Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Use Of Item Response Theory In Survey Methodology: Application In Seat Belt Data, Mark K. Ledbetter, Norou Diawara, Bryan E. Porter

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Problem: Several approaches to analyze survey data have been proposed in the literature. One method that is not popular in survey research methodology is the use of item response theory (IRT). Since accurate methods to make prediction behaviors are based upon observed data, the design model must overcome computation challenges, but also consideration towards calibration and proficiency estimation. The IRT model deems to be offered those latter options. We review that model and apply it to an observational survey data. We then compare the findings with the more popular weighted logistic regression. Method: Apply IRT model to the observed data …

An Investigation Into Trust And Security In The Mandatory And Imposed Use Of Financial Icts Upon Older People, David Michael Cook

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Care needs to be taken to reduce the number of people who are fearful and mistrustful of using ICT where that usage is forced upon them without choice or alternative. The growing incidence of mandatory and imposed online systems can result in confusion, misuse, fear, and rejection by people with only rudimentary ICT skills. A cohort where a high percentage of such people occur is older people, defined in this study as people over the age of 60 Examples of compulsory ICT interactions include some banks limiting bank statement access through online rather than paper-based options. Other examples include the …

Real-World Large-Scale Iot Systems For Community Eldercare: A Comparative Study On System Dependability, Hwee-Pink Tan, Austin Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The paradigm of aging-in-place — where the elderly live and age in their own homes, independently and safely, with care provided by the community — is compelling, especially in societies that face both shortages in institutionalized eldercare resources, and rapidly-aging populations. Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies, particularly in-home monitoring solutions, are commercially available, and can be a fundamental enabler of smart community eldercare, if they are dependable. In this paper, we present our findings on system performance of solutions from two vendors, which we have deployed at scale for technology-enabled community care. In particular, we highlight the importance of quantifying actual system …

Anatomy Of Online Hate: Developing A Taxonomy And Machine Learning Models For Identifying And Classifying Hate In Online News Media, Joni Salminen, Hind Almerekhi, Milica Milenkovic, Soon-Gyu Jung, Haewoon Kwak, Haewoon Kwak, Bernard J. Jansen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online social media platforms generally attempt to mitigate hateful expressions, as these comments can be detrimental to the health of the community. However, automatically identifying hateful comments can be challenging. We manually label 5,143 hateful expressions posted to YouTube and Facebook videos among a dataset of 137,098 comments from an online news media. We then create a granular taxonomy of different types and targets of online hate and train machine learning models to automatically detect and classify the hateful comments in the full dataset. Our contribution is twofold: 1) creating a granular taxonomy for hateful online comments that includes both …

Pricing For A Last-Mile Transportation System, Yiwei Chen, Hai Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Last-Mile Problem refers to the provision of travel service from the nearest public transportation node to a home or other destination. Last-Mile Transportation System (LMTS), which has recently emerged, provide on-demand shared transportation. We consider an LMTS with multiple passenger types—adults, senior citizens, children, and students. The LMTS designer determines the price for the passengers, last-mile service vehicle capacity, and service fleet size (number of vehicles) for each last-mile region to maximize the social welfare generated by the LMTS. The level of last-mile service (in terms of passenger waiting time) is approximated by using a batch arrival, batch service, …

205.3 The Many Shapes Of Archive-It, Shawn Jones, Michael L. Nelson, Alexander Nwala, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Web archives, a key area of digital preservation, meet the needs of journalists, social scientists, historians, and government organizations. The use cases for these groups often require that they guide the archiving process themselves, selecting their own original resources, or seeds, and creating their own web archive collections. We focus on the collections within Archive-It, a subscription service started by the Internet Archive in 2005 for the purpose of allowing organizations to create their own collections of archived web pages, or mementos. Understanding these collections could be done via their user-supplied metadata or via text analysis, but the metadata is …

A Survey Of Archival Replay Banners, Sawood Alam, Mat Kelly, Michele C. Weigle, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We surveyed various archival systems to compare and contrast different techniques used to implement an archival replay banner. We found that inline plain HTML injection is the most common approach, but prone to style conflicts. Iframe-based banners are also very common and while they do not have style conflicts, they suffer from screen real estate wastage and limited design choices. Custom Elements-based banners are promising, but due to being a new web standard, these are not yet widely deployed.

Client-Assisted Memento Aggregation Using The Prefer Header, Mat Kelly, Sawood Alam, Michael L. Nelson, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] Preservation of the Web ensures that future generations have a picture of how the web was. Web archives like Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, WebCite, and archive.is allow individuals to submit URIs to be archived, but the captures they preserve then reside at the archives. Traversing these captures in time as preserved by multiple archive sources (using Memento [8]) provides a more comprehensive picture of the past Web than relying on a single archive. Some content on the Web, such as content behind authentication, may be unsuitable or inaccessible for preservation by these organizations. Furthermore, this content may be …

Swimming In A Sea Of Javascript Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love High-Fidelity Replay, John A. Berlin, Michael L. Nelson, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] Preserving and replaying modern web pages in high-fidelity has become an increasingly difficult task due to the increased usage of JavaScript. Reliance on server-side rewriting alone results in live-leakage and or the inability to replay a page due to the preserved JavaScript performing an action not permissible from the archive. The current state-of-the-art high fidelity archival preservation and replay solutions rely on handcrafted client-side URL rewriting libraries specifically tailored for the archive, namely Webrecoder's and Pywb's wombat.js [12]. Web archives not utilizing client-side rewriting rely on server-side rewriting that misses URLs used in a manner not accounted for …

It Is Hard To Compute Fixity On Archived Web Pages, Mohamed Aturban, Michael L. Nelson, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Checking fixity in web archives is performed to ensure archived resources, or mementos (denoted by URI-M) have remained unaltered since when they were captured. The final report of the PREMIS Working Group [2] defines information used for fixity as "information used to verify whether an object has been altered in an undocumented or unauthorized way." The common technique for checking fixity is to generate a current hash value (i.e., a message digest or a checksum) for a file using a cryptographic hash function (e.g., SHA-256) and compare it to the hash value generated originally. If they have different hash …

Glacial Deposits, Vol. 43, 2018, Department Of Geography, Geology, And The Environment

Glacial Deposits

Newsletter of the Department of Geography, Geology, and the Environment

Effects Of Manual And Mechanical Ammophila Arenaria Removal Techniques On Coastal Dune Plant Communities And Dune Morphology, Monique R. Silva Crossman

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The removal of invasive species as part of the restoration process can allow natives organisms to rebound. An ecosystem that incurs damages from invasive species is coastal sand dunes, which are dynamic systems. Some coastal sand dunes on the west coast of the United States have been invaded by Ammophila arenaria. The invasive grass, A. arenaria, is thought to alter and stabilize foredune morphology and reduce populations of native species. The objectives of my research are to examine the effects that manual and mechanical A. arenaria removal techniques have on coastal sand dune morphology and vegetative cover over time. …

A Multi-City Comparison Of Front And Backyard Differences In Plant Species Diversity And Nitrogen Cycling In Residential Landscapes, Dexter H. Locke, Meghan Avolio, Tara Trammell, Rinku Roy Chowdhury, J. Morgan Grove, John Rogan, Deborah G. Martin, Neil D. Bettez, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Peter M. Groffman, Sharon J. Hall, James B. Heffernan, Sarah E. Hobbie, Kelli L. Larson, Jennifer L. Morse, Multiple Additional Authors

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We hypothesize that lower public visibility of residential backyards reduces households’ desire for social conformity, which alters residential land management and produces differences in ecological composition and function between front and backyards. Using lawn vegetation plots (7 cities) and soil cores (6 cities), we examine plant species richness and evenness and nitrogen cycling of lawns in Boston, Baltimore, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, Los Angeles (LA), and Salt Lake City (SLC). Seven soil nitrogen measures were compared because different irrigation and fertilization practices may vary between front and backyards, which may alter nitrogen cycling in soils. In addition to lawn-only measurements, …

Analysis Of Residential And Auto Break-In Records In Taipei City, Afnan Althoupety, Aishwarya Joy, Juchun Cheng, Priyanka Patil, Tejas Deshpande

Engineering and Technology Management Student Projects

Taipei City is the capital of Taiwan. It has population of 2.7 million living in the city area of 271 km2 (104 mi2). There are totally 12 administrative districts in this city. To maintain the safety of the city, Taipei City Police Bureau has arranged regular patrol routes with focus on the high-risk area where residential and auto break-in occurs. Due to limited police resource, resident neighborhood also organized volunteered patrol teams to enhance the security in residential area. Based on past file record history, the Bureau would like to understand the high-risk districts and time schedule to improve their …

Proceedings Of The Cuny Games Conference 4.0: The Interactive Course, Robert O. Duncan, Joe Bisz, Julie Cassidy, Kathleen Offenholley, Maura A. Smale, Carolyn Stallard, Deborah Sturm, Anders A. Wallace, Cuny Games Network

Publications and Research

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference, held from January 22-23, 2018, at the CUNY Graduate Center and Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Critical Play with History (Panel) - Composition & Storytelling - Health & Cognitive Sciences - Gaming Anthropology: Teaching Culture and Power Through Games and Design (Panel) - Twine & Writing Games - Easy Ideas II - STEM Games - Global Games for Change Catalog (Panel) - Comics & Active Learning - Fact Checking & Research - Computer Science & Game Design - SimGlobal: Building a Serious Roleplay Course for the Social Sciences (Panel) - Role Playing Games, Narrative, …

Effects Of Variable Density Thinning On Spatial Patterns Of Overstory Trees In Mt. Hood National Forest, Emma Huston

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

Variable density thinning (VDT) is a method of restoration thinning that attempts to increase ecosystem resilience and spatial heterogeneity in forest stands to more closely resemble mosaic-like patterns characteristic of late-successional forests, which consist of clusters of multiple trees, individual trees, and gaps. This study examines the spatial patterning of overstory trees resulting from VDT of conifer forests in Mt. Hood National Forest in the western Cascade Mountains and compares these patterns with reference conditions. Stem maps were created from field surveys of study plots within one mature stand and six thinned stands designated as Late-Successional Reserve (LSR) with varying …

Monitoring And Evaluating Malawi Youth Conservation Engagement After Community-Based Environmental Education Workshops, Stefanie Kramer

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

This project addressed Peace Corps Malawi’s need to redevelop and implement environmental education workshops using a community-based approach, monitored project outcomes from these workshops, and provided an evaluation of strengths and areas for improvement of the environmental education workshop program.

Long-Term Managed Flooding To Control Invasive Phalaris Arundinacea L. And Help Restore Native Vegetation In An Urban Palustrine Wetlands Ecosystem, Robert P. Lascheck

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

We sought to determine the effects of 13 years of hydrologic management on the wetland plant community in Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area (SBW), an 809 ha palustrine wetland complex in north Portland, Oregon. Previous management efforts resulted in an altered hydrologic regime; historically high water levels in spring and low water levels in fall were replaced by persistent water levels with minimal annual variations. A water control structure was installed in 2003 to better approximate historic seasonal hydrologic changes to reduce invasive Phalaris arundinacea (reed canarygrass) cover and promote native wetland vegetation growth. Vegetation monitoring has been carried …

Introduction To Data Science: Executive Summary, Liming Wang

TREC Project Briefs

This education project created the curriculum for a new course: Introduction to Data Science for Planners, Engineers, and Scientists. The course helps students and professionals tackle the challenges of processing high volumes of data.

President Trump Tweets Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un On Nuclear Weapons: A Comparison With Climate Change, David E. Allen, Michael Mcaleer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

A set of 125 tweets about North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un by President Trump from 2013 to 2018 are analysed by means of the data mining technique, sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the messages contained, the degree to which they differ, and their implications about President Trump's understanding and approach to international diplomacy. The results suggest a predominantly positive emotion in relation to tweets about North Korea, despite the use of questionable nicknames such as "Little Rocket Man". A comparison is made between the tweets on North Korea and climate change, madefrom …

Population Dynamics And Water Resource Consumption In Spokane, Wa, Daniel Jesus Castillo

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Temporal Trends In Human Vulnerability To Excessive Heat, Scott C. Sheridan, Michael J. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Over recent decades, studies have examined various morbidity and mortality outcomes associated with heat exposure. This review explores the collective knowledge of the temporal trends of heat on human health, with regard to the hypothesis that humans are less vulnerable to heat events presently than in the past. Using Web of Science and Scopus, the authors identified all peer-reviewed articles that contained keywords on human impact (e.g. mortality, morbidity) and meteorological component (e.g. heat, heatwave). After sorting, a total of 71 articles, both case studies and epidemiological studies, contained explicit assessments of temporal trends in human vulnerability, and thus were …

Understanding The Novice Decision-Making Process In Forensic Footwear Examinations: Accuracy And Decision Rules, Madonna A. Nobel

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The reproducibility of experienced-based forensic pattern interpretation is founded on the notion that domain-specific knowledge can be successfully distributed and applied among experts within a group. This assumption persists, even when the examination is complicated by variations in case circumstances, such as impression clarity and totality, as well as media, substrate, collection mechanism and enhancement. While it is further theorized that many of these factors (as well as additional confounding factors) are at play during an examination, the manner and extent to which these sources of variability affect the examination of footwear evidence remain unclear. In order to explore this …

Reducing Uncertainties In Applying Remotely Sensed Land Use And Land Cover Maps In Land-Atmosphere Interaction: Identifying Change In Space And Time, Yaqian He, Timothy A. Warner, Brenden E. Mcneil, Eungul Lee

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Land use and land cover (LULC) data are a central component of most land-atmosphere interaction studies, but there are two common and highly problematic scale mismatches between LULC and climate data. First, in the spatial domain, researchers rarely consider the impact of scaling up fine-scale LULC data to match coarse-scale climate datasets. Second, in the temporal domain, climate data typically have sub-daily, daily, monthly, or annual resolution, but LULC datasets often have much coarser (e.g., decadal) resolution. We first explored the effect of three spatial scaling methods on correlations among LULC data and a land surface climatic variable, latent heat …

User Interface Challenges Of Banking Atm Systems In Nigeria, Felix Chukwuma Aguboshim

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The use of banking automated teller machine (ATM) technological innovations have significant importance and benefits in Nigeria, but numerous investigations have shown that illiterate and semiliterate Nigerians do not perceive them as useful or easy-to-use. Developing easy-to-use banking ATM system interfaces is essential to accommodate over 40% illiterate and semiliterate Nigerians, who are potential users of banking ATM systems. The purpose of this study was to identify strategies software developers of banking ATM systems in Nigeria use to create easy-to-use banking ATM system interfaces for a variety of people with varying abilities and literacy levels. The technology acceptance model was …

Countering Expansion And Organization Of Terrorism In Cyberspace, Sunday Oludare Ogunlana

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Terrorists use cyberspace and social media technology to create fear and spread violent ideologies, which pose a significant threat to public security. Researchers have documented the importance of the application of law and regulation in dealing with the criminal activities perpetrated through the aid of computers in cyberspace. Using routine activity theory, this study assessed the effectiveness of technological approaches to mitigating the expansion and organization of terrorism in cyberspace. The study aligned with the purpose area analysis objective of classifying and assessing potential terrorist threats to preempt and mitigate the attacks. Data collection included document content analysis of the …

Virtual Collaboration With Mobile Social Media In Multiple-Organization Projects, Zhaojun Yang, Jun Sun, Yali Zhang, Ying Wang

Information Systems Faculty Publications

This study investigates the use of mobile social media as emerging collaboration tools by virtual teams. Based on the construal level theory, it develops a research model hypothesizes that collaboration tool effectiveness influence contextual performance and task performance through the mediation of procedure agreeability. In addition, geographic dispersion, team size and project duration serve as moderators as they reflect virtual collaboration complexity. Empirical findings support most hypothesized relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Information Technology Infrastructure: Global Economy And National Development In Haiti, Reynolds Alcena

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Political and environmental chaos recently experienced in Haiti has damaged the economic sector and telecommunication infrastructure. Developmental data from Haiti show 3 major trends: inadequate social and economic development, insufficient benefits from the global economy, and poorly planned information technology infrastructure (ITI). The specific problem addressed in this study is a knowledge gap in the views of stakeholders within Haiti's national culture on how the country's ITI can be developed to better engage Haiti in 21st century global and digital economy. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the views of 48 expert participants regarding ITI development …

Managing Supply Chain Disruptions In Nigerian Seaport Companies, Henry Oguche

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In Nigeria, seaport companies have lost significant revenue since 2000 because of supply chain disruptions. If not mitigated, supply chain disruptions at Nigerian seaports will significantly affect organizational output and profitability. The purpose of this research was to explore strategies some seaport business leaders use to mitigate supply chain disruptions in Lagos, Nigeria. Supply chain management theory was the conceptual framework for this single case study. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with 4 participants from a Nigerian seaport company tbat adopted successful strategies to mitigate supply chain disruptions and review of company documents for methodological triangulation. Using thematic analysis, …

Megaloads And Mobilization: The Rural People Of Idaho Stand Against Big Oil, Corrie Grosse

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

From 2011 to 2014 fossil fuel corporations trucked tar sands processing machinery along rural Idaho highways. The machinery was bound for the world's largest deposits of tar or oil sands, a heavy crude oil substance called bitumen, located in the western Canadian province of Alberta. These loads of machinery, what became known as megaloads, encountered much resistance. Throughout Idaho and the surrounding region, a network organized opposition. Neighbors, grassroots organizations, nonprofits, and the Nez Perce and other tribes all collaborated. They held information sessions, protested, waged legal battles, monitored the loads, and blockaded highways. What oil companies hoped would be …