic input to organizational environmental sustainability efforts. While it has been recognized that employee behavior can significantly impact sustainability efforts (Daily, Bishop, and Govindarajulu, 2009; Ones and Dilchert, 2012), the psychological mechanisms through which this occurs and the precise nature of these behaviors have not been rigorously examined. To address the gaps, my research investigates the interrelationship between organizational and individual factors in motivating organizational citizenship behavior directed toward the natural environment (OCB-E). The model, which derives from social …

The Transition Experiences Of International Graduate Students In Clark University School Of Professional Studies, Xuesong Huang, Mingyang Lian, Dang Trung, Jay Sheth, Yuwei Yang, Irina Klimenko

School of Professional Studies

In the last decade, the School of Professional Studies at Clark University has witnessed a sharp increase in international students. More and more international students in the millennial generation have entered the School of Professional Studies pursuing one of the two-year graduate programs: Master of Science in Professional Studies, Master of Science in Public Administration, and Master of Science in Information Technology. In the past, working adult student dominant the program. These students already had a career outside the classrooms before them came to study. The millennial international students have generated new adjustment problems. Some of the transition issues of …

A Mixed Methods Study: Evaluating The Relationship Of Project Manager Competencies And It Project Management Methodologies, Keith A. Mcdermott

Open Access Theses

Determining skillsets that are particularly important to the development of an effective project manager can be useful for a variety of applications. These applications range from the hiring of a new project manager for an organization to continued training for current employees. Past research has called upon current project managers to rate what skillsets they see as important to the cultivation of an optimal or effective project manager. Additional research has expanded this idea to determine how skillsets vary between project managers and functional managers (El-Sabaa, 2001). While this research is certainly important, skillset grouping can be further explored. This …

A Traders Guide To The Predictive Universe- A Model For Predicting Oil Price Targets And Trading On Them, Jimmie Harold Lenz

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

At heart every trader loves volatility; this is where return on investment comes from, this is what drives the proverbial “positive alpha.” As a trader, understanding the probabilities related to the volatility of prices is key, however if you could also predict future prices with reliability the world would be your oyster. To this end, I have achieved three goals with this dissertation, to develop a model to predict future short term prices (direction and magnitude), to effectively test this by generating consistent profits utilizing a trading model developed for this purpose, and to write a paper that anyone with …

Research On Container Liner Company Marketing Strategy, Huayu Shi

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Research On The Volatility Of Vlcc Market, Yanwei Wang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Impacts Of Fuel Price Fluctuation On Dry Bulk Cargo Market, Xingsheng Sun

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Information Security Awareness Program Effectiveness In Predicting End-User Security Behavior, James Michael Banfield

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

As accessibility to data increases, so does the need to increase security. For organizations of all sizes, information security (IS) has become paramount due to the increased use of the Internet. Corporate data are transmitted ubiquitously over wireless networks and have increased exponentially with cloud computing and growing end-user demand. Both technological and human strategies must be employed in the development of an information security awareness (ISA) program. By creating a positive culture that promotes desired security behavior through appropriate technology, security policies, and an understanding of human motivations, ISA programs have been the norm for organizational end-user risk mitigation …

Newsvendor Models With Monte Carlo Sampling, Ijeoma W. Ekwegh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Newsvendor Models with Monte Carlo Sampling by Ijeoma Winifred Ekwegh The newsvendor model is used in solving inventory problems in which demand is random. In this thesis, we will focus on a method of using Monte Carlo sampling to estimate the order quantity that will either maximizes revenue or minimizes cost given that demand is uncertain. Given data, the Monte Carlo approach will be used in sampling data over scenarios and also estimating the probability density function. A bootstrapping process yields an empirical distribution for the order quantity that will maximize the expected profit. Finally, this method will be used …

The Influence Of The Electric Supply Industry On Economic Growth In Less Developed Countries, Edward Richard Bee

Dissertations

This study measures the impact that electrical outages have on manufacturing production in 135 less developed countries using stochastic frontier analysis and data from World Bank’s Investment Climate surveys. Outages of electricity, for firms with and without backup power sources, are the most frequently cited constraint on manufacturing growth in these surveys.

Outages are shown to reduce output below the production frontier by almost five percent in Africa and by a lower percentage in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. Production response to outages is quadratic in form. Outages also increase labor cost, reduce exports …

Analysis Off Dependent Discrete Choices Using Gaussian Copula, Arjun Poddar

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

A popular tool for analyzing product choices of consumers is the well-known conditional logit discrete choice model. Originally publicized by McFadden (1974), this model assumes that the random components of the underlying latent utility functions of the consumers follow independent Gumbel distributions. However, in practice the independence assumption may be violated and a more reasonable model should account for the dependence of the utilities. In this dissertation we use the Gaussian copula with compound symmetric and autoregressive of order one correlation matrices to construct a general multivariate model for the joint distribution of the utilities. The induced correlations on the …

Collaborative Development Of A Small Business Emergency Planning Model, Arthur Henry Hendela

Dissertations

Small businesses, which are defined by the US Small Business Administration as entities with less than 500 employees, suffer interruptions from diverse risks such as financial events, legal situations, or severe storms exemplified by Hurricane Sandy. Proper preparations can help lessen the length of the interruption and put employees and owners back to work. Large corporations generally have large budgets available for planning, business continuity, and disaster recovery. Small businesses must decide which risks are the most important and how best to mitigate those risks using minimal resources.

This research uses a series of surveys followed by mathematical modeling to …

Mediating Chance Encounters Through Opportunistic Social Matching, Julia M. Mayer

Dissertations

Chance encounters, the unintended meeting between people unfamiliar with each other, serve as an important social lubricant helping people to create new social ties, such as making new friends or finding an activity, study or collaboration partner. Unfortunately, social barriers often prevent chance encounters in environments where people do not know each other and people have to rely on serendipity to meet or be introduced to interesting people around them. Little is known about the underlying dynamics of chance encounters and how systems could utilize contextual data to mediate chance encounters. This dissertation addresses this gap in research literature by …

Analyzing Proactive Fraud Detection Software Tools And The Push For Quicker Solutions, Kerri Aiken

Economic Crime Forensics Capstones

This paper focuses on proactive fraud detection software tools and how these tools can help detect and prevent possible fraudulent schemes. In addition to relying on routine audits, companies are designing proactive methods that involve the inclusion of software tools to detect and deter instances of fraud and abuse. This paper discusses examples of companies using ACL and SAS software programs and how the software tools have positively changed their auditing systems.

Novelis Inc., an aluminum and recycling company, implemented ACL into their internal audit software system. Competitive Health Analytics (Division of Humana) implemented SAS in order to improve their …

Dynamic Pricing And Inventory Management: Theory And Applications, Renyu Zhang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We develop the models and methods to study the impact of some emerging trends in technology, marketplace, and society upon the pricing and inventory policy of a firm. We focus on the situation where the firm is in a dynamic, uncertain, and (possibly) competitive market environment. The market trends of particular interest to us are: (a) social networks, (b) sustainability concerns, and (c) customer behaviors. The two main running questions this dissertation aims to address are: (a) How these emerging market trends would influence the operations decisions and profitability of a firm; and (b) What pricing and inventory strategies a …

Spot Volatility Estimation Of Ito Semimartingales Using Delta Sequences, Weixuan Gao

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies a unifying class of nonparametric spot volatility estimators proposed by Mancini et. al.(2013). This method is based on delta sequences and is conceived to include many of the existing estimators in the field as special cases. The thesis first surveys the asymptotic theory of the proposed estimators under an infill asymptotic scheme and fixed time horizon, when the state variable follows a Brownian semimartingale. Then, some extensions to include jumps and financial microstructure noise in the observed price process are also presented. The main goal of the thesis is to assess the suitability of the proposed methods …

Backend Challenges And Issues For Electronic Government, Salim Y. Alkindi

Information Technology Master Theses

The term electronic government (also called e-government, or eGov) refers to multidisciplinary projects that are complex in nature. Since the beginning of the Internet revolution many countries have adopted e-government as a step toward enhancing the delivery of public or governmental services to citizens by what are called e-services. A typical request for a service is initiated and passes through an electronic service (“e-service”) portal, or a front office. The term front office application usually system can be defined as designates software seen and used directly by an end user. This software provides the capabilities needed to collect the user …

Information Technology Proposal For The Town Of Spencer, Vijay Basava, Corey Kenyon, Mahdi Soltani

School of Professional Studies

The Town of Spencer came to us looking for a plan to build and maintain their own personal fiber network for connection between departments and to improve data security for important information. After assessing the existing landscape and determining the various paths forward, we created network diagrams and plans for the movement forward of this project.

After assessing a variety of plans, we found that a full single-mode fiber network would be the best system for the implementation in Spencer. While it was the highest cost, it also scored the highest in our assessment.

Charlton Fire Department Resident Expectations: Survey And Analysis, Natalie Omary, Jingxin Wen, Junchen Chen, Denis Kornev

School of Professional Studies

The Town of Charlton is located in the heart of the Massachusetts with a resident population of just under 14,000 people. The Charlton Fire Department serves the town for needs related to fire fighting, fire prevention, burning permits and inspection services along with emergency medical services. The Department has requested the assistance of the Clark University COPACE Capstone students in creating and conducting survey in order to get a sense of what the resident of the town know about the fire department and to better gauge their expectations about what the department can provide for them. The survey was formulated …

Cybersecurity Awareness Shrewsbury Public Schools, Brittany Crompton, David Thompson, Manuel Reyes, Xueyan Zhao, Xueke Zou

School of Professional Studies

In the 21st Century, technology reaches every aspect of our lives. As “digital citizens” we must be aware of the dangers both to our technological equipment and our personal information stored, transmitted, and processed on this equipment. The Cybersecurity Awareness curriculum developed for the Shrewsbury Public School district is designed to meet this need, as well as foster an interest in technology and ethical computer use.

Analysis Of The Point Of Sales System At Tower Hill Botanical Garden And Suggested Courses Of Action, Brian Dunn, Keerthi Bandi, Chantal Kopwa Epse Kassa, F.N.U Shelly

School of Professional Studies

As Tower Hill Botanic Garden continues to improve on its operations and enhance the experience of its visitors and members, they are on a quest for a new Point-Of-Sale (POS) system that not only works with its existing hardware and interface with Raiser’s Edge, a smartcloud fundraising and relationship management software central to the garden’s operations but also, have a restaurant module and the capability of operating both in a wireless and hard-wired environment.

Alternatives Unlimited Inc. Property Service Application, Jalpa Dave, Pennie Nataliya, Neelakshi Bali

School of Professional Studies

The purpose of this project is to propose Property service application to be enforced for documenting and managing the work orders raised throughout the residencies. The company is looking into an application that would facilitate to track and monitor the maintenance request received in a systematic order and ensuring priority work request is resolved within the set time frame. The project is to enhance the property service's work more efficiently as this will provide a high level of charge for the occupants by providing quicker response to their requests. The Objectives set to achieve for this project are realistic and …

Developing An Online Database Of Experts For The Worcester Regional Chamber Of Commerce, Zikan Chen, Douglas Grey, Pranjal Shah

School of Professional Studies

The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce as part of their mission to attract business to the Worcester area, want to create an online searchable database of industry experts made up of faculty members of the Colleges and Universities in the Worcester area. This online database will be placed on the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Higher Education – Business Partnership page on their website. The limitations placed on this request are that the Regional Chamber as of this moment have no monetary or Information Technologies resources to provide for the realization of this request.

The proliferation of as A Service …

Statistical Contributions To Operational Risk Modeling, Daoping Yu

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we focus on statistical aspects of operational risk modeling. Specifically, we are interested in understanding the effects of model uncertainty on capital reserves due to data truncation and in developing better model selection tools for truncated and shifted parametric distributions. We first investigate the model uncertainty question which has been unanswered for many years because researchers, practitioners, and regulators could not agree on how to treat the data collection threshold in operational risk modeling. There are several approaches under consideration—the empirical approach, the “naive” approach, the shifted approach, and the truncated approach—for fitting the loss severity distribution. …

Three Essays On The Effects Of Appraisal, Cultural, Emotional, And Cognitive Factors On Information Technologies Acceptance And Use, Chun-Lung Huang

Theses and Dissertations

In essay 1, we propose a model, which utilized Lazarus and Folkman’s Cognitive Appraisal Theory of Emotion or Appraisal Theory (1984, 1987) as a structural foundation to lay out the nomological relationships among a person’s personal, cognitive, and emotional factors in predicting technology use behaviors. Emotion, likes many social and psychological factors, is challenging to give a full-consensus definition, and has been treated as a polar counterpart of cognition. Lazarus and Folkman’s Appraisal Theory suggested that when a person is facing a (disruptive) event, he or she appraises the possible outcomes (we suppose that appraising is a form of cognitive …

Optimal Pairs Trading Rules, Eric Müller

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis derives an optimal trading rule for a pair of historically correlated stocks. When one stock's price increases and the other one's decreases, a trade of the pair is triggered. The idea is to short the winner and to long the loser with the hope that the prices of the two assets will converge again. In this thesis the spread of the two stocks is governed by a mean-reverting model. The objective is to trade the pair in such a way as to maximize an overall return. The same slippage cost is imposed on every trade. Furthermore, a local-time …

Financial Performance In Upstream, Downstream, And Integrated Oil Companies In Response To Oil Price Volatility, Jonathan P. Garcia

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper investigates the relation between crude oil price volatility and stock returns among oil companies using a three-part methodology, by using the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) as oil price benchmark. I asses the various indicators that set signals for oil price volatility and the interpretation of each (PMI, S&P500, DJIA, and World Crude Oil Output). This research also focuses on the relation between different types of companies in the oil industry (integrated, upstream, and downstream) and how each type of company will be assessed in a particular way to predict abnormal returns, based on market data and statistical analyses …

Renewable Energy Investment Planning And Policy Design, Alireza Ghalebani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we leverage predictive and prescriptive analytics to develop decision support systems to promote the use of renewable energy in society. Since electricity from renewable energy sources is still relatively expensive, there are variety of financial incentive programs available in different regions. Our research focuses on financial incentive programs and tackles two main problem: 1) how to optimally design and control hybrid renewable energy systems for residential and commercial buildings given the capacity based and performance based incentives, and 2) how to develop a model-based system for policy makers for designing optimal financial incentive programs to promote investment …

Doc Wayne Youth Services, Inc. Capstone Project Youth Employment And Mentoring, Bongani T. Jeranyama, Zhengjun Liu, Sarah Parsons

School of Professional Studies

In Boston, Massachusetts, young adults age 16-19 who have dropped out of high school have a very high unemployment rate of 43.8%. Additionally, in the United States of America the difference between a young adult with a high school diploma as opposed to a young adult without a high school diploma in terms of weekly income is $180 USD; between a young adult with a high school diploma versus a young professional with a bachelor’s degree is $433 USD. These numbers demonstrate the need for services that improve academic achievement, job readiness and preparedness, and youth mentorship for struggling young …