Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Do Students Using Electronic Books Display Different Reading Comprehension And Motivation Levels Than Students Using Traditional Print Books?, Casey Wells

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The effect of electronic books on the reading comprehension of middle and high school students was examined using an experimental posttest-only control-group design. A convenience sample of 140 randomly assigned middle and high school English students at an independent school in eastern North Carolina participated. Half of the students used passages from text read on tablets while half utilized traditional print text passages. Data was collected during one class period in which the reading comprehension section of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests®, a 35 minute test containing 48 questions, was administered. Reading comprehension data was analyzed using an independent t-test. The …

Apps And Apple Devices: Productive Icloud Uses, Cyrus Ford Zarganj

Library Faculty Presentations

This program introduces useful apps for librarians who have two or more Apple devices such as an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook. You can learn how to use the iCloud, sync devices together, and about other useful apps for librarians to work on their projects from different places with different Apple devices without carrying files.

Computing Perception From Sensor Data, Payam Barnaghi, Frieder Ganz, Cory Andrew Henson, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper describes a framework for perception creation from sensor data. We propose using data abstraction techniques, in particular Symbolic Aggregate Approximation (SAX), to analyse and create patterns from sensor data. The created patterns are then linked to semantic descriptions that define thematic, spatial and temporal features, providing highly granular abstract representation of the raw sensor data. This helps to reduce the size of the data that needs to be communicated from the sensor nodes to the gateways or highlevel processing components. We then discuss a method that uses abstract patterns created by SAX method and occurrences of different observations …

Privacy Preserving Boosting In The Cloud With Secure Half-Space Queries, Shumin Guo, Keke Chen

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper presents a preliminary study on the PerturBoost approach that aims to provide efficient and secure classifier learning in the cloud with both data and model privacy preserved.

Recent Advances In Integrating Owl And Rules, Matthias Knorr, David Carral Martinez, Pascal Hitzler, Adila A. Krisnadhi, Frederick Maier, Cong Wang

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

As part of the quest for a unifying logic for the Semantic Web Technology Stack, a central issue is finding suitable ways of integrating description logics based on the Web Ontology Language (OWL) with rule-based approaches based on logic programming. Such integration is difficult since naive approaches typically result in the violation of one or more desirable design principles. For example, while both OWL 2 DL and RIF Core (a dialect of the Rule Interchange Format RIF) are decidable, their naive union is not, unless carefully chosen syntactic restrictions are applied.

We report on recent advances and ongoing work by …

A Tableau Algorithm For Description Logics With Nominal Schema, Adila Krisnadhi, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a tableau algorithm for the description logic ALCOV. This description logic is obtained by extending the description logic ALCO with the expressive nominal schema construct that enables DL-safe datalog with predicates of arbitrary arity to be covered within the description logic framework. The tableau algorithm provides a basis to implement a delayed grounding strategy which was not facilitated by earlier versions of decision procedures for satisfiability in expressive description logics with nominal schemas.

Reconciling Owl And Non-Monotonic Rules For The Semantic Web, Matthias Knorr, Pascal Hitzler, Frederick Maier

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We propose a description logic extending SROIQ (the description logic underlying OWL 2 DL) and at the same time encompassing some of the most prominent monotonic and nonmonotonic rule languages, in particular Datalog extended with the answer set semantics. Our proposal could be considered a substantial contribution towards fulfilling the quest for a unifying logic for the Semantic Web. As a case in point, two non-monotonic extensions of description logics considered to be of distinct expressiveness until now are covered in our proposal. In contrast to earlier such proposals, our language has the 'look and feel' of a description logic …

Using Attribute Behavior Diversity To Build Accurate Decision Tree Committees For Microarray Data, Qian Han, Guozhu Dong

Kno.e.sis Publications

DNA microarrays (gene chips), frequently used in biological and medical studies, measure the expressions of thousands of genes per sample. Using microarray data to build accurate classifiers for diseases is an important task. This paper introduces an algorithm, called Committee of Decision Trees by Attribute Behavior Diversity (CABD), to build highly accurate ensembles of decision trees for such data. Since a committee's accuracy is greatly influenced by the diversity among its member classifiers, CABD uses two new ideas to "optimize" that diversity, namely (1) the concept of attribute behavior–based similarity between attributes, and (2) …

Hydrologic Modeling To Examine Land Use Change Impacts (1970’S And 2005) On The Sediment Yield And Flow Regime In Cayuga Creek, Niagara County, New York, Kimly Reth

Multidisciplinary Studies Theses

This research aims to assess the water quality and the land use change impacts on sediment concentration and flow regime in Cayuga Creek, Niagara County, NY for two land use periods, 1970’s and 2005. The 1970’s land use, classified by the USGS, had a significant error. Therefore, the scenario of sediment yield and discharge level to land use change is more of a “what if” since the 1970’s land use was classified incorrectly. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)was used to simulate flows and sediment concentrations for the two land use scenarios using the same rainfall data at the …

The Problem Of Data, Lori Jahnke, Andrew Asher, Spencer D.C. Keralis

Other Faculty Research and Publications

Jahnke and Asher explore workflows and methodologies at a variety of academic data curation sites, and Keralis delves into the academic milieu of library and information schools that offer instruction in data curation. Their conclusions point to the urgent need for a reliable and increasingly sophisticated professional cohort to support data-intensive research in our colleges, universities, and research centers.

Twitris+: Social Media Analytics Platform For Effective Coordination, Gary Alan Smith, Amit P. Sheth, Ashutosh Sopan Jadhav, Hemant Purohit, Lu Chen, Michael Cooney, Pavan Kapanipathi, Pramod Anantharam, Pramod Koneru, Wenbo Wang

Kno.e.sis Publications

Twitris+ is a Semantic Social Media analytics platform to provide technologies for analyzing large-scale social media streams across Spatio-Temporal-Thematic (STT) and People-Content-Network (PCN) dimensions. It provides holistic situational awareness from one interface and enables organizational actors to engage in well-coordinated ways for desired tasks during emergency response.

A Critical Examination Of The Construct Validity Of The Tti Performance DnaTm Survey For The Purpose Of Differentiating The Entrepreneurially-Minded Engineer, Sandra L. Dietrich

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The United States needs workers with more than technical skills to meet the demands of global competition; more specifically, a new breed of engineer is necessary, one who possesses leadership skills and business acumen in addition to the technical engineering skills. One Midwestern foundation has recognized this challenge and is working with engineering universities to enhance programs to create entrepreneurially-minded engineers (EMEs). To this end, the Target Training International, Ltd. (TTI) Performance DNATM survey has been developed to measure the behaviors, values, and professional skills of these EMEs. Currently, the Foundation has collected data using this survey with engineering students …

National Security Policy Constraints On Technological Innovation: A Case Study Of The Invention Secrecy Act Of 1951, Dorothy K. Mcallen

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Recent studies indicate that the United States is trailing other countries in technological innovation and competitiveness. This case study examined national security policy constraints on technological innovation, specifically the Invention Secrecy Act. It focused on the social constructs of collaboration and interdisciplinary knowledge in the aerospace industry. The methodology included historical research, data collection, and semi-structured interviews with experts from academia, general industry, government and public policy, aerospace/defense industry, and federal government. The results of the study suggested that since World War II, national security policies have not been clearly and consistently defined, interpreted, or implemented. This lack of clarity …

The Latent Maximum Entropy Principle, Shaojun Wang, Dale Schuurmans, Yunxin Zhao

Kno.e.sis Publications

We present an extension to Jaynes’ maximum entropy principle that incorporates latent variables. The principle of latent maximum entropy we propose is different from both Jaynes’ maximum entropy principle and maximum likelihood estimation, but can yield better estimates in the presence of hidden variables and limited training data. We first show that solving for a latent maximum entropy model poses a hard nonlinear constrained optimization problem in general. However, we then show that feasible solutions to this problem can be obtained efficiently for the special case of log-linear models---which forms the basis for an efficient approximation to the latent maximum …

What Kind Of #Communication Is Twitter? A Psycholinguistic Perspective On Communication In Twitter For The Purpose Of Emergency Coordination, Hemant Purohit, Andrew Hampton, Valerie L. Shalin, Amit P. Sheth, John Flach

Kno.e.sis Publications

The present research aims to detect coordinated citizen response within social media traffic to assist emergency response. We use domain-independent linguistic properties as the first step in narrowing the candidate set of messages for domain-dependent and computationally intensive analysis.

Integration Of Multiple Stakeholders In Scientific Research: A Sensemaking-Sensegiving Approach, Nicolas Battard, Paul F. Donnelly, Vincent Mangematin

Conference papers

This paper argues that senior scientists in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology build a new vision of their research activity in order to encompass multiple stakeholders such as policy makers, funding agencies and PhD students. Through a qualitative and inductive study and the lens of sensemaking and sensegiving, we show that senior scientists shape new boundaries in order to make the new vision visible to both internal and external stakeholders. Finally, they engage in sensemaking and sensegiving on a daily basis in order to adapt and sustain their activity over time.

Exploring The Impact Of Knowledge And Social Environment On Influenza Prevention And Transmission In Midwestern United States High School Students, William L. Romine, Tanvi Banerjee, William S. Barrow, William R. Folk

Kno.e.sis Publications

We used data from a convenience sample of 410 Midwestern United States students from six secondary schools to develop parsimonious models for explaining and predicting precautions and illness related to influenza. Scores for knowledge and perceptions were obtained using two-parameter Item Response Theory (IRT) models. Relationships between outcome variables and predictors were verified using Pearson and Spearman correlations, and nested [student within school] fixed effects multinomial logistic regression models were specified from these using Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC). Neural network models were then formulated as classifiers using 10-fold cross validation to predict precautions and illness. Perceived barriers against taking precautions …

Iexplore: A Provenance-Based Application For Exploring Biomedical Knowledge, Vinh Nguyen, Olivier Bodenreider, Thomas Rindflesch, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

W3c Semantic Sensor Networks: Ontologies, Applications, And Future Directions, Cory Andrew Henson

Kno.e.sis Publications

Plenary Talk discussing the W3C Semantic Sensor Network, including the ontology, applications, and future directions.

Now It Is Impossible 'Simply To Continue Along Previous Lines': A Partial Design Sketch Of Enactable Social Theorizing, Peter J. Taylor

Working Papers on Science in a Changing World

A compilation of 39 notes provides the basis for two shifts: from shaping a better social theory to allowing for social theorizing; and from representing social dynamics to enacting the social theorizing so as to repeatedly define and pursue engagements in the heterogeneous dynamics that intersect in all kinds of society-making. A key move is to bring the multiple strandedness of changing social life into the center by combining, on one hand, the analysis of intersecting processes, which link across scales in the production of any outcome and in their own on-going transformation, and, on the other hand, a participatory …