Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Ezdi's Semantics-Enhanced Linguistic, Nlp, And Ml Approach For Health Informatics, Raxit Goswami, Neil Shah, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

ezDI uses large and extensive knowledge graph to enhance linguistics, NLP and ML techniques to improve structured data extraction from millions of EMR records. It then normalizes it, and maps it with various computer-processable nomenclature such as SNOMED-CT, RxNorm, ICD-9, ICD-10, CPT, and LOINC. Furthermore, it applies advanced reasoning that exploited domain-specific and hierarchical relationships among entities in the knowledge graph to make the data actionable. These capabilities are part of its highly scalable AWS deployed heath intelligence platform that support healthcare informatics applications, including Computer Assisted Coding (CAC), Computerized Document Improvement (CDI), compliance and audit, and core measures and …

Research: South Dakota State University, Fall 2015, Christie Delfanian, Emily Weber

State of Discovery South Dakota State University's Research Magazine

CONTENTS:

Pine Ridge Elders to educate peers about wills, advanced care planning [Page] 2
Diversity: Teaching diverse learners requires responsiveness to students' needs [Page] 3
Renaissance writers address social values still relevant today [Page] 5
Forest fire expert helps Indonesians assess carbon emissions [Page] 7
Diagnostic tests key to controlling swine virus [Page] 9
Experience, networking fuel wastewater filtration research [Page] 9
Breast-feeding friendly climate benefits businesses, communities [Page] 10
Dairy scientist harness power of milk protein [Page] 11
Pharmacists' study helps prevent antibiotic-induced kidney failure [Page] 11
Plants exchange carbohydrates for nitrogen, phosphorus from mycorrhizal fungi [Page] 12

Short-Tailed Temperature Distributions Over North America And Implications For Future Changes In Extremes, Paul C. Loikith, J. David Neelin

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Some regions of North America exhibit nonnormal temperature distributions. Shorter-than-Gaussian warm tails are a special subset of these cases, with potentially meaningful implications for future changes in extreme warm temperatures under anthropogenic global warming. Locations exhibiting shorter-than-Gaussian warm tails would experience a greater increase in extreme warm temperature exceedances than a location with a Gaussian or long warm-side tail under a simple uniform warm shift in the distribution. Here we identify regions exhibiting such behavior over North America and demonstrate the effect of a simple warm shift on changes in extreme warm temperature exceedances. Some locations exceed the 95th percentile …

The Environment And Civil War: Exploring The Relationship Between The Environmental Performance Index And Incidence Of Internal Armed Conflict, Katerina N. Krohn

Student Publications

The state of the environment is receiving increasing attention. Environmental quality’s possible relationship to violent conflict attracts both popular and academic interest. Prior research has found support for the idea that environmental scarcity is related to higher occurrences of civil war. There have been few comprehensive quantitative studies regarding this relationship. This study tests a more general argument that higher environmental quality can lead to fewer occurrences of internal armed conflict. The study utilizes an environmental performance index found in the Quality of Government Standard Dataset to test its hypothesis. The study finds that the higher the environmental performance index …

Two Formulas For Success In Social Media: Learning And Network Effects, Liangfei Qiu, Qian Tang, Andrew B. Whinston

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented explosion in information technology that enables dynamic diffusion of user-generated content in social networks. Online videos, in particular, have changed the landscape of marketing and entertainment, competing with premium content and spurring business innovations. In the present study, we examine how learning and network effects drive the diffusion of online videos. While learning happens through informational externalities, network effects are direct payoff externalities. Using a unique data set from YouTube, we empirically identify learning and network effects separately, and find that both mechanisms have statistically and economically significant effects on video views; furthermore, the …

Targeted Blended Learning Through Competency Assessment In An Undergraduate Information Systems Program, Joelle Elmaleh, Shankararaman, Venky

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper we report our study on the problem of competency acquisition when students progress from one course to another and more generally, from one term to the next. We observed that some students moved on to a second programming course without acquiring some of the competencies in the first programming course. This leads to problem in the second course, especially when these competencies are pre-requisites for this course. We applied blended learning, which allows a student to learn at least in part through delivery of content and instruction via online media, to overcome this problem. Our approach is …

What's Hot In Software Engineering Twitter Space?, Abhishek Sharma, Tian Yuan, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Twitter is a popular means to disseminate information and currently more than 300 million people are using it actively. Software engineers are no exception; Singer et al. have shown that many developers use Twitter to stay current with recent technological trends. At various time points, many users are posting microblogs (i.e., tweets) about the same topic in Twitter. We refer to this reasonably large set of topically-coherent microblogs in the Twitter space made at a particular point in time as an event. In this work, we perform an exploratory study on software engineering related events in Twitter. We collect a …

Emotional Facial Expressions In Synthesised Sign Language Avatars: A Manual Evaluation., Robert G Smith, Brian Nolan

Other Resources

This research explores and evaluates the contribution that facial expressions might have regarding improved comprehension and acceptability in sign language avatars. Focusing specifically on Irish sign language (ISL), the Deaf (the uppercase ‘‘D’’ in the word ‘‘Deaf’’ indicates Deaf as a culture as opposed to ‘‘deaf’’ as a medical condition) community’s responsiveness to sign language avatars is examined. The hypothesis of this is as follows: augmenting an existing avatar with the seven widely accepted universal emotions identified by Ekman (Basic emotions: handbook of cognition and emotion. Wiley, London, 2005) to achieve underlying facial expressions will make that avatar more human-like …

Wildlife Crime And Other Challenges To Resource System Resilience, Patricia Anne Raxter

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Although wildlife crime has exploded in Africa over the past decade —“commercial poaching” now kills an estimated eight percent of the continent’s elephant population each year—some governments have proven more successful than others at protecting wildlife and preserving habitats. To explain this variation, this study examines how the policies of three states (Kenya, Tanzania, and Botswana) have enhanced or undermined the resilience of the continent’s elephant ecosystem. Using the social-ecological system framework, the study illustrates how each state’s changing practices have either exacerbated the stresses wrought by wildlife crime or successfully protected local populations from poaching. The study finds that …

Assessing The Sustainability Of Selective Logging In Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika New Protected Area, Eileen Nakahata

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Over the past 50 years, more than 90% of dense low-altitude humid forest in the District of Vangaindrano has been lost to deforestation and the remaining fragments continue to be threatened by slash and burn agriculture and selective cutting by local populations. These activities are driven by widespread poverty, population growth, and lack of development, which have made subsistence increasingly difficult. This study investigates logging rates and the stock of five commercially valuable trees in the Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika New Protected Area. Fifteen 1000m² transects were established systematically within the territory of the Matanga commune. Within each transect data was collected …

An Analysis Of Biodiversity, Sustainability, And Ecotourism In The Vo.I.M.Ma Community Managed Forest, Andasibe, Madagascar, Catherine Knowlton, Charlotte Walton

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The concept of eco-tourism as a culturally sensitive, ecologically beneficial alternative to traditional vacations is a fairly new idea. While on the surface it seems positive for everyone involved, there are complexities in the relationships between all parties. This study explores the ties between the community forest, the tourists, and biodiversity (specifically endemic lemur populations) in the VO.I.M.MA Community Managed Forest. This study found that the community forest model is sustainable, based on the criteria of protecting biodiversity and satisfying customers. To truly promote a sustainable business model in the future (ecologically as well as economically), the center could improve …

Working With Locals To Restore Biodiversity To A Rubber Dominated Landscape, Francis Commercon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Xishuangbanna, in Yunnan,China, contains the country’s highest concentration of biodiversity. Since the 1980s,rubber plantations have replaced a significant portion of the prefecture’s lowland Seasonal Tropical Rainforest, leading to wildlife habitat loss and other environmental issues.Monoculture farming practices also leave farmers economically vulnerable to market fluctuations. To learn the best solutions for increasing ecosystem services and income stability in rubber-dominated areas, the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) project Green Rubber engages smallholders directly in establishing and maintaining scientifically rigorous intercropping experiments in their villages.

Using Man’e village and the Green Rubber project as a case study, I asked to what degree and …

Conservation For Whom?: The Struggle For Indigenous Rights In Sagarmatha National Park, Jake Sivinski

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since its creation in 1976 Sagarmatha National Park has been the subject of a great deal of internal scrutiny by the regions indigenous Sherpa Inhabitants. Since their arrival in the Khumbu valley some four centuries ago, the Sherpa people have held a deep respect for their land and have practiced a highly organized and effective form of environmental stewardship which they refer to as Yul-Tim. At its core Yul-Tim relies on the authority of certain village members to make and enforce rules within the community: a practice that has been greatly undermined by creation of SNP. While SNP has had …

La Vida Revivida: Una Exploración De La Salud, El Medio Ambiente Y La Cultura En Los Procesos De La Producción Ecológica De Cochabamba, Ethan Wood, Emily Wyler

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación intenta explorar cómo los productores incorporan la salud, el medio ambiente, y la cultura en su proceso de producción ecológica. Para responder a esta pregunta, trabajamos con la ONG CIOEC Cochabamba y los productores ecológicos de Cochabamba, para entender cómo es la producción ecológica. Con la investigación, intentamos identificar varias maneras en las que el gobierno del departamento puede brindar más apoyo a los productores y conservar los métodos tradicionales de la producción en Cochabamba. En esta investigación, se utilizaron la observación participativa y las entrevistas semi-estructuradas.

Patagonia Con Poder: El Éxito De La Oposición Frente El Proyecto Hidroaysén, Nathaniel Korn

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This investigation analyzes the movement in opposition to the HidroAysén project in Southern Chile that is often referred to as and uses the slogan “Patagonia Sin Represas” (Patagonia Without Dams). The investigation is framed through collective action theory, the study of what incentives and other factors create the conditions for mobilization and group action. In the context of social movements it is usually argued that there needs to be a better cost-benefit scenario for each actor to be involved than there is to not be involved in the movement. Immediately following return of democracy to Chile in the 1990’s social …

Don't Just Blindly Follow All 'Green' Trends -- Do Your Research First, Michael Bass

UCF Forum

Nowadays it is politically correct to be “green” – to say and do things that seem to minimize one’s impact on the environment and to preach to others to do the same.

The Lsu Department Of Otolaryngology – Head And Neck Surgery: A Decade In Review And A Vision For Our Future, Department Of Otolaryngology

LSUHSC Hurricane Katrina Archive: Reports & Presentations

"The LSU Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery: A Decade in review and a vision for our future" is a 10 page document extracted from a publication created the LSU Health Department of Laryngology on September 27, 2015.

The selected pages from this publication detail the forced temporary closure and relocation of LSU Health Sciences Center due to the impact of Hurricane Katrina, and the ways the Department of Otolaryngology continued their academic programming.

Does Gender Matter? Human Elephant Conflict In Sri Lanka: A Gendered Analysis Of Human Elephant Conflict And Natural Resource Management In A Rural Sri Lankan Village, Katherine Eileen Griffin

Dissertations and Theses

This study is a gendered analysis of natural resource management at the local scale of a poor rural Sri Lankan village in a conservation buffer zone. This village experiences destruction of forests and human elephant conflict. The objective of this study is to gain an in-depth knowledge of residents' use and understandings of environmental resources, and to investigate if gender helps shape these factors. This study relies on a social sustainability conceptual framework. It tracks participation of local women and men in natural resource management, and in conservation within and outside of the Bibile community. Local nongovernmental organizations focus on …

Crowdsourcing Global Wastewater Data, Don Mosteller, Sam Cohen, Cory Nestor, Angel Hsu, Omar Malik

Yale Day of Data

No time to waste: Crowdsourcing global wastewater treatment data

Worldwide, over 80 percent of wastewater is discharged into water bodies without undergoing treatment, severely impairing human well-being and ecosystem vitality along the way. National performance on wastewater treatment is difficult to quantify and is poorly understood due to a lack of common definitions, poor data collection standards, and limited historical data. To address this, the Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a research group that produces a biennial ranking of country-level environmental performance, developed a first-of-its kind national wastewater treatment indicator.[1]

The indicator assesses wastewater treatment performance for 183 countries, …

A Multilevel Analysis Of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Effect On Preterm Births In Georgia, Usa, Wei Tu, Jun Tu, Stuart H. Tedders

Earth, Environment & Sustainability: Faculty Publications

This study estimates the neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) effect on the risk of preterm birth (PTB) using multilevel regression (MLR) models. Birth data retrieved from year 2000 and 2010 Georgia Vital Records were linked to their respective census tracts. Principle component analysis (PCA) was performed on nine selected census variables and the first two principal components (Fac1 and Fac2) were used to represent the neighborhood-level SES in the MLR models. Two-level random intercept MLR models were specified using 122,744 and 112,578 live and singleton births at the individual level and 1613 and 1952 census tracts at the neighborhood level, for …

The Effect Of Urbanization On The Embodied Energy Of Drinking Water In Tampa, Florida, Mark Vincent Eli Santana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing urbanization has serious implications for resource and energy use. One of these resources is drinking water. The increased amount of impervious surfaces associated with urban development is responsible for increased runoff during rain events, which may have a negative impact on the quality of nearby bodies of water, including drinking water sources. The growing populations associated with urbanization require a higher water demand. In addition, urban drinking water systems use energy to collect, treat, and distribute a safe reliable effluent to users. Therefore, this study focuses on the degree to which urbanization influences the embodied energy of drinking water …

Diurnal And Seasonal Variations Of No, No2 And Pm2.5 Mass As A Function Of Traffic Volumes Alongside An Urban Arterial, Christine M. Kendrick, Peter Koonce, Linda A. George

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Urban arterial corridors are landscapes that give rise to short and long-term exposures to transportation-related pollution. With high traffic volumes and a wide mix of road users, urban arterial environments are important targets for improved exposure assessment to traffic-related pollution. A common method to estimate exposure is to use traffic volumes as a proxy. The study presented here analyzes a unique yearlong dataset of simultaneous roadside air quality and traffic observations for a U.S. arterial to assess the reliability of using traffic volumes as a proxy for traffic-related exposure. Results show how the relationships of traffic volumes with NO and …

Information Diffusion, Facebook Clusters, And The Simplicial Model Of Social Aggregation: A Computational Simulation Of Simplicial Diffusers For Community Health Interventions, Kerk Kee, Lisa Sparks, Daniele C. Struppa, Mirco A. Manucci, Alberto Damiano

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

By integrating the simplicial model of social aggregation with existing research on opinion leadership and diffusion networks, this article introduces the constructs of simplicial diffusers (mathematically defined as nodes embedded in simplexes; a simplex is a socially bonded cluster) and simplicial diffusing sets (mathematically defined as minimal covers of a simplicial complex; a simplicial complex is a social aggregation in which socially bonded clusters are embedded) to propose a strategic approach for information diffusion of cancer screenings as a health intervention on Facebook for community cancer prevention and control. This approach is novel in its incorporation of interpersonally bonded clusters, …

Impact Of Declining Proposal Success Rates On Scientific Productivity, Ted Von Hippel, Priscilla Cushman, Todd Hoeksema, Chryssa Kouveliotou, James Lowenthal, Bradley Peterson, Keivan G. Stassun,

Publications

Over the last decade proposal success rates in the fundamental sciences have dropped significantly. Astronomy and related fields funded by NASA and NSF are no exception. Data across agencies show that this is not principally the result of a decline in proposal merit (the proportion of proposals receiving high rankings is largely unchanged), nor of a shift in proposer demographics (seniority, gender, and institutional affiliation have all remained unchanged), nor of an increase (beyond inflation) in the average requested funding per proposal, nor of an increase in the number of proposals per investigator in any one year. Rather, the statistics …

L.A. River Project, Erin Payne

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

A field note that reflected the artists' experience of the city and the making of art through an activity at the L.A. River.

Are We Making A Better World With Information And Communication Technology For Development (Ict4d) Research? Findings From The Field And Theory Building, Sajda Qureshi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

As Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) continue to penetrate people’s lives the world over, there is a sense that understanding the role of ICTs in the context of development needs to be conceptualized theoretically while making empirical contributions that add to what we know (Avgerou, 2008; Davison, 2012; Sein and Harindranath, 2004; Sahay and Walsham, 1995). Other scholars have pointed to the importance of this research for the field of Information Systems (ISs) in offering broader contributions. Avgerou (2008) suggests that in the era of globalization such research offers contributions in ISs beyond “organizational organizational and national boundaries and support …

Relationships, Michael Goodman

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

No abstract provided.

Ecoscience + Art Initiative: Designing A New Paradigm For College Education, Scholarship, And Service, Changwoo Ahn

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

The paper presents a new initiative, EcoScience + Art, which blooms at George Mason University. The creator explains the background, history, and recent activities of the initiative, and also introduces an on-going special project called “The Rain Project”, a student participatory project to design, construct, and monitor a green infrastructure (i.e., floating wetland) for sustainable stormwater management on campus. The special project is geared to design and present a new paradigm to integrate college education, scholarship, and service. The relevance of the initiative and the special project to STEAM education is discussed.

Faculty Fellows 2015-2016, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

This document provides biographies of PLACE faculty fellows at Linfield College for 2015-2016.

Air, Water, Earth, And Fire: The Ancient Elements On A Changing Planet, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

This document explains the PLACE theme at Linfield College for 2015-2016 (Air, Water, Earth, and Fire: The Ancient Elements on a Changing Planet).