Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

U.S. Census Explorer: A Gui And Visualization Tool For The U.S. Census Data Api, Timothy Snyder

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

U.S. Census Explorer is a software application that is designed to provide tools for intuitive exploration and analysis of United States census data for non-technical users. The application serves as an interface into the U.S. Census Bureau’s data API that enables a complete workflow from data acquisition to data visualization without the need for technical intervention from the user. The suite of tools provided include a graphical user interface for dynamically querying U.S. census data, geographic visualizations, and the ability to download your work to common spreadsheet and image formats for inclusion in external works.

A Practitioner Survey Exploring The Value Of Forensic Tools, Ai, Filtering, & Safer Presentation For Investigating Child Sexual Abuse Material, Laura Sanchez, Cinthya Grajeda, Ibrahim Baggili, Cory Hall

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

For those investigating cases of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), there is the potential harm of experiencing trauma after illicit content exposure over a period of time. Research has shown that those working on such cases can experience psychological distress. As a result, there has been a greater effort to create and implement technologies that reduce exposure to CSAM. However, not much work has explored gathering insight regarding the functionality, effectiveness, accuracy, and importance of digital forensic tools and data science technologies from practitioners who use them. This study focused specifically on examining the value practitioners give to the tools …

On The Brink Of Extinction: The Fate Of The Pacific Northwest's Southern Resident Killer Whales, Sabrina Wilk

Pomona Senior Theses

The killer whales that roam the northeastern Pacific Ocean have been the objects of studies since the 1970s, making them the most well-studied population of orcas in the world. Three distinct ecotypes of killer whales (Orcinus orca), known as residents, transients, and offshores, share these waters. The ecotypes are morphologically and behaviorally distinct to the extent that some scientists consider them separate species, with residents eating salmon, transients specializing on marine mammals, and offshores preferring Pacific sleeper sharks and Pacific halibut. Resident populations have endeared themselves to the region's locals with their striking black and white markings and …

Agent-Based Modeling And Simulation Approaches In Stem Education Research, Shanna R. Simpson-Singleton, Xiangdong Che

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The development of best practices that deliver quality STEM education to all students, while minimizing achievement gaps, have been solicited by several national agencies. ABMS is a feasible approach to provide insight into global behavior based upon the interactions amongst agents and environments. In this review, we systematically surveyed several modeling and simulation approaches and discussed their applications to the evaluation of relevant theories in STEM education. It was found that ABMS is optimal to simulate STEM education hypotheses, as ABMS will sensibly present emergent theories and causation in STEM education phenomena if the model is properly validated and calibrated.

Big Data Investment And Knowledge Integration In Academic Libraries, Saher Manaseer, Afnan R. Alawneh, Dua Asoudi

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Recently, big data investment has become important for organizations, especially with the fast growth of data following the huge expansion in the usage of social media applications, and websites. Many organizations depend on extracting and reaching the needed reports and statistics. As the investments on big data and its storage have become major challenges for organizations, many technologies and methods have been developed to tackle those challenges.

One of such technologies is Hadoop, a framework that is used to divide big data into packages and distribute those packages through nodes to be processed, consuming less cost than the traditional storage …

The Economic Value Of A Place-Based Resource For Regional Development, Aisling Conwaylenihan, Helen Mcguirk

Irish Business Journal

Regional economic development has long been acknowledged as an important objective of government policy. Natural resources are also recognised as drivers of economic development. However, the importance of place-based resources such as peripheral coastlines and Harbour areas are less understood. This research provides insights into an industry based on its region’s natural resource and the value it generates for sustainable economic development. Using the world’s second largest natural Harbour region, the current research measures the economic activities associated with the Marine Leisure Industry in Cork Harbour, and estimates the economic impact on the local economy. The research establishes a multiplier …

Momentum 2019, Stephanie Clarke

Momentum

A journal of undergraduate research

Classification Of Aerosol Population Type And Cloud Condensation Nuclei Properties In A Coastal California Littoral Environment Using An Unsupervised Cluster Model, Samuel A. Atwood, Sonia M. Kreidenweis, Paul J. Demott, Markus D. Petters, Gavin Cornwell, Andrew C. Martin, Kathryn A. Moore

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Aerosol particle and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) measurements from a littoral location on the northern coast of California at Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory (BML) are presented for approximately six weeks of observations during the boreal winter–spring as part of the CalWater-2015 field campaign. The nature and variability of surface (marine boundary layer, MBL) aerosol populations were evaluated by classifying observations into periods of similar aerosol and meteorological characteristics using an unsupervised cluster model to derive distinct littoral aerosol population types and link them to source regions. Such classifications support efforts to understand the impact of changing aerosol properties on precipitation …

A State Aggregation Approach For Stochastic Multiperiod Last-Mile Ride-Sharing Problems, Lucas Agussurja, Shih-Fen Cheng, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The arrangement of last-mile services is playing an increasingly important role in making public transport more accessible. We study the use of ridesharing in satisfying last-mile demands with the assumption that demands are uncertain and come in batches. The most important contribution of our paper is a two-level Markov decision process framework that is capable of generating a vehicle-dispatching policy for the aforementioned service. We introduce state summarization, representative states, and sample-based cost estimation as major approximation techniques in making our approach scalable. We show that our approach converges and solution quality improves as sample size increases. We also apply …

Analysis Of Bus Ride Comfort Using Smartphone Sensor Data, Hoong-Chor Chin, Xingting Pang, Zhaoxia Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Passenger comfort is an important indicator that is often used to measure the quality of public transport services. It may also be a crucial factor in the passenger’s choice of transport mode. The typical method of assessing passenger comfort is through a passenger interview survey which can be tedious. This study aims to investigate the relationship between bus ride comfort based on ride smoothness and the vehicle’s motion detected by the smartphone sensors. An experiment was carried out on a bus fixed route within the University campus where comfort levels were rated on a 3-point scale and recorded at 5-second …

Online Burst Events Detection Oriented Real-Time Microblog Message Stream, Guozhong Dong, Jun Gao, Liang Huang, Chunlei Shi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The rapid spread of microblog messages and sensitivity of unexpected events make microblog become the public opinion center of burst events. Online burst events detection oriented real-time microblog message stream has become an important research problem in the field of microblog public opinion. Because of the large amount of real-time microblog message stream and irregular language of microblog message, it is important to process real-time microblog message stream and detect burst events accurately. In this paper, an online burst events detection framework is proposed. In this framework, abnormal messages are detected based on sliding time window and two-level hash table. …

Simulating And Modelling Opinion Dynamics, Jennifer Heermance

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The foundation of social media is conversation. Social media allows people to share ideas and opinions, as well as discuss those opinions. A point of intrigue for many social scientists is how those opinions change through interaction with others. What influences someone’s opinion? When is a person willing to adapt their opinion, and when does it remain the same? Is it possible to measure these opinion dynamics? Our overall goal is to develop a more comprehensive model for opinion dynamics. The first step of this process is to simulate data that can then be analyzed and used to develop a …

Morphometric Analysis Of Subfossil Macronycteris Spp. (Chiroptera: Hipposideridae) From Madagascar, Jamie Lynn Alumbaugh

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Macronycteris bats are morphologically conservative between species but demonstrate intraspecific morphological variation between geographic locations and sexes. Two of the four living species of Macronycteris are found on Madagascar, where they are broadly distributed and demonstrate a trend in body size correlated with the latitudinal precipitation cline on the western side of the island. The presence of an extinct species, M. besaoaka, from Anhjohibe Cave in northern Madagascar suggests that Macronycteris was once more diverse, at least with respect to morphology. Since its description, taxonomic and phylogenetic revisions have reshaped our understanding of this genus. On Madagascar, these include the …

Volume 11, Jacob Carney, Ryan White, Joseph Hyman, Jenny Raven, Megan Garrett, Ibrahim Kante, Summer Meinhard, Lauren Johnson, William "Editha" Dean Howells, Laura Gottschalk, Christopher Siefke, Pink Powell, Natasha Woodmancy, Katharine Colley, Abbey Mays, Charlotte Potts

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Table of Contents:

Introduction, Dr. Roger A. Byrne, Dean

From the Editor, Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy

From the Designers, Rachel English, Rachel Hanson

Synthesis of 3,5-substituted Parabens and their Antimicrobial Properties, Jacob Coarney, Ryan White

Chernobyl: Putting "Perestroika" and "Glasnot" to the Test, Joseph Hyman

Art by Jenny Raven

Watering Down Accessibility: The Issue with Public Access to Alaska's Federal Waterways, Meagan Garrett

Why Has the Democratic Republic of the Congo outsourced its Responsibility to Educate its Citizens? Ibrahim Kante

Art by Summer Meinhard

A Computational Study of Single Molecule Diodes, Lauren Johnson

Satire of …

The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory Of Organised Social Media Manipulation, Samantha Bradshaw, Philip N. Howard

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Executive Summary

Over the past three years, we have monitored the global organization of social media manipulation by governments and political parties. Our 2019 report analyses the trends of computational propaganda and the evolving tools, capacities, strategies, and resources.

1. Evidence of organized social media manipulation campaigns which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In each country, there is at least one political party or government agency using social media to shape public attitudes domestically.

2.Social media has become co-opted by many authoritarian regimes. In 26 countries, computational propaganda …

Impact Of Agreeableness On Virtual Team Performance Through Team Identification And Shared Mental Models, Alexandria Brown

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Virtual teams help organizations efficiently utilize their employees for a task without the requirement of co-location. The literature on team performance suggests that teamwork is integral to a team’s success; however, in virtual teams this is often a challenge. Certain personality characteristics on virtual teams may be particularly important to the development of effective teamwork. An under-investigated factor is the role agreeableness in virtual team processes and how it affects the overall team performance. The main research question of this study is how the degree of agreeableness on a virtual team affects the overall team performance through predicted associations with …

Applications Of Bayesian Functional Data Analysis, Hao Shen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Functional Data Analysis (FDA) is a set of statistical methods that can deal with the data which represent curves or functions. In this dissertation, we consider two extensions of FDA to two types of data, circadian data and multidimensional data. The first part of the dissertation is concerned with the analysis of circadian data. We estimate circadian functions by using Bayesian smoothing splines under the generalized linear model, and extract two measures from each estimated function, magnitude and roughness. Based on extracted measures, we cluster individual functions into normal group and abnormal group by utilizing a density based clustering method. …

Factors Affecting Superfund Hazardous Waste Site Cleanups, Leili Solatyavari

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation focuses on assessing environmental equity in neighborhoods hosting hazardous waste lands known as Superfund sites. I define environmental equity as equal and timely removal of Superfund sites regardless of the demographic profile of hosting communities. In the first chapter, I introduce the Superfund program and various steps that need to be taken by the EPA in order to remove a hazardous site from a neighborhood. The second chapter discusses theoretical frameworks that motivate the empirical analysis by visualizing the Superfund enforcement and cleanup process.

The third chapter objectives are twofold. First, I investigate the factors that may affect …

A Climatology Of Quasi-Linear Convective Systems In The U.S., Jacob Adam Strohm

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Quasi-linear convective systems, or QLCSs, are a common, organized thunderstorm mode in the U.S. Over the last fifty years, severe weather research has focused on the supercell, but, recently, QLCSs have become an increasingly important area of study. Researchers and operational meteorologists realize that this morphology is difficult to forecast and may be responsible for a large proportion of the severe weather reports in the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. This study seeks to determine the degree to which QLCSs threaten humans and their assets by, first, assessing their climatology and, second, measuring their contribution to the severe report record. …

The Impact Of Dutch Disease: The Case Of Nigeria, Halimat Atinuke Laguda

Masters Theses

Nigeria, over the years, has been showing a rapid appreciation of the domestic currency, a rise in real wages and the service sector and a slow-down in the industrial production which are all signs of presence of Dutch disease which predicts that a country with large natural resource rents may experience a de-industrialization and a lower long term economic growth. This paper analyses the impact of Dutch disease in Nigeria Ordinary Least square method, Two-Stage Least Square and Autoregressive Distributed Lag with a system of equation from 1981 to 2017 and found that the real wage rate emphasizes on the …

Farm To Label: A Critique Of Consumer Activism In The Sustainable Food Movement, Olivia Whitener

Pomona Senior Theses

“Local,” “organic,” “natural,” and “Fairtrade” are just several of the many claims adorning the food products that line grocery store shelves. These promises of environmental sustainability and social responsibility are pillars of the “good food revolution” sweeping the nation as consumers demand alternatives to the products of the industrial food system. Green consumerism, the premise that consumer demand for environmentally sustainable goods will bring about ecologically beneficial outcomes, is at the heart of the sustainable food movement. This thesis takes a critical look at the operation of green consumerism in the food system. It explores the ideology and shortcomings of …

Chemometric Applications In Fire Debris Analysis: Likelihood Ratios From Naive Bayes And Frequency Of Component And Pyrolysis Product Occurrence, Anuradha Akmeemana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the major challenges in fire investigation is the determination of the cause of fire. The fire can be accidental or intentional. The determination of ignitable liquid residue (ILR) from fire debris helps the process and this process is called fire debris analysis in forensic science. This is one of the most complex areas in the field of forensics because of the evaporation of the ILR from the debris and the interference of the substrate matrix with the ILR if present. In the present, the final decisions in fire debris analysis are based on categorical statements and it only …

Public Servants' Perceptions Of The Cybersecurity Posture Of The Local Government In Puerto Rico, Julio C. Rodriguez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The absence of legislation, the lack of a standard cybersecurity framework, and the failure to adopt a resilient cybersecurity posture can be detrimental to the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of municipal information systems. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the cybersecurity posture of municipalities from the perception of public servants serving in information technology (IT) leadership roles in highly populated municipalities in the San Juan-Carolina-Caguas Metropolitan Statistical Area of Puerto Rico. The study was also used to address key factors influencing the cybersecurity posture of these municipalities. The theoretical framework was open system theory used in combination …

A Survey Of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Identification Using Psychophysiological Data, S. De Silva, S. Dayarathna, G. Ariyarathne, D. Meedeniya, Sampath Jayarathna

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurological disorders among children, that affects different areas in the brain that allows executing certain functionalities. This may lead to a variety of impairments such as difficulties in paying attention or focusing, controlling impulsive behaviours and overreacting. The continuous symptoms may have a severe impact in the long-term. This paper explores the ADHD identification studies using eye movement data and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). This study discusses different machine learning techniques, existing models and analyses the existing literature. We have identified the current challenges and possible future directions …

Using Labeling Theory As A Guide To Examine The Patterns, Characteristics, And Sanctions Given To Cybercrimes, Brian K. Payne, Brittany Hawkins, Chunsheng Xin

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Over the past decade, reports of cybercrime have soared across the globe. Criminologists agree that the increase in cybercrime stems from technological advancements that have changed all facets of societal interactions. While it is agreed that technology has shaped cybercrime, there is less understanding about the dynamics of cybercrime. In particular, some researchers have explored whether these offenses are simply traditional types of crime that are now carried out through different strategies, while others have argued that cybercrimes are, in fact, new types of crime. This ambiguity potentially limits prevention and intervention strategies. In an effort to build our understanding …

Attractive Or Aggressive? A Face Recognition And Machine Learning Approach For Estimating Returns To Visual Appearance, Guodong Guo, Brad R. Humphreys, Mohammad I. Nouyed, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

A growing literature documents the presence of appearance premia in labor markets. We analyze appearance premia in a high-profile, high-pay setting: head football coaches at bigtime college sports programs. These employees face job tasks involving repeated interpersonal interaction on multiple fronts and also act as the “face” of their program. We estimate the attractiveness of each employee using a neural network approach, a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network fine tuned for this application. This approach can eliminate biases induced by volunteer evaluators and limited numbers of photos. We also use this approach to estimate the perceived aggressiveness of each employee based …

Decision Making Under Uncertainty With Applications To Geosciences And Finance, Laxman Bokati

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In many practical situations, we need to make a decision. In engineering, we need to decide on the best design of a system, and, for existing systems â?? on the best control strategy. In financial applications, we need to decide what is the best way to invest money. In geosciences, we need to decide whether we should explore a possible mineral deposit â?? or whether we should perform more experiments and measurements (and what exactly). In some cases, we can compute the exact consequences of each decision - e.g., if we are controlling a satellite. However, in many other cases, …

The Rhetoric Of Low Carbon Energy Technology Scientists And Engineers, Nicolas Cesar Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Scholars in the burgeoning field of Energy Communication have successfully contributed to communication studies and environmental communication practice. However, energy communication scholars have largely focused on energy of media coverage, corporate communication and decision making in the context crisis. While rich and informative, this tendency has left quotidian aspects of energy communication rather understudied. As such, this Thesis contributes to the understanding of the internal, non-untechnical rhetoric of low carbon energy technology (LCET) scientists and engineers (herein LCET professionals). Textual analysis was used to examine LCET professionals' internal rhetoric at professional trade conferences and through long form, semi-structured interviews. Wind …

Web Archives At The Nexus Of Good Fakes And Flawed Originals, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

[Summary] The authenticity, integrity, and provenance of resources we encounter on the web are increasingly in question. While many people are inured to the possibility of altered images, the easy accessibility of powerful software tools that synthesize audio and video will unleash a torrent of convincing “deepfakes” into our social discourse. Archives will no longer be monopolized by a countable number of institutions such as governments and publishers, but will become a competitive space filled with social engineers, propagandists, conspiracy theorists, and aspiring Hollywood directors. While the historical record has never been singular nor unmalleable, current technologies empower an unprecedented …

The Mortality Response To Absolute And Relative Temperature Extremes, Scott C. Sheridan, Cameron C. Lee, Michael J. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

While the impact of absolute extreme temperatures on human health has been amply studied, far less attention has been given to relative temperature extremes, that is, events that are highly unusual for the time of year but not necessarily extreme relative to a location's overall climate. In this research, we use a recently defined extreme temperature event metric to define absolute extreme heat events (EHE) and extreme cold events (ECE) using absolute thresholds, and relative extreme heat events (REHE) and relative extreme cold events (RECE) using relative thresholds. All-cause mortality outcomes using a distributed lag nonlinear model are evaluated for …