Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Crustal Structure Beneath The Eastern Nepal Himalayas And Southern Tibet From Receiver Function Analysis, Arjun Sharma Neupane

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Himalayas are the results of continental collision between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate and serve as a natural site to study the physical causes and process of mountain building. The crustal structure beneath the Himalayas has been subject to numerous geophysical studies and the variation in the velocity structure across the Himalayan region suggests significant differences in the crustal structure between the southern and northern portion in that region. In this research, a P receiver function analysis has been conducted on data collected for 14 years (2000-2014) from 211 different stations in Eastern Nepal and Southern Tibet, …

Latina/O High School Students' Standpoint On Environmental Justice In A Border Community: A Phenomenological Study, Cynthia Christina Ontiveros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative research is a transcendental phenomenology seeking to understand Latin@ high school students’ perceptions and standpoints as they participated lessons that addressed border environmental justice issues in an underrepresented, marginalized community. Seven students from Borderland High School, enrolled in a senior level course, Environmental Science, participated in the study which focused on their experiences in an environmental justice air quality thematic unit built around the complex issues surrounding a local refinery, American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO). The study analyzed the meaning students made and their standpoints regarding the impact of the factory and its one-hundred year history polluting …

Novel Classification Of Slow Movement Objects In Urban Traffic Environments Using Wideband Pulse Doppler Radar, Berta Rodriguez Hervas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Every year thousands of people are involved in traffic accidents, some of which are fatal. An important percentage of these fatalities are caused by human error, which could be prevented by increasing the awareness of drivers and the autonomy of vehicles. Since driver assistance systems have the potential to positively impact tens of millions of people, the purpose of this research is to study the micro-Doppler characteristics of vulnerable urban traffic components, i.e. pedestrians and bicyclists, based on information obtained from radar backscatter, and to develop a classification technique that allows automatic target recognition with a vehicle integrated system. For …

Microscopic And Spectroscopic Analysis Of Cadmium Telluride, Jessica Goretty Salazar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) remains one of the materials of interest in the fabrication of photovoltaic cells and infrared devices, mainly because of its suitable crystal structure as well as of its small, direct bandgap of 1.5 eV. Since development of such devices requires a high quality and low defect material, the goal of this study is to microscopically and spectroscopically examine not only crystallinity, but also the induced stress in the material due to the effect of substrate orientation. This information is valuable if optimization of sample growth conditions is envisioned. Prior to CdTe deposition by close-spaced sublimation (CSS), Si …

Pre-Tuned Ridge Regression And Its Extension To Generalized Linear Models, Yaa Tawiah Wonkye

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ridge regression is regularization or shrinkage method and a common approach in dealing with multicollinearity in conventional regression analysis. Ridge regression is widely used by statistical analyst since it is one of the best compared to other regularization methods. Also, the introduction of high dimension and ultra-high dimensional data has become an issue of concern and ridge regression is one way of dealing with such data. One of the key issues associated with ridge regression is the determination of the tuning or ridge parameter. The common practice is to fit ridge regression for a different number of values of tuning …

Sequence Stratigraphy And Depositional Environment Of The Cambro-Ordovician Bliss Sandstone, Franklin Mountains Of El Paso, Texas, Drew Adam Chenoweth

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Bliss Formation formed along the Southwestern continental shelf of

Laurentia during the Late Cambrian and records the craton]wide Cambrian

transgression previously described by Sloss. This study divides the Bliss into five facies associations which were used to determine the depositional environments: 1) The Basal Transgressive Lag (BTL) was interpreted to be a high energy fluvial deposit the top of which has been reworked and winnowed during transgression. 2) The Lower Cyclic Sandstones and Silty Sandstones (LCSS) were interpreted to be be tidal delta or tidal estuary deposits composed of delta deposits, slackwater deposits, and tidal dunes within tidal channels. …

Nanoceria Exposure To Kidney Beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris): Implications On Plant Physiology, Nutrition And Their Transfer To Next Trophic Level, Sanghamitra Majumdar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies investigating the effects of cerium oxide nanoparticles (nanoceria, nCeO2) on plants have primarily focused on the physiological and biochemical changes at early growth stages. Comprehensive information on the effects of nCeO2 through the entire life cycle of plants and the nutritional quality of the edible tissues is limited. No studies have been reported on the interactions between nCeO2 and common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris). Common beans are leguminous crops, which are societally important due to their nutritional benefits. The beans are rich in proteins and essential nutrients like folate, iron, zinc, molybdenum and magnesium, and are consumed worldwide. This …

Additional Results For "Joint Entropy Of Continuously Differentiable Ultrasonic Waveforms" [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 133(1), 283-300 (2013)], M S. Hughes, J N. Marsh, S A. Wickline, John E. Mccarthy

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Previous results on the use of joint entropy for detection of targeted nanoparticles accumulating in the neovasculature of MDA435 tumors [Fig. 7 of M. S. Hughes et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 133, 283–300 (2013)] are extended, with sensitivity improving by nearly another factor of 2. This result is obtained using a “quasi-optimal” reference waveform in the computation of the joint entropy imaging technique used to image the accumulating nanoparticles.

An Economic Analysis Of High-Intensity, Short-Duration Grazing Systems In South Dakota And Nebraska, Bronc Mcmurtry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Four different grazing systems: two rotational, a continuous, and a high-intensity, short-duration (mob) system, replicated twice, were evaluated from an economic perspective. Mob grazing is defined as a system having very high stocking rates for a small amount of time. Livestock are forced to eat or trample the vegetation. Stocking rates and average daily gains (ADG) were collected from the UNL Barta Brothers ranch near Rose, Nebraska. The study started in 2011 and lasted until 2014. Using the performance data and other cost data relevant to South Dakota and Nebraska, budgets were set up for each system and extrapolated to …

The Krylov Subspace Methods For The Computation Of Matrix Exponentials, Hao Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

The problem of computing the matrix exponential e^tA arises in many theoretical and practical problems. Many methods have been developed to accurately and efficiently compute this matrix function or its product with a vector, i.e., e^tAv. In the past few decades, with the increasing need of the computation for large sparse matrices, iterative methods such as the Krylov subspace methods have proved to be a powerful class of methods in dealing with many linear algebra problems. The Krylov subspace methods have been introduced for computing matrix exponentials by Gallopoulos and Saad, and the corresponding error bounds …

Women In Science 2015, Clark Science Center's Summer Research Fellows Program

SURF Abstracts (Women in Science)

Women in Science 2015 summarizes research done by Smith College’s Summer Research Fellowship (SURF) Program participants. Ever since its 1967 start, SURF has been a cornerstone of Smith’s science education. In 2015, 162 students participated in SURF (153 hosted on campus and nearby eld sites), supervised by 60 faculty mentor-advisors drawn from the Clark Science Center and connected to its eighteen science, mathematics, and engineering departments and programs and associated centers and units. At summer’s end, SURF participants were asked to summarize their research experiences for this publication.

Sinuous Rhizoliths Mimic Invertebrate Trace Fossils On Upper Pleistocene Caliche Surfaces, San Salvador Island, Bahamas, H. Allen Curran

Geosciences: Faculty Publications

The Pleistocene–Holocene boundary on islands of the Bahama Archipelago is typically marked by a calichified paleosol horizon that formed on exposed limestone surfaces during lowered sea level of the Last Glacial. On the north coast of San Salvador, an extensive laminar caliche surface is present west of Singer Bar Point. Formed on Upper Pleistocene (Eemian) carbonate eolianite and overlain by Holocene eolianite, this surface bears numerous and distinctive large, sinuous structures typically preserved in half relief, and with sharp, parallel ridge-like edges that slope inward to form a smooth, medial ‘trough’ having widths mostly between 1 and 3 cm. Individual …

Middlesex County, Virginia Shoreline Inventory Report Methods And Guidelines, Marcia Berman, Karinna Nunez, Sharon Killeen, Tamia Rudnicky, Julie Bradshaw, Kory Angstadt, David Stanhope, Christine Tombleson, Karen Duhring, David Weiss, Carl Hershner

Reports

The data inventory developed for the Shoreline Inventory is based on a three tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions that can be observed from a small boat navigating along the shoreline or by using observations made remotely at the desktop using high resolution imagery. The three tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shorezone into three regions:

1. the immediate riparian zone, evaluated for land use

2. the bank, evaluated for height, cover and natural protection

3. the shoreline, describing the presence of shoreline structures for shore protection and recreational purposes.

The 2015 Inventory for Middlesex County was generated using on-screen, digitizing …

Frontier: A Framework For Extracting And Organizing Biographical Facts In Historical Documents, Joseph Park

Theses and Dissertations

The tasks of entity recognition through ontological commitment, fact extraction and organization with respect to a target schema, and entity deduplication have all been examined in recent years, and systems exist that can perform each individual task. A framework combining all these tasks, however, is still needed to accomplish the goal of automatically extracting and organizing biographical facts about persons found in historical documents into disambiguated entity records. We introduce FROntIER (Fact Recognizer for Ontologies with Inference and Entity Resolution) as the framework to recognize and extract facts using an ontology and organize facts of interest through inferring implicit facts …

Methods For Large-Scale Machine Learning And Computer Vision, Yeqing Li

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

With the advance of the Internet and information technology, nowadays people can easily collect and store tremendous amounts of data such as images and videos. Developing machine learning and computer vision to analysis and learn from the gigantic data sets is an interesting yet challenging problem. Inspired by the trend, this thesis focus on developing large-scale machine learning and computer vision techniques for the purpose of handling various kinds of problems on gigantic data sets. With respect to the problem of image classification, we employ the technique of sub-selection, which uses partial observations to efficiently approximate the original high dimensional …

Design And Analysis Of Place-Based Opportunistic Networks, Yanliang Liu

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

The swift growth and popularization of wireless technology and mobile smart phones have unfolded various opportunities and challenges before researchers' eyes. Opportunistic networks is one of the interesting and challenging topics. Generally speaking, opportunistic networks exploit the potential capability of existing mobile devices carried by people to provide pervasive computing service, such as data forwarding, without pre-planted infrastructures. The movement of mobile devices introduced by human activity plays a crucial role in the functionality of opportunistic networks, since it influences the contacts between different mobile devices. It is wellknown that human movement presents these place-centered features: intermittent hops between places …

Methods For Human Motion Analysis For American Sign Language Recognition And Assistive Environments, Zhong Zhang

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

The broad application domain of the work presented in this thesis is human motion analysis with a focus on hand detection for American Sign Language recognition and fall detection for assistive environments.One of the motivations of the proposed thesis is a semi-automatic vision based American Sign Language recognition system. This system allows a user to submit as query a video of the sign of interest, or simply perform the sign in front of a camera. The system then asks the user to annotate the hands' locations in the sign. Next, the hand trajectory of the query sign is compared with …

Two Step Parsimonious Variable Selection For Right Censored Continuous Survival Time Models, Anju Menon

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Variable selection is fundamental in any kind of statistical modeling. There has been ex- tensive research by different authors on methods of variable selection from linear regression models to more complex non-linear applications. Modeling survival data especially poses challenges because of a more complicated data structure as the time variable T is usually subject to censoring. This thesis presents a two step objective approach to choose between several candidate models based on the the ability of the model to predict survival times using loss functions. Once potentially important variables are selected using a screening method called Iterative Sure Independence Screening(ISIS) …

Stratigraphy And Porosity Modeling Of South-Central Illinois (Usa) Chester (Upper Mississippian) Series Sandstones Using Petrel, Darren Kimple, Eric W. Peterson, David H. Malone

Faculty Publications-- Geography, Geology, and the Environment

Maximizing resource extraction from mature oilfields requires enhanced and secondary recovery techniques. The success of these methods relies on knowledge and understanding of the reservoir geology and hydraulics. At the Loudon Oilfield (Illinois, USA), enhanced oil recovery is being used to extend the production life of the reservoir. The suitability and placement of additional wells for oil recovery processes required three-dimensional (3D) facies and porosity modeling of the oilfield. The purpose of this work was to assess the ability of a porosity model to predict sandstone facies. The facies model for the Loudon field was generated using data obtained from …

Brazilian Women Entrepreneurs: Exploring Strategies For Building Sustainable Business Organizations, Maria Ana Church

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Brazilians create an average of 1.2 million new registered enterprises annually, but some struggle to keep their business in operation. Thirty percent of the new ventures are unable to survive the first year, and 58% go out of business after the first 5 years. The goal of this phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of Brazilian women entrepreneurs concerning the strategies needed to build sustainable business organizations in Brazil. The individual concepts of sustainable development, sustainability, business strategies, and business models served as the theoretical foundations for the study. Data were collected via in-depth interviews with 20 women entrepreneurs …

County Demographic Influence On Toxic Chemical Activities Of Chemical-Related Industry In Michigan, Lisa Helen Perricane

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There are a large number of chemical facilities that emit toxic chemicals in Michigan, and there is a concern regarding toxic chemical exposure to the residents of Michigan counties. However, it is uncertain whether chemical companies that emit toxic chemicals in Michigan are influenced by county demographic factors in deciding whether to engage in voluntary pollution prevention (P2) activities and whether this decision influences U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) scores. Using Bullard's theory of environmental justice, the purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a correlation between chemical-related industry's voluntary P2 …

Using Sustainable Development As A Competitive Strategy, Pat Spearman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Sustainable development reduces construction waste by 43%, generating 50% cost savings. Residential construction executives lacking adequate knowledge regarding the benefits of sustainable development practices are at a competitive disadvantage. Drawing from the diffusion of innovation theory, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore knowledge acquisition within the bounds of sustainable residential construction. The purposive sample size of 11 executive decision makers fulfilled the sample size requirements and enabled the extraction of meaningful data. Participants were members of the National Home Builders Association and had experience of a minimum of 5 years in residential construction. The research question …

Networking The Relationships Of Microenterprise Development In Bulgaria, Kristina Ann Harris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The networking relationships provided by microenterprise development (MED) organizations foster sustainable and scalable Bulgarian small businesses. Some Bulgarian MED leaders lack the strategies to help sustain small businesses in Bulgaria. Guided by the actor network theory, the purpose of this case study was to explore the strategies MED leaders use to help sustain small businesses in Bulgaria. Data were collected through a semistructured focus group comprised of MED Bulgarian business leaders (n = 4) in Rhodope Mountain Region and company data consisting of financial reports, marketing presentations, and company business plan. The data analysis included using keyword frequency comparisons, coding …

Employees' Perceptions Of Managerial Transformational Leadership Behaviors And Effectiveness Among Information Technology Managers, Olusesan Ogunsakin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The selection of effective leaders is critical to improving organizations' performance in the current dynamic global business landscape; however, the inadequacy of leadership selection criteria in many organizations had led to an increase in the rate of chief executive officers' dismissals within the last 3 decades in the United States. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between employees' assessments of their managers' transformational leadership behaviors and employees' perceptions of managerial leadership effectiveness for improved leadership selection. Bass' transformational leadership theory and Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory guided the study with data gathered, using an online survey, from …

Sustainability Of Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp) Benefits Postimplementation: An Individual User Perspective, Mohamed Abdalla Mohamed Badreldin Lotfy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Although there is research about the use of enterprise resource planning (ERP) from a management perspective, the research is not clear as to whether the ERP benefits justify the costs, not only in dollars, but also in effort, from the end user's perspective. Using the theory of diffusion of innovation (DOI), the purpose of this quantitative research was to identify the set of postimplementation sustainability factors that maximized ERP user value, which are major issues for management, and measured their relative significance. The study's structural model incorporated the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, which is a conceptualization of the theory of diffusion …

Impacts On Faculty Workload During A Learning Management System Transition, Karla Page Jones

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Management professionals at many colleges are transitioning to new learning management systems (LMS), such as Moodle, for reasons such as lower costs, greater outreach, and student preference. Transitioning to a new LMS may result in faculty problems with learning a new technology platform in addition to teaching. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact that an LMS transition had on faculty attitudes, experiences, and workload. The conceptual framework of the study was the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and the diffusion of innovation theory. A phenomenological design was employed with a purposeful sample of …

Dynamically Hedging Oil And Currency Futures Using Receding Horizontal Control And Stochastic Programming, Paul Edward Cottrell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a lack of research in the area of hedging future contracts, especially in illiquid or very volatile market conditions. It is important to understand the volatility of the oil and currency markets because reduced fluctuations in these markets could lead to better hedging performance. This study compared different hedging methods by using a hedging error metric, supplementing the Receding Horizontal Control and Stochastic Programming (RHCSP) method by utilizing the London Interbank Offered Rate with the Levy process. The RHCSP hedging method was investigated to determine if improved hedging error was accomplished compared to the Black-Scholes, Leland, and Whalley …

A Qualitative Assessment: Adult Perceptions Of Collaboration As Mitigation For Statistics Anxiety, Karl James Kinkead

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Math anxiety, defined as feelings of apprehension and fear of courses involving mathematics, often interferes with student learning in a variety of college-level courses. A related phenomenon, statistics anxiety, affects the performance of many students in statistics courses. Researchers have found evidence that including collaborative problem solving as an instructional methodology is effective at reducing the negative effects of statistics anxiety. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore adult perceptions of collaborative problem solving as an instructional methodology focused on improving the learning environment in a business statistics course. Behaviorist, constructivist, and adult learning theories provided the …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Migrant Women Farmworkers' A Qualit Ative Analysis Of Migrant Women Farmworkers’ Perceptions Of Maternal Care Management, Stacey A. Pilling

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine migrant women farmworkers' views of perinatal care management while working in the fields. Like men, women migrant farmworkers are exposed to many physical, chemical, and biological hazards that pose human health risks. However, women of childbearing age are at an increased risk of having reproductive health difficulties and adverse pregnancy outcomes, and the infant mortality rate among migrant farmworkers is estimated to be twice the national average. Perinatal care is a critical factor in reducing adverse outcomes for perinatal and newborn mortality. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 15 migrant women farmworkers …

Automated Medication Dispensing Cabinet And Medication Errors, Marie Helen Walsh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The number of deaths due to medical errors in hospitals ranges from 44,000 to 98,000 yearly. More than 7,000 of these deaths have taken place due to medication errors. This project evaluated the implementation of an automated medication dispensing cabinet or PYXIS machine in a 25-bed upper Midwestern critical access hospital. Lewin's stage theory of organizational change and Roger's diffusion of innovations theory supported the project. Nursing staff members were asked to complete an anonymous, qualitative survey approximately 1 month after the implementation of the PYXIS and again 1 year later. Questions were focused on the device and its use …