Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Blockchain-Enabled Peer-To-Peer Energy Trading Platform For Managing Complex Exchange Of Kilowatt-Hours And Negawatts, Murat Kuzlu, Rasheq Rahman, Jason Lin

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Under the Department of Energy’s STTR funding, BEM Controls LLC performed research from July 2, 2018 to April 1, 2019. The purpose of this research was to design, develop and demonstrate the technical feasibility of the blockchain enabled energy trading platform for managing complex exchange of kilowatt hours and negawatts. The energy trading platform was developed in the open-source HyperLedger Fabric blockchain framework and the performance of the blockchain network was evaluated. Key research findings and results include (1) the successful design and development of an open-architecture blockchain-based energy trading platform able to execute smart contract transactions across eight use …

Automatic Slide Generation For Scientific Papers, Athar Sefid, Jian Wu, Prasenjit Mitra, C. Lee Giles

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We describe our approach for automatically generating presentation slides for scientific papers using deep neural networks. Such slides can help authors have a starting point for their slide generation process. Extractive summarization techniques are applied to rank and select important sentences from the original document. Previous work identified important sentences based only on a limited number of features that were extracted from the position and structure of sentences in the paper. Our method extends previous work by (1) extracting a more comprehensive list of surface features, (2) considering semantic or meaning of the sentence, and (3) using context around the …

Pawnee Dam Inflow Design Flood (Idf) Update And Stage-Frequency Curve Development Using Rmcrfa, Jennifer P. Christensen, Joshua J. Melliger

United States Geological Survey: Water Reports and Publications

Pawnee Dam is one of the ten Salt Creek Dams designed and built in the 1960s to mitigate flooding in Lincoln, Nebraska. This short paper illustrates the update of the Pawnee Dam inflow design flood (IDF) through calibration to recent high flow events and the development of its stage-frequency or hydrologic loading curve with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Risk Management Center Reservoir Frequency Analysis (RMC-RFA) model. The IDF update follows Engineering Regulation 1110-8-2, Inflow Design Flood for Dams and Reservoirs, including unit hydrograph peaking and two antecedent pool elevations. Background information on the original design of the dam …

On Cluster Robust Models, José Bayoán Santiago Calderón

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Cluster robust models are a kind of statistical models that attempt to estimate parameters considering potential heterogeneity in treatment effects. Absent heterogeneity in treatment effects, the partial and average treatment effect are the same. When heterogeneity in treatment effects occurs, the average treatment effect is a function of the various partial treatment effects and the composition of the population of interest. The first chapter explores the performance of common estimators as a function of the presence of heterogeneity in treatment effects and other characteristics that may influence their performance for estimating average treatment effects. The second chapter examines various approaches …

Less Is More: Beating The Market With Recurrent Reinforcement Learning, Louis Kurt Bernhard Steinmeister

Masters Theses

"Multiple recurrent reinforcement learners were implemented to make trading decisions based on real and freely available macro-economic data. The learning algorithm and different reinforcement functions (the Differential Sharpe Ratio, Differential Downside Deviation Ratio and Returns) were revised and the performances were compared while transaction costs were taken into account. (This is important for practical implementations even though many publications ignore this consideration.) It was assumed that the traders make long-short decisions in the S&P500 with complementary 3-month treasury bill investments. Leveraged positions in the S&P500 were disallowed. Notably, the Differential Sharpe Ratio and the Differential Downside Deviation Ratio are risk …

Reconciling The Dissonance Between Historic Preservation And Virtual Reality Through A Place-Based Virtual Heritage System., Danny J. Bonenberger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study explores a problematic disconnect associated with virtual heritage and the immersive 3D computer modeling of cultural heritage. The products of virtual heritage often fail to adhere to long-standing principles and recent international conventions associated with historic preservation, heritage recording, designation, and interpretation. By drawing upon the geographic concepts of space, landscape, and place, along with advances in Geographic Information Systems, first-person serious games, and head-mounted Virtual Reality platforms this study envisions, designs, implements, and evaluates a virtual heritage system that seeks to reconcile the dissonance between Virtual Reality and historic preservation. Finally, the dissertation examines the contributions and …

Canadian Hockey Leagues Game-To-Game Performance, Nick R. Riccardi

Sport Management - All Scholarship

This study examines game-to-game performance of players across the three Canadian Hockey Leagues (Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League, and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) for the 2017-2018 season. It tests the importance of factors such as rest, travel, weather conditions, and more. Data for this study were collected from each of the three CHL websites and from www.weatherunderground.com. The null hypotheses of different factors affecting performance were tested through regression models using Ordinary Least Squares. The dependent variables, used across different specifications, were on-ice performance variables such as points, goals, and penalty minutes on a per-game basis.

@Yourlocation: A Spatial Analysis Of Geotagged Tweets In The Us, Ocean Mckinney

CMC Senior Theses

This project examines the spatial network properties observable from geo-located tweet data. Conventional exploration examines characteristics of a variety of network attributes, but few employ spatial edge correlations in their analysis. Recent studies have demonstrated the improvements that these correlations contribute to drawing conclusions about network structure. This thesis expands upon social network research utilizing spatial edge correlations and presents processing and formatting techniques for JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) data.

Cliff-Top Dunes In The Lower Chippewa River Valley Of West-Central Wisconsin, Jason Millett

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate recently identified cliff-top sand dunes located within the Lower Chippewa River Valley (LCRV), Wisconsin, USA. Research within the LCRV notes the existence of a variety of aeolian deposits, but a comprehensive explanation of their complete spatial distribution, genesis, age, and paleoenvironmental significance does not exist. In particular, stabilized cliff-top dunes with a parabolic form remain poorly understood. This problem is exacerbated by a lack of clarity in the literature regarding the genesis of dunes in a cliff-top position. Therefore, this thesis begins by reviewing the literature concerning sand dunes in cliff-top …

Adaptive Knowledge Networks: A Time Capsule, Swati Padhee, Anurag Illendula, Amit Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Valerie L. Shalin

Kno.e.sis Publications

❖ Real world events are dynamic in nature Periodic events e.g. US Presidential Election Non-periodic events e.g. Cyclone Idai

❖ Need for real-time predictive analysis, trend analysis, spatio-temporal decision making, public opinion analysis for events.

❖ Current state-of-the-art curates dynamic knowledge graph from structured text.

❖ We propose creating an Adaptive Knowledge Network from incoming real-time multimodal spatio-temporally evolving data.

The New Legal Landscape For Text Mining And Machine Learning, Matthew Sag

Faculty Articles

Now that the dust has settled on the Authors Guild cases, this Article takes stock of the legal context for TDM research in the United States. This reappraisal begins in Part I with an assessment of exactly what the Authors Guild cases did and did not establish with respect to the fair use status of text mining. Those cases held unambiguously that reproducing copyrighted works as one step in the process of knowledge discovery through text data mining was transformative, and thus ultimately a fair use of those works. Part I explains why those rulings followed inexorably from copyright's most …

Sources And Atmospheric Oxidation Of Sulfur Dioxide And Formaldehyde Based On Wintertime Aircraft Observations Over The Eastern United States, Jaime R. Green

Dissertations

Plume intercepts from flights on the NSF-C-130 during the Wintertime Investigation of Transport, Emission and Reactivity (WINTER) campaign were used to estimate (1) the oxidation rates of Sulfur Dioxide (SO₂) under wintertime conditions and the factors that determine SO₂ removal; and (2) to examine the oxidation, lifetime and source apportionment of formaldehyde (HCHO). Observations suggest that OH governs the rate SO₂ oxidation in the eastern United States during winter. The range of mean oxidation rates during the day from power plants were 0.22–0.71%/hr, producing SO₂ lifetimes of 13–43 days, if SO₂ consumption is assumed …

A Hybrid Cognitive Architecture With Primal Affect And Physiology, Christopher L. Dancy

Faculty Journal Articles

Though computational cognitive architectures have been used to study several processes associated with human behavior, the study of integration of affect and emotion in these processes has been relatively sparse. Theory from affective science and affective neuroscience can be used to systematically integrate affect into cognitive architectures, particularly in areas where cognitive system behavior is known to be associated with physiological structure and behavior. I introduce a unified theory and model of human behavior that integrates physiology and primal affect with cognitive processes in a cognitive architecture. This new architecture gives a more tractable, mechanistic way to simulate affect-cognition interactions …

A Tacticians Guide To Conflict, Vol. 1: Advancing Explanations & Predictions Of Intrastate Conflict, Khaled Eid

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Intrastate conflict is an ever-evolving problem – causes, explanation, and predictions are increasingly murky as traditional methods of analysis focus on structural issues as precursors of conflict. Often times these theories do not consider the underlying meso and micro dynamics that can provide vital insights into the phenomena. Tactical decision-makers are left using models that rely on highly aggregated, country level data to create proper courses of actions (COAs) to address or predict conflict. The shortcoming is that conflicts morph quite rapidly and structural variables can struggle capture such dynamic changes. To address this some tacticians are using big data …

Island Invasion: The Silent Crisis In Hawaii, Sophia Janssen

Pomona Senior Theses

Keeping out invasive species may, upon first review, seem like a trivial environmental cry from ecologists and deep environmentalists; a belated wish to return to an undeveloped world where nature was pristine. However invasive species create problems that impact all of us and can have far more severe consequences than changing a stunning landscape. These problems are heightened in islands like Hawaii, where the fragile ecosystems have developed over centuries of evolution and adaptation. The introduction of a disease-carrying mosquito can put the people of Hawaii at risk to many vector-born illnesses and create an epidemic, taking human life. The …

Introduction To Neutrosophic Sociology (Neutrosociology), Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Neutrosophic Sociology (or Neutrosociology) is the study of sociology using neutrosophic scientific methods.

The huge social data that we face in sociology is full of indeterminacy: it is vague, incomplete, contradictory, hybrid, biased, ignorant, redundant, superfluous, meaningless, ambiguous, unclear, etc.

That’s why the neutrosophic sciences (which deal with indeterminacy), through the process of neutrosophication, are involved, such as: neutrosophy (a new branch of philosophy), neutrosophic set, neutrosophic logic, neutrosophic probability and neutrosophic statistics, neutrosophic analysis, neutrosophic measure, and so on.

Neutrosophy studies only the triads (A, neutA, antiA), where A is an item or a concept, that make sense in …

Advances Of Standard And Nonstandard Neutrosophic Theories, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this book, we approach different topics related to neutrosophics, such as: Neutrosophic Set, Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set, Inconsistent Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set, Picture Fuzzy Set, Ternary Fuzzy Set, Pythagorean Fuzzy Set, Atanassov’s Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set of second type, Spherical Fuzzy Set, n-HyperSpherical Neutrosophic Set, q-Rung Orthopair Fuzzy Set, truth-membership, indeterminacy-membership, falsehood-nonmembership, Regret Theory, Grey System Theory, ThreeWays Decision, n-Ways Decision, Neutrosophy, Neutrosophication, Neutrosophic Probability, Refined Neutrosophy, Refined Neutrosophication, Nonstandard Analysis; Extended Nonstandard Analysis; Open and Closed Monads to the Left/Right; Pierced and Unpierced Binads; MoBiNad Set; infinitesimals; infinities; nonstandard reals; standard reals; Nonstandard Neutrosophic Lattices of First Type (as poset) and …

On Soft Rough Topology With Multi-Attribute Group Decision Making, Florentin Smarandache, Muhammad Riaz, Atiqa Firdous, Atiqa Fakhar

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Rough set approaches encounter uncertainty by means of boundary regions instead of membership values. In this paper, we develop the topological structure on soft rough set (SR-set) by using pairwise SR-approximations. We define SR-open set, SR-closed sets, SR-closure, SR-interior,SR-neighborhood,SR-bases, product topology onSR-sets, continuous mapping, and compactness in soft rough topological space (SRTS). The developments of the theory onSR-set and SR-topology exhibit not only an important theoretical value but also represent significant applications ofSR-sets. We applied an algorithm based onSR-set to multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM) to deal with uncertainty.

Entropy Of Polysemantic Words For The Same Part Of Speech, Mihaela Colhon, Florentin Smarandache, Dan Valeriu Voinea

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper, a special type of polysemantic words, that is, words with multiple meanings for the same part of speech, are analyzed under the name of neutrosophic words. These words represent the most difficult cases for the disambiguation algorithms as they represent the most ambiguous natural language utterances. For approximate their meanings, we developed a semantic representation framework made by means of concepts from neutrosophic theory and entropy measure in which we incorporate sense related data. We show the advantages of the proposed framework in a sentiment classification task.

Natural Resources Governance Employing Blockchain-Based Decision-Making, Farinaz Sabz Ali Pour, Adrian Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Natural resources are essential structures of socio-economic systems which shape the well-being of humanity, environment, and the economy. Human actions have become the critical responsibility for environmental changes and pressuring many planetary boundaries. Having a systematic approach can provide a governance platform including the inherent characteristics of the resource, the historically established form of use, and transaction costs. A natural resource governance framework is developed by applying Blockchain technology as the primary goal of this study to regulate and manage the extraction and trades. Blockchain technology provides a distributed concurrency monitoring system for sustainable resource management. Persistent and pervasive cooperation …

Improving Access To Clean Water In Rural Ecuador: The Connection Between Willingness To Pay And Population Health, Micalea Leaska

Capstone Collection

Climate change is affecting social and environmental determinants of health through access to safe drinking water, safely managed sanitation systems, and access to health care services and the ability for individuals to break free from unsuitable circumstances. Ecological disturbances such as those caused by climate change can cause a shift in host vectors or a change in habitat that results in a greater likelihood of the pathogen coming in contact with humans. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services and their accessibility to populations can directly impact a community’s vulnerability to diseases and limiting factors to increase economic growth. If rural …

Health Risk Tolerance As A Key Determinant Of (Un)Willingness To Behavior Change: Conceptualization And Scale Development, Hyoyeun Jun, Yan Jin

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

After the study of testing determinants of risk tolerance affecting information sharing, this study was conducted as a second step to actually develop the scale for risk tolerance. Firstly, this study followed qualitative steps, such as in-depth interview and focus group, to capture how public describes the situation when they are tolerating the risk, when they knew what the recommended behavior is to relieve the risk. Secondly, this study collected 1000 U.S. public sample for the survey questionnaire that are the items generated from the qualitative steps.

The Evaluation Of Classifier Performance On The Forensic Analysis Of Fire Debris And The Expansion Of The Substrate Database, Alyssa Allen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current protocols in fire debris analysis rely on ignitable liquid pattern recognition and the identification of target compounds. These practices allow fire debris analysts to determine whether a sample contains or is absent of ignitable liquid residue and to classify that type of ignitable liquid based upon subjective thresholds. A statistical approach using computationally mixed datasets was devised in this research to generate an objective approach to the classification of fire debris samples and to determine error rates. Quadratic, linear, and partial least squares linear discriminant analysis (QDA, LDA, and PLS-DA) models were developed and evaluated to determine the …

Through The Eyes Of Locals: A Changing Climate In Bolivia, Jacob D. Rex

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Deforestation and Agricultural Land-Use Change in Bolivia as a Function of Socio-Economic Realities.

This research combines semi-structured interviews of key informants and local participants, as well as field observations, which were conducted between January and April of 2019 in the Departments of Santa Cruz & Chuquisaca.

Virtual Hearings And Blockchain Technology Solutions In Criminal Law, Chantell Bergquist

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Technology has evolved and raided our personal and professional lives. Although the courts are not immune to the advancement and integration of technology, the courts are not keeping up with relevant technological advancements. Historically, courts have been hesitant to embrace new technologies despite the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure creates the right to a “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Likewise, the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct have determined attorneys must “keep abreast of …

Sustainable Development Economy: Macroeconomic Policy And Microeconomic Impact Of Public Private Partnerships, Richard Berkshire

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The impact of public private partnership (PPP) on Dallas, Texas economic development activities is debated through many forms of academic studies. The purpose of this study was to bridge the research gap in PPP impact on sustainable economic development from the perspectives of PPP practitioners. The central research question focused on the PPP executives' perspective on the evaluation of PPP programs within a 5-year period (2005 - 2010) in Dallas, Texas. The theoretical framework of this study was based on the policy feedback theory. A qualitative case study design was the case study approach and purposeful sampling interviews were the …

University Of North Florida Environmental Center Annual Report 2019, James W. Taylor, Erin Largo-Wight, John Carlisle, Maria Mark, Jennifer Grissom, Justin M. Lemmons

Annual Reports

2019 Annual Report of the Environmental Center at the University of North Florida

An Uncommon Textbook: Review Of Common Sense Mathematics By Ethan Bolker And Maura Mast, Bernard Madison

Numeracy

Ethan D. Bolker and Maura B. Mast. 2016. Common Sense Mathematics.(Washington DC.: Mathematics Association of America) ISBN-13: 978-1-93951-210-9.

Common Sense Mathematics is an integrative quantitative reasoning (QR) textbook that is built around scores of exercises derived from authentic circumstances from public media and other public sources. The exercises elicit responses from students requiring extensive communication and analyses and distinguish the book from ones typically encountered in a mathematics or science course. Responses to exercises often require one-half page or more of writing and can occupy considerable class time in discussion. The book has material for a one- or two-semester …

Knowledge Sharing And Customer Relations In Mobility, Katie Dyretha Moore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

After the events of September 11, 2001, inadequacies in how government organizations and agencies shared knowledge and communication with defense mission partners became readily apparent. A reasonable U.S. government information technology expectation is the integrated use of mobile phones across organizations and agencies. Yet, it is difficult to meet this expectation, as the provisioning process for mobile devices can be different for each government organization or agency. The Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology does not set provisioning standards, and organizations and agencies determine policies tailored to their particular needs. Using Schein's theory on organizational culture, the …

Successful Strategies For Retaining Profitability In An Education-Sector It Project, Cassandra Romae Middleton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many information technology (IT) project managers (PMs) and other business leaders lack effective strategies for enhancing communication among their project team members, thereby reducing profitability and organizational cohesion. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore communication strategies that IT PMs used to successfully complete IT mobile device projects. The conceptual framework for this study was McQuail's mass communication, Craig's communication, and Deming's profound knowledge theory. Purposive sampling method was used to identify 6 successful IT PMs and leaders who worked at 2 leading educations settings located in southeastern South Carolina. Data gathered from the semistructured interviews and …