Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Personality And Emotion For Virtual Characters In Strong-Story Narrative Planning, Alireza Shirvani

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Interactive virtual worlds provide an immersive and effective environment for training, education, and entertainment purposes. Virtual characters are an essential part of every interactive narrative. The interaction of rich virtual characters can produce interesting narratives and enhance user experience in virtual environments. I propose models of personality and emotion that are highly domain independent and integrate those models into multi-agent strong-story narrative planning systems. I demonstrate the value of the strong-story properties of the model by generating story conflicts intelligently. My models of emotion and personality enable the narrative generation system to create more opportunities for players to resolve conflicts …

Quantifying Shape Of Star-Like Objects Using Shape Curves And A New Compactness Measure, Gopal K. Mulukutla, Emese Hadnagy, Matthew Fearon, Edward Garboczi

Earth Systems Research Center

Shape is an important indicator of the physical and chemical behavior of natural and engineered particulate materials (e.g., sediment, sand, rock, volcanic ash). It directly or indirectly affects numerous microscopic and macroscopic geologic, environmental and engineering processes. Due to the complex, highly irregular shapes found in particulate materials, there is a perennial need for quantitative shape descriptions. We developed a new characterization method (shape curve analysis) and a new quantitative measure (compactness, not the topological mathematical definition) by applying a fundamental principle that the geometric anisotropy of an object is a unique signature of its internal spatial distribution …

Dynamics Of Transmission In Disordered Topological Insulators, Yuhao Kang, Yiming Huang, Azriel Genack

Publications and Research

Robust transmission in topological insulators makes it possible to steer waves without attenuation along bent paths within imperfectly fabricated photonic devices. But the absence of reflection does not guarantee the fidelity of pulsed transmission which is essential for core photonic functionalities. Pulse transmission is disrupted by localized modes in the bulk of topological insulators which coexist with the continuum edge mode and are pushed deeper into the band gap with increasing disorder. Here we show in simulations of the Haldane model that pulse propagation in disordered topological insulators is robust throughout the central portion of the band gap where localized …

Potential Solar Replacement Of Hydroelectricity To Reopen Rivers: Maine As A Case Example, Shailesh Sharma, John Waldman

Publications and Research

Hydroelectricity provides 6% of U.S. electrical power needs, but hydro-dams also cause environmental harm, including the retardation or complete blockage of spawning runs of anadromous fishes. To facilitate fish movements, engineered-fishways have long been used but many have performed poorly. Dam-removal is the most effective way of restoring dwindling migratory fish populations by allowing unrestricted pathways to their spawning areas and for the downstream migrations of post-spawning adults and juveniles. However, removals of hydro-dams result in a loss of electricity production. For the replacement of energy foregone from hydro-dam removals, various alternative energy installations are now feasible. We present one-to-one …

Soils And Paleosols, Daniel R. Muhs

United States Geological Survey: Publications

This article reviews the nature of modern and ancient soils. Soils are naturally occurring bodies that mantle most of the land surface of the Earth. They are found on virtually every part of the Earth’s land surface, other than areas covered by water bodies (lakes and rivers), glacial ice, or steep slopes in mountainous terrain. Soils occur at the interface of the geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere and are the medium of growth for much of the Earth’s plant and animal life. The study of soils as naturally occurring bodies on the Earth’s surface is called pedology (in contrast to …

Multi-Level Movement Response Of Invasive Wild Pigs (Sus Scrofa) To Removal, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Peter E. Schlichting, David A. Keiter, Joshua B. Smith, John C. Kilgo, George Wittemyer, Kurt C. Vercauteren, James C. Beasley, Kim M. Pepin

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

BACKGROUND: Lethal removal of invasive species, such as wild pigs (Sus scrofa), is often the most efficient approach for reducing their negative impacts. Wild pigs are one of the most widespread and destructive invasive mammals in the USA. Lethal management techniques are a key approach for wild pigs and can alter wild pig spatial behavior, but it is unclear how wild pigs respond to the most common removal technique, trapping.We investigated the spatial behavior of wild pigs following intensive removal of conspecifics via trapping at three sites within the Savannah River Site, SC, USA. We evaluated changes in …

Temporal And Spatial Blood Feeding Patterns Of Urban Mosquitoes In The San Juan Metropolitan Area, Puerto Rico, Matthew W. Hopken, Limarie J. Reyes-Torres, Nicole Scavo, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Zaid Abdo, Daniel Taylor, James Pierce, Donald A. Yee

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Simple Summary: Understanding the biodiversity of urban ecosystems is critical for management of invasive and pest species, conserving native species, and disease control. Mosquitoes (Culicidae) are ubiquitous and abundant in urban ecosystems, and rely on blood meals taken from vertebrates. We used DNA from freshly blood-fed mosquitoes to characterize the diversity of vertebrate host species in the San Juan Metropolitan Area, Puerto Rico. We collected two mosquito species that fed on a variety of vertebrates. Culex quinquefasciatus fed on 17 avian taxa (81.2% of blood meals), seven mammalian taxa (17.9%), and one reptilian taxon (0.85%). Aedes aegypti blood meals were …

Evaluating The Effects Of Mountain Beaver (Aplodontia Rufa) Management On Conifer Stocking In Western Oregon, Jimmy D. Taylor, Vanessa M. Petro

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa) is the most primitive rodent species in North America and is endemic to the Pacific Northwest, USA. Within their range, mountain beaver cause more conflict with conifer forest regeneration than any other vertebrate species. Most damage occurs as a result of clipping and browsing new seedlings, which reduces stocking density and delays stand development. An integrated approach using trapping and a registered toxicant (baiting) has been suggested as the most efficacious means to reduce seedling loss during stand initiation. We evaluated this management strategy in intensively managed conifer stands across two mountain ranges in …

Serological Responses Of Raccoons And Striped Skunks To Ontario Rabies Vaccine Bait In West Virginia During 2012–2016, Shylo R. Johnson, Dennis Slate, Kathleen M. Nelson, Amy J. Davis, Samual A. Mills, John T. Forbes, Kurt Vercauteren, Amy T. Gilbert, Richard B. Chipman

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Since the 1990s, oral rabies vaccination (ORV) has been used successfully to halt the westward spread of the raccoon rabies virus (RV) variant from the eastern continental USA. Elimination of raccoon RV from the eastern USA has proven challenging across targeted raccoon (Procyon lotor) and striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) populations impacted by raccoon RV. Field trial evaluations of the Ontario Rabies Vaccine Bait (ONRAB) were initiated to expand ORV products available to meet the rabies management goal of raccoon RV elimination. This study describes the continuation of a 2011 trial inWest Virginia. Our objective was to evaluate raccoon …

Differing Alterations Of Odor Volatiles Among Pathogenic Stimuli, Patrick Millet, Talia Martin, Maryanne Opiekun, Gary K. Beauchamp, Bruce A. Kimball

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Alterations of the volatile metabolome (the collection of volatiles present in secretions and other emanations) that occur in response to inflammation can be detected by conspecifics and chemometric analyses. Using a model system where mouse urinary metabolites are altered by treatment with lipopolysaccharide (found in the outer cell membrane of gram-negative bacteria), we hypothesized that alteration of body odor volatiles will vary according to the pathogen responsible for inducing the inflammation. We tested this hypothesis by treating mice with different immunogens that engage different immune signaling pathways. Results suggest that alterations of body odor volatiles resulting from inflammation do contain …

Surveillance Of Plasticizers, Bisphenol A, Steroids And Caffeine In Surface Water Of River Ganga And Sundarban Wetland Along The Bay Of Bengal: Occurrence, Sources, Estrogenicity Screening And Ecotoxicological Risk Assessment, Paromita Chakraborty, Nancy W. Shappell, Moitraiyee Mukhopadhyay, Sathaporn Onanong, Daniel D. Snow

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The transboundary River Ganga serves as a conduit for meltwater from the Himalayas and is a major freshwater source for two thirds of Indian population before emptying into the Sundarban Delta, the largest estuary in the Bay of Bengal. Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) such as phthalic acid esters (PAEs) and bisphenol A (BPA) used as organic plastic additives can pollute the aquatic environment receiving plastic litter. Hence, we have investigated these EDCs in water samples from Ganga and Sundarban wetland of India. Since these compounds exhibit estrogenic potential, we have further measured steroids and evaluated the estrogenic activity (estradiol equivalents, …

Transmission Routes Of The Microbiome And Resistome From Manure To Soil And Lettuce, Yuepeng Sun, Daniel D. Snow, Harkamal Walia, Xu Li

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The land application of animal manure can introduce manure microbiome and resistome to croplands where food crops are grown. The objective of this study was to characterize the microbiome and resistome on and in the leaves of lettuce grown in manured soil and identify the main transmission routes of microbes and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) from soil to the episphere and endosphere of lettuce. Shotgun metagenomic results show that manure application significantly altered the composition of the microbiome and resistome of surface soil. SourceTracker analyses indicate that manure and original soil were the main source of the microbiome and resistome …

Occurrence Of Arsenite In Surface And Groundwater Associated With A Perennial Stream Located In Western Nebraska, Usa, Arindam Malakar, Rajesh Singh, Jeffrey Westrop, Karrie A. Weber, Christopher N. Elofson, Manish Kumar, Daniel D. Snow

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Dissolved arsenic typically results from chemical weathering of arsenic rich sediments and is most often found in oxidized forms in surface water. The mobility of arsenic is controlled by its valence state and also by its association with iron oxides minerals, the forms of which are both influenced by abiotic and biotic processes in aqueous environment. In this study, speciation methods were used to measure and confirm the presence of reduced arsenic species in the surface water of Frenchman creek, a gaining stream that crosses the Colorado- Nebraska border. Selective extraction analysis of aquifer and stream bed sediments shows that …

Nebraska Water Center Annual Report 2019-2020

Nebraska Water Center: Literature

Contents

Introduction: Foreword • Director’s Letter • Nebraska Water Center (NWC) Overview and Timeline • In Memoriam: Kyle Hoagland

Research • Water Sciences Laboratory • Nebraska Vadose Zone Program • Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project • Water for Agriculture Project • Greeley Award • U.S. Geological Survey 104b Projects

Extension & Outreach: NWC Events • Nebraska Nitrate Initiative • Bazile Groundwater Management Area • Water and Integrated Crops Hub • Water Faculty Directory • State Legislative Funding • Water Resources Advisory Panel

Teaching: Know Your Well • Sorab Panday Spotlight • NWC Postdoc Profiles • NWC Student Intern Profiles • …

Big Data: Potential As An Ocular Epidemiology And Public Health Tool, Michael Moore

Doctoral

Refractive error is a significant cause of vision impairment both through the limited access to correction in some areas and the associated ocular diseases for which refractive errors are risk factors. Having timely, regular access to population level estimates of refractive error and vision impairment is necessary to adequately plan public health resources and resource appropriate interventions. A lack of access to current and regularly updated refractive error and vision impairment prevalence data has been identified as a significant limitation in predicting future population trends with many countries lacking any prevalence data or available data being outdated. This project addresses …

The Design And Evaluation Of An Educational Software Development Process For First Year Computing Undergraduates, Catherine Higgins

Doctoral

First year, undergraduate computing students experience a series of well-known challenges when learning how to design and develop software solutions. These challenges, which include a failure to engage effectively with planning solutions prior to implementation ultimately impact upon the students’ competency and their retention beyond the first year of their studies. In the software industry, software development processes systematically guide the development of software solutions through iterations of analysis, design, implementation and testing. Industry-standard processes are, however, unsuitable for novice programmers as they require prior programming knowledge. This study investigates how a researcher-designed educational software development process could be created …

Just-In-Time Pastureland Trait Estimation For Silage Optimization, Under Limited Data Constraints, Patricia O'Byrne

Doctoral

To ensure that pasture-based farming meets production and environmental targets for a growing population under increasing resource constraints, producers need to know pastureland traits. Current proximal pastureland trait prediction methods largely rely on vegetation indices to determine biomass and moisture content. The development of new techniques relies on the challenging task of collecting labelled pastureland data, leading to small datasets. Classical computer vision has already been applied to weed identification and recognition of fruit blemishes using morphological features, but machine learning algorithms can parameterise models without the provision of explicit features, and deep learning can extract even more abstract knowledge …

Great East Lake 2021 Water Quality Highlight Report, Amanda Mcquaid, Robert Craycraft

UNH Cooperative Extension

A Water Quality Highlight Report by UNH CE Lakes Lay Monitoring Program for Great East Lake (Wakefield, NH; Acton , ME) for sampling efforts in 2021.

Fairer Evaluation Of Zero Shot Action Recognition In Videos, Kaiqiang Huang, Sarah Jane Delany, Susan Mckeever

Conference Papers

Zero-shot learning (ZSL) for human action recognition (HAR) aims to recognise video action classes that have never been seen during model training. This is achieved by building mappings between visual and semantic embeddings. These visual embeddings are typically provided via a pre-trained deep neural network (DNN). The premise of ZSL is that the training and testing classes should be disjoint. In the parallel domain of ZSL for image input, the widespread poor evaluation protocol of pre-training on ZSL test classes has been highlighted. This is akin to providing a sneak preview of the evaluation classes. In this work, we investigate …

Zero-Shot Action Recognition With Knowledge Enhanced Generative Adversarial Networks, Kaiqiang Huang, Luis Miralles-Pechuán, Susan Mckeever

Conference papers

Zero-Shot Action Recognition (ZSAR) aims to recognise action classes in videos that have never been seen during model training. In some approaches, ZSAR has been achieved by generating visual features for unseen classes based on the semantic information of the unseen class labels using generative adversarial networks (GANs). Therefore, the problem is converted to standard supervised learning since the unseen visual features are accessible. This approach alleviates the lack of labelled samples of unseen classes. In addition, objects appearing in the action instances could be used to create enriched semantics of action classes and therefore, increase the accuracy of ZSAR. …

Just-In-Time Biomass Yield Estimation With Multi-Modal Data And Variable Patch Training Size, Patricia O'Byrne, Patrick Jackman Dr., Damon Dr. Berry Dr., Thomas Lee, Michael French, Robert J. Ross

Conference papers

The just-in-time estimation of farmland traits such as biomass yield can aid considerably in the optimisation of agricultural processes. Data in domains such as precision farming is however notoriously expensive to collect and deep learning driven modelling approaches need to maximise performance but also acknowledge this reality. In this paper we present a study in which a platform was deployed to collect data from a heterogeneous collection of sensor types including visual, NIR, and LiDAR sources to estimate key pastureland traits. In addition to introducing the study itself we address two key research questions. The first of these was the …

K-Nearest Neighbour Classifiers - A Tutorial, Padraig Cunningham, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

Perhaps the most straightforward classifier in the arsenal or Machine Learning techniques is the Nearest Neighbour Classifier – classification is achieved by identifying the nearest neighbours to a query example and using those neighbours to determine the class of the query. This approach to classification is of particular importance because issues of poor run-time performance is not such a problem these days with the computational power that is available. This paper presents an overview of techniques for Nearest Neighbour classification focusing on; mechanisms for assessing similarity (distance), computational issues in identifying nearest neighbours and mechanisms for reducing the dimension of …

Maritime Cybersecurity Strategies For Information Technology Specialists, Angela Mizelle Griffin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Dependence on digital technology increases cyber-related risks for maritime industries. As a result, the U.S. Coast Guard network is challenged with maritime cybersecurity, both economically and for national security. Grounded in the general systems theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies information technology (IT) specialists use to implement standard practices for ensuring cyber security. The participants included six IT specialists who have successfully implemented standard practices for maritime organizations in Virginia and West Virginia. Data were collected from individual semistructured interviews and a review of 12 external organizational documents available to the public from IT …

Enhancing Employee Engagement To Improve Financial Performance, Christine Lamacchia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Business leaders are negatively affected when many employees are not engaged in their jobs. Business leaders who struggle to achieve employee engagement suffer decreased profitability, sales, employee retention, and customer satisfaction. Grounded in employee engagement theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies IT business leaders use to engage employees. The participants were five IT business leaders who successfully developed strategies to engage employees. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, company documents, and artifacts. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Two themes emerged: creating a company culture conducive to employee engagement and using …

The Effect Of Social Media Use On Physical Isolation In Individuals With Borderline Personality Disorder, Davena Limitless Longshore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience extreme interpersonal conflict, crippling their ability to sustain successful relationships. Consequently, clinicians within the psychological field face difficulty in devising treatments plans which can assist these individuals with suffering minimal relationship loss. The purpose of this study was to understand how current technological methods of social interaction affect individuals who suffer from BPD to improve treatment outcomes. This research was guided by the principles of attachment theory and social baseline theory. A quantitative correlational design using social network analysis and multiple regression analysis was used to examine data from surveys. Participants were solicited …

Strategies For Applying Electronic Health Records To Improve Patient Care And Increase Profitability, Fritzgerald Paul

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractIneffective strategies to implement electronic health record keeping systems can negatively impact patient care and increase expenses. Hospital administrators and primary care physicians care about this problem because they would be penalized for not meeting meaningful use guidelines. Grounded in the information systems success model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore electronic health record (EHR) implementation strategies primary care physicians use to improve patient care and increase profitability. The participants comprised five primary care physicians involved in the effective implementation of an EHR application in the central coast region of California. Data were collected from …

An Acceptable Cloud Computing Model For Public Sectors, Eswar Kumar Devarakonda

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cloud computing enables information technology (IT) leaders to shift from passive business support to active value creators. However, social economic-communication barriers inhibit individual users from strategic use of the cloud. Grounded in the theory of technology acceptance, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies IT leaders in public sector organizations implement to utilize cloud computing. The participants included nine IT leaders from public sector organizations in Texas, USA. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, field notes, and publicly available artifacts documents. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis: five themes emerged (a) user-centric and data-driven cloud model; …

Relationships Among Dimensions Of Information System Success And Benefits Of Cloud, William Harold Stanley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite the many benefits offered by cloud computing’s design architecture, there are many fundamental performance challenges for IT managers to manage cloud infrastructures to meet business expectations effectively. Grounded in the information systems success model, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to evaluate the relationships among the perception of information quality, perception of system quality, perception of service quality, perception of system use, perception of user satisfaction, and net benefits of cloud computing services. The participants (n = 137) were IT cloud services managers in the United States, who completed the DeLone and McLean ISS authors’ validated survey …

Risk Factors For Foodborne Illness Outbreaks In Retail Food Establishments, Brendalee Viveiros

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite policies and interventions over the last two decades, foodborne illness remains a significant public health concern. According to the CDC’s Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System, 60% of reported foodborne illness outbreaks involved food that was prepared at a restaurant. Reducing foodborne illness outbreaks that occur at restaurants would have a significant impact on the overall number of foodborne illnesses that occur each year. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively analyze the differences in risk factors in food establishments that have had a foodborne illness outbreak compared to food establishments that have not. This study used Reckwitz’s theory …

Leadership Strategies For Implementing Telemedicine Technology In Rural Hospitals To Improve Profitability, Chikezie Ralph Waturuocha

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective leadership strategies can negatively impact telemedicine technology implementation in rural hospitals, which may hinder profitability. Rural hospital administrators who struggle to implement telemedicine technology for improved profitability are at high risk of experiencing patient health outcomes failure. Grounded in the technology acceptance model, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore leadership strategies rural hospital leaders use to implement telemedicine technology to improve profitability. The participants were five health care administrators of a rural hospital in a Midwest U.S. state who successfully implemented telemedicine technology to improve profitability. Sources for data collection were semistructured interviews and …