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Title: ASSESSING THE CULTURAL SENSITIVITY OF THE BOSTON NAMING TEST-2: IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR DIFFERENTIAL ITEM FUNCTIONING BETWEEN AFRICAN AMERICAN AND CAUCASIAN ADULTS AND BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN?
Creator: Benson, Laura M.
Date: 2014, 2014-07
Description: The Boston Naming Test – 2 (BNT-2) is one of the most widely used neuropsychological measures for the detection of naming deficits. However,...
Show moreThe Boston Naming Test – 2 (BNT-2) is one of the most widely used neuropsychological measures for the detection of naming deficits. However, there are few studies that have investigated its item-level psychometric properties, particularly in ethnic minorities, including African Americans. The present study examined the BNT-2 for the presence of ethnicity and genderbased differential item functioning (DIF) in a cognitively diverse sample of 744 African American and Caucasian adults recruited from a neuropsychology outpatient clinic in Chicago, Illinois. Using a two-parameter Item Response Theory (IRT) framework, all 60 items of the BNT-2 were analyzed, with difficulty and discriminability estimates generated for items 16 through 60 for ethnicity, and for items 11 through 60 for gender. Ethnicity-based DIF was detected for 10 items (i.e., “globe,” “beaver,” “dominoes,” “unicorn,” “accordion,” “latch,” “tripod,” “yoke,” “trellis,” and “palette”) and genderbased DIF for 6 items (i.e., “stethoscope,” “pyramid,” “latch,” “sphinx,” “yoke,” and “palette”), indicating that these items do not function equivalently between groups, despite being matched on naming ability. Post hoc hierarchical logistic regression analyses examined age, years of completed education, and literacy (measured as word reading ability) as potential explanatory factors for the observed DIF. Results indicated that the three variables provided partial explanations for the DIF detected in the 16 ethnicity and gender items, though none could entirely account for the observed findings. IRT-estimated difficulty parameters also allowed for the examination of item ranking on the BNT-2. For both ethnicity and gender, the IRT-estimated rank ordering of items between groups was similar, as well as being comparable (though not identical) to those initially assigned by Kaplan, Goodglass, and Weintraub (2001). Results further indicated that correlations between BNT-2 scale scores and IRT-based scale scores were very high, suggesting that the overall scoring of the BNT-2 was not subtantially biased by ethnicity or gender, despite the identified DIF and small fluctuations in item rankings. Overall, this implies that the BNT-2 is still a valid measure for use in African Americans, although future consideration should be given to revision or omission of those items identified as having DIF.
Ph.D. in Psychology, July 2014
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Title: DEVELOPING ALGORITHMIC TRADING STRATEGIES AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS WITH HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING DATA
Creator: Lee, Jeonghoe
Date: 2015, 2015-07
Description: The PhD dissertation research topics aim at developing algorithmic trading strategies and demonstrating data analysis skills. To be a...
Show moreThe PhD dissertation research topics aim at developing algorithmic trading strategies and demonstrating data analysis skills. To be a quantitative analyst as well as an academic scholar in financial trading area, these two professional backgrounds are indispensable. In detail, chapter 1 shows multi-objective optimization and spontaneous optimization of design variables. For instance, while conventional trading systems explore a single objective function, multi-objective optimization allows us to manage the essential trade-off among profit, standard deviation and maximum-drop. In addition, design parameters such as trading volume, the amount of historical data, and trading gateways of technical indicators are continuously optimized in real time. In chapter 2, this chapter shows an algorithmic trading system with the concept of machine learning, and demonstrating its various applications. The main purpose of this research is to propose objective numerical development framework in algorithmic trading. Chapter 3 pursues understanding liquidity measures which are critical for algorithmic traders and investors. Various liquidity measures have been suggested and they have different sensitivities to the market. This research analyzes liquidity measures and clarifies the relation between market price return & realized volatility and liquidity measures. In sum, with these three chapters, this dissertation will demonstrate necessary research topics in algorithmic trading.
Ph.D. in Management Science, July 2015
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Title: STABILITY OF AQUEOUS FOAMS: FOAM FILM STRATIFICATION PHENOMENON AND THE EFFECTS OF DISPERSED VERSUS SOLUBILIZED OIL
Creator: Lee, Jongju
Date: 2016, 2016-05
Description: A foam is a system consisting of a concentrated dispersion of gas bubbles in a liquid. Foams are encountered in many industries such as food,...
Show moreA foam is a system consisting of a concentrated dispersion of gas bubbles in a liquid. Foams are encountered in many industries such as food, agriculture, chemicals, petroleum, and paper manufacturing. Aqueous foams are formed by using surfactants or nano-colloidal particles. Thin liquid films containing surfactant micelles or other nano-colloidal particles are considered to be the key structural elements of foams containing gas and liquid. We thus probed the effects of the micellar concentration and the film size (area) on the stability of a dry bulk foam by studying the stability of a single foam lamella containing micelles; this is so we can establish the importance of the micellar structuring phenomenon and the foam film size (area) affecting the bulk foam stability. The film stratification phenomenon (stepwise film thinning) was experimentally observed by the reflected light microinterferometry. The stepwise layer-by-layer decrease of film thickness is due to the appearance and growth of dark spot (of one layer less film thickness) in the film. We used the two-dimensional diffusion model to model the dynamics of dark spot expansion considering the apparent diffusion coefficient and the film size. Based on this model, we carried out a parametric study depicting the effects of film thickness (or the number of micellar layers) and film area on the rate of dark spot expansion. Many practical applications involving three-phase foams (aqueous foams containing oil) commonly employ surfactants at several times their critical micelle concentration (CMC). We investigated the influence of both the dispersed and solubilized oils, and the surfactant concentration (above CMC) on the stability of an aqueous foaming system. In foam stability, the relative importance of the dispersed oil versus oil solubilized within the micelles depends on the stability of the aqueous asymmetric (i.e., pseudoemulsion) film between the oil and the air-water interface and the second virial coefficient. Also, the micellar structuring phenomenon tests using the single foam lamella revealed that the multi-layering structure was well pronounced in the absence of the solubilized oil; as a consequence, the foam lamellae thinned slowly layer-by-layer and the oil solubilized in micelles weakened the micellar structure formation. The foam lamellae thinned faster, making the foam less stable.
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, May 2016
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Title: HYBRID METHODS FOR SIMULATION OF MUON IONIZATION COOLING CHANNELS
Creator: Kunz, Josiah D.
Date: 2017, 2017-05
Description: COSY Infinity is an arbitrary-order beam dynamics simulation and analysis code. It can determine high-order transfer maps of combinations of...
Show moreCOSY Infinity is an arbitrary-order beam dynamics simulation and analysis code. It can determine high-order transfer maps of combinations of particle optical elements of arbitrary field configurations. For precision modeling, design, and optimization of next-generation muon beam facilities, its features make it a very attractive code. New features are being developed for inclusion in COSY to follow the distribution of charged particles through matter. To study in detail some of the properties of muons passing through material, the transfer map approach alone is not sufficient. The interplay of beam optics and atomic processes must be studied by a hybrid transfer map–Monte Carlo approach in which transfer map methods describe the average behavior of the particles in the accelerator channel including energy loss, and Monte Carlo methods are used to provide small corrections to the predictions of the transfer map accounting for the stochastic nature of scattering and straggling of particles. The advantage of the new approach is that it is very efficient in that the vast majority of the dynamics is represented by fast application of the high-order transfer map of an entire element and accumulated stochastic effects as well as possible particle decay. The gains in speed shown in this work are expected to simplify the optimization of muon cooling channels which are usually very computationally demanding due to the need to repeatedly run large numbers of particles through large numbers of configurations. This work describes the development of the required algorithms and their application to the simulation of muon ionization cooling channels. The code is benchmarked against other codes, validated with experimental results, and predicts results for current muon ionization cooling efforts.
Ph.D. in Physics, May 2017
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Title: LAM MUTANT LARVAE WITH MELANOTIC MASSES DO NOT SURVIVE WITH THEIR SIBLINGS THAT DO NOT DEVELOP MASSES
Creator: Cui, Yi
Date: 2012-04-28, 2012-05
Description: Melanotic masses are black nodules that form inside larvae and can be found in multiple mutants (Minakhina & Steward, 2006). There are two...
Show moreMelanotic masses are black nodules that form inside larvae and can be found in multiple mutants (Minakhina & Steward, 2006). There are two types of melanotic masses, the immune-related masses and the non-hemocyte-associated masses (Minakhina & Steward, 2006). Immune-related melanotic masses form in lam mutants (Markovic et.al, 2009). We now show all lam mutant larvae survived and 33% of the them developed melanotic masses when grown on fresh food, however, only 66% of them survived and none of them formed melanotic masses when living in the frassfood; the mixture of poo medium collected from wild type larvae vials. We find that frassfood lethality is not recipe specific, since the results were similar on normal yeast mashed potato medium and Nutrifly food. Our results also identified that it is bacteria in frassfood that kills lam mutant larvae with melanotic masses because the survival and melanotic mass incidence of lam mutant larvae were similar to fresh food when antibiotics were added to frassfood. However lam mutant larvae with melanotic masses are not generally sensitive to bacteria because all lam mutant larvae showed sensitivity to S. marcescens. Besides, since there is no frassfood lethality observed on Relish mutants, we propose that the humoral response was not affected in the lam mutants. The frassfood lethality to larvae with melanotic masses was also observed in neither cactus mutants nor the hopTum-l mutants, so the immune defects that caused melanotic masses in these two mutants do not lead to the frassfood lethality. Finally, we show that the frassfood lethality is not exactly the same in lam overexpressing larvae with melanotic masses and lam C overexpressing larvae with melanotic masses to the lam/Df larvae with melanotic masses. Thus it is possible that the gut immunity was affected in lam mutants with melanotic masses so that they were killed by the bacteria in frassfood.
M.S. in Biology, May 2012
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Title: DEPTH MAP ENHANCEMENT FOR REAL-TIME 3D RECONSTRUCTION
Creator: Lee, Kitae
Date: 2015, 2015-07
Description: In this paper, we present a novel depth map enhancement for real-time 3D reconstruction by the Microsoft Kinect. The Kinect sensor is...
Show moreIn this paper, we present a novel depth map enhancement for real-time 3D reconstruction by the Microsoft Kinect. The Kinect sensor is relatively affordable and capable of generating high-resolution color image and depth maps of the scene at realtime rates. However, owning the low- cost, there are several artifacts. Generated depth map contains lots of holes, which they are missing information around object boundaries and mis-alignment with color image. The objective of 3D reconstruction is to recreate a real scene, as accurate as possible within a virtual three-dimensional space using a computer. The algorithm of 3D-recosntrution is highly based on the quality of the depth map. This poor depth map could not be applied in potential real-time 3D reconstruction. We present novel multi-step upsampling-based our novel anisotropic diffusion algorithms with generated depth map and color image by Kinect. This method has better performance than existed bilateral filtering and original anisotropic filtering in terms of filling holes, sharpening the boundaries of objects and alignment between depth map and color image. We compare the performance of these filters. It is difficult to do a meaningful comparison of two algorithms with using output of Kinect sensor directly; as for each observation of the same scene, we will get different sensed value. In order to circumvent this problem and to achieve an accurate comparison process, we used dataset from Computer Vision Group at Munchen Technology Universty(TUM). This dataset and the scripts is related to quantitative error metrics are avail at http://vision.in.tum.de/data/datasets/rgbd-‐dataset. We also contribute making our project parallel and GPU computing to satisfy real-time system condition.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, July 2015
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Title: ACOUSTIC LOCALIZATION OF BREAKDOWN IN RADIO FREQUENCY ACCELERATING CAVITIES
Creator: Lane, Peter
Date: 2016, 2016-07
Description: Current designs for muon accelerators require high-gradient radio frequency (RF) cavities to be placed in solenoidal magnetic fields. These...
Show moreCurrent designs for muon accelerators require high-gradient radio frequency (RF) cavities to be placed in solenoidal magnetic fields. These fields help contain and efficiently reduce the phase space volume of source muons in order to create a usable muon beam for collider and neutrino experiments. In this context and in general, the use of RF cavities in strong magnetic fields has its challenges. It has been found that placing normal conducting RF cavities in strong magnetic fields reduces the threshold at which RF cavity breakdown occurs. To aid the effort to study RF cavity breakdown in magnetic fields, it would be helpful to have a diagnostic tool which can localize the source of breakdown sparks inside the cavity. These sparks generate thermal shocks to small regions of the inner cavity wall that can be detected and localized using microphones attached to the outer cavity surface. Details on RF cavity sound sources as well as the hardware, software, and algorithms used to localize the source of sound emitted from breakdown thermal shocks are presented. In addition, results from simulations and experiments on three RF cavities, namely the Aluminum Mock Cavity, the High-Pressure Cavity, and the Modular Cavity, are also given. These results demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the described technique for acoustic localization of breakdown.
Ph.D. in Physics, July 2016
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Title: MODELS AND SIMULATIONS OF SPROUTING ANGIOGENESIS
Creator: Langman, Catherine
Date: 2016, 2016-05
Description: All living mammalian cells need to consume oxygen and nutrients for cellular processes and need a way to remove waste from those cellular...
Show moreAll living mammalian cells need to consume oxygen and nutrients for cellular processes and need a way to remove waste from those cellular processes. Capillary networks provide places for such exchanges to occur. The process of creating new capillaries from existing blood vessels is called angiogenesis. Understanding angiogenesis is critical to the advancement of knowledge in the life sciences, as well as in medical applications where blood vessels play an important role. Angiogenesis is a complex process composed of many subprocesses which are not yet fully understood and take place over varying temporal and spatial scales. Mathematically modeling and simulating angiogenesis, and evaluating the capillary networks that result from angiogenesis, can help further understanding of angiogenesis and improve therapeutic treatments. This thesis examines mathematical models and simulations of sprouting angiogenesis and proposes two generic models of sprouting angiogenesis based on descriptions found in educational and scientific literature. Future research opportunities for scientific study and educational study using these models as a starting place are discussed.
M.S. in Applied Mathematics, May 2016
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Title: MATERIAL INVENTORY CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN CONSTRUCTION USING GIS APPLICATIONS AND A "HYBRID" TRACKING SYSTEM
Creator: Le, Kiet Tuan
Date: 2017, 2017-05
Description: Material inventory control and management is simply the process by which an organization is supplied with the goods and services that it needs...
Show moreMaterial inventory control and management is simply the process by which an organization is supplied with the goods and services that it needs to achieve its objectives of buying, storing and moving materials. There are usually plenty of materials in a construction site. A large amount of stored materials can meet unexpected demands, and can prevent future purchases that can be affected by an escalation of material prices. However, a large amount of stored materials can also cause negative impacts such as increased costs for storing redundant inventory, and decreased construction productivity. Therefore, a proper material inventory control and management system is critical for economy and efficiency in construction projects. A material inventory control and management system consists of two main elements: inventory control and inventory management. Inventory control is the process of monitoring the flow of materials on the construction site beginning when materials are received from manufacturers and ending when those materials are used in production. Inventory management is the practice overseeing and managing the ordering, storage and use of materials on the construction site. In this study, an automated material inventory control and management system is developed using Geographical Information System (GIS) applications and a “hybrid” tracking system to identify the need for materials, order, track, transport, store, control the inventory, circulate on site, and incorporate into production. The proposed system allows users to have access to real-time information about the materials on the construction such as: the arrival of materials, the amount of materials received, the status of materials (either in storage area or in-production), and the up-to-date information about site stocks. Furthermore, the system provides users the ability to make correct and timely decisions regarding materials on the construction site.
Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, May 2017
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Title: THERMAL ANALYSIS OF PM MACHINES FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Creator: La Marca, Frank
Date: 2016, 2016-07
Description: As demand grows for electrification of the automotive industry, the need for a traction motor becomes imperative. There has been considerable...
Show moreAs demand grows for electrification of the automotive industry, the need for a traction motor becomes imperative. There has been considerable effort by electric machine manufacturers to develop and build a traction motor that meets the speci- fications of the automobile industry. One of the limiting factors in the design of an electric automobile is the thermal performance of a traction motor. This thesis focuses on thermal analysis of an electric machine with a major focus on a machine that operates in an automotive environment. Thermal analysis of the electric machine will be focus on the analysis of an electric machine that is used in a FSAE electric racecar. Theory behind various thermal extraction methods are reviewed, including heat transfer and the fluid dynamics of an electric machine. Thermal modeling methods are also investigated, including analytical methods and numerical methods such as finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics. The importance of thermal modeling of an electric machine is to understand the heat transfer occurring in the machine. In high performance electric machines the limiting factor of the machine the temperature rise when torque is applied. In- vestigation of the heat transfer of a machine can identify the hot spot of the machine and methods of reduction. This will allow for more current applied and more torque which will give a higher density machine.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, July 2016
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Title: NEW SOLID AND LIQUID ELECTROLYTES FOR LITHIUM RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES
Creator: Mei, Xinyi
Date: 2016, 2016-12
Description: Currently, rechargeable lithium batteries are widely used in our consumer electronic products, including cell phones, laptop computers, and...
Show moreCurrently, rechargeable lithium batteries are widely used in our consumer electronic products, including cell phones, laptop computers, and cameras and so on. They have extraordinary potential for application in electric and hybrid electric vehicles by their high energy and power density[1]; however, the major challenges include the higher cost, safety issues related to the solvents and conductibility at lower temperatures are still waiting to be fixed. In this Ph.D. thesis, two types of rechargeable lithium batteries: lithium-ion batteries and lithium-sulfur batteries are discussed. Two different approaches are presented, in the direction of achieving an enhanced electrolyte system for rechargeable lithium batteries. One approach is based on the conventional poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO)-based solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) system. The key feature of this approach is the preparation of nanoparticle lithium salts (NPLS) and low lattice energy fluorinated di-lithium salts. The ionic conductivities of these PEO-based SPEs were markedly improved, due to a decrease in the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the polymer. For lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, the polysulfide shuttle (PSS), caused by the dissolution of cathode polysulfide intermediates into the electrolyte, has delivered a mortal blow to nearly every attempt at obtaining a viable Li-S battery. So, another approach involved the strategic design and synthesis of a series of room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) to prevent PSS: i) Three series of di-cationic ionic liquids (DILs) are synthesis and characterized. DILs-based electrolytes displayed excellent properties, such as non-flammability, high electrochemical stability and thermal stability. ii) Twelve new asymmetric fluorinated RTILs (FRTILs) were also introduced. The FRTILs based electrolytes showed even better properties than DILs-based electrolytes.
Ph.D. in Chemistry, December 2016
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Title: SKINNING AND STORAGE METHODS FOR STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL STUDIES OF MANDUCA SEXTA FLGHT MUSCLE
Creator: Zhang, Mengjie
Date: 2012-04-22, 2012-05
Description: Like mammalian cardiac muscle, the flight muscle of the hawk-moth Manduca sexta is synchronous. However, it also has significant structural...
Show moreLike mammalian cardiac muscle, the flight muscle of the hawk-moth Manduca sexta is synchronous. However, it also has significant structural similarities with asynchronous insect flight muscle systems, such as those of Drosophila and Lethocerus. Different physiological function depends on the underlying different molecular structures. Although Drosophila and Lethocerus have been well studied, Menduca sexta is still a newly developed research model. Many different skinning and storage methods are being used worldwide for in vitro studies of a wide variety of muscle systems. Here our goal is to develop better skinning solution and storage condition which will maintain muscle structure and function as well as intact muscle. To achieve this end, several kinds of skinning solutions and storage conditions were evaluated by laser and X-ray mechanical experiments. The solution from HAMM Lab (University of Washington) showed the best ability to destroy plasma membrane, without affecting muscle interior structure and function. For two storage conditions, 4°C without glycerol and -20°C with 50% glycerol, both laser and X-ray experiments show the latter one is better, which means muscles stored at -20°C with 50% glycerol have faster and stronger reaction for high calcium solution, and also have sharper peaks in X-ray diffraction patterns. The presence of protease inhibitors is also necessary to maintain the contraction ability of muscle. Furthermore, the X-ray experiments for muscle fibers stored at -20°C with 50% glycerol and -80°C with 75% glycerol, show the expected results, which the muscles stored at latter condition show far superior X-ray diffraction patterns, especially in meridional reflections and layer lines. The lower temperature can minimize protein degradation. Notably, incubating muscles in glycerol solutions at 4°C before storing them at -80°C, and washing muscles thoroughly after stored at 75% glycerol, are critical to ensure that all of the glycerol goes in and out of muscle fibers, respectively. The significance of these findings is that it now appears to be possible to store prepared Manduca sexta flight muscles for at least eight days at -80°C with good structural preservation enabling a large class of future experiments not requiring fresh deliveries of moth from the suppliers.
M.S. in Biology, May 2012
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Title: STRAWBERRY EXTRACT ATTENUATES ELEVATED FREE FATTY ACID AND/OR GLUCOSE MEDIATED IMPAIRED INSULIN SIGNALING IN VITRO IN HUMAN SKELETAL MUSCLE CELLS
Creator: Kangath, Archana
Date: 2013, 2013-07
Description: Elevated glucose and free fatty acids (FFA) are evident in individuals with insulin resistance (IR) and are associated with oxidative stress....
Show moreElevated glucose and free fatty acids (FFA) are evident in individuals with insulin resistance (IR) and are associated with oxidative stress. Anthocyanins are suggested to have favorable effects on human health due to their ability to modulate oxidative stress and cell signaling pathways in peripheral tissues. We hypothesized that strawberry anthocyanins (Str) will improve oxidative stress-mediated impaired insulin signaling in vitro in human skeletal muscle cells (HSMCs). Oxidative stress was generated using physiologically high glucose, FFA or a combination of both for 2–6 h with and without Str (0.1–1.0 mg/mL) in vitro in HSMCs. Cell viability was not affected by any of the above treatments/time. At the end of treatments, cells were treated with insulin (100 nM) for 20 min. Phosphorylation of Akt (p-Akt/Akt) was studied using AlphaScreen® Surefire® assay as a measure of insulin signaling. Our results indicate that FFA (2 mM) or combination of Glucose (15 mM) + FFA (2 mM) significantly decreased p-Akt/Akt compared to control cells treated with phosphate buffered saline (P<0.05). ST extract restored FFA and Glucose + FFA-induced reductions in p-Akt/Akt levels (P<0.05). These in vitro data suggest a role of strawberry in improving insulin sensitivity having potentially important implications for people with IR.
M.S. in Biological Sciences, July 2013
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Title: FLOW IN PARTIALLY CONSTRICTED PLANAR CHANNELS - ORIGINS OF VORTEX SHEDDING AND GLOBAL STABILITY OF NAVIER{STOKES SOLUTIONS
Creator: Boghosian, Michael Edward
Date: 2011-04-17, 2011-05
Description: Vortex shedding is a well-known unsteady uid-dynamic phenomenon occur- ring in a variety of ows in nature including stenosed blood vessels. We...
Show moreVortex shedding is a well-known unsteady uid-dynamic phenomenon occur- ring in a variety of ows in nature including stenosed blood vessels. We nd that current hypotheses regarding the origin of vortex shedding do not apply for the inter- nal ow in a partially constricted two-dimensional channel. As a result, we postulate a novel mechanism to explain the origin of vortex splitting and shedding in this ge- ometry. Numerical simulations of the unsteady, two-dimensional, incompressible Navier{ Stokes equations are performed in a channel having a constriction modeled by a two- parameter Gaussian distribution on both channel walls. Reynolds numbers from 1 to 3000 based on inlet half-channel height and mean inlet velocity and constriction ratios of 0:25, 0:5 and 0:75 are considered. The Navier{Stokes solutions are observed to experience a number of bifurca- tions including unsteady behaviour with shear-layer uctuations and vortex shedding downstream of the constriction. A sequence of events is presented describing how a sustained shear layer instability leads to the unsteady vortex shedding phenomenon via a convective instability and a proposed streamwise pressure-gradient mechanism. In addition, a global linear stability analysis is performed on several station- ary Navier{Stokes solutions to determine the long-term temporal behavior of small amplitude perturbations. Finally, the implications of this research on the hemodynamics in the cephalic vein and potential failure of the brachiocephalic stula are addressed.
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, May 2011
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Title: IMPLICIT ATTITUDES TOWARD SEASONAL VEGETATIVE SYMPTOMS
Creator: Meyers, Katherine
Date: 2011-11-28, 2011-12
Description: In contrast to self-report measures, implicit measures do not require introspection and are less likely to be influenced by factors such as...
Show moreIn contrast to self-report measures, implicit measures do not require introspection and are less likely to be influenced by factors such as insight (e.g. Asendorpf, Banse, & Mucke, 2002) or social desirability (e.g. Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009; Kim, 2003). According to the dual vulnerability model (Young, Watel, Laymeyer, and Eastman, 1991), seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is the result of the tendency to negatively appraise physiological changes that occur in the wintertime, which leads to an increase in cognitive and mood symptoms. Although empirical support for the dual vulnerability model is growing (e.g. Rohan, Roecklein, Tierney, Johnson, Lippy, Lacy, & Barton, 2007; Young, Reardon, & Azam, 2008), implicit tests have yet to be used to evaluate the relationship between vegetative and cognitive symptoms. This study developed a method to assess the appraisal of vegetative changes as indicating illness using the Go/No Go Association Task (GNAT; Nosek & Banaji, 2001). We hypothesized that implicit attitudes would interact with vegetative symptoms to predict the severity of cognitive symptoms. Results showed that attitudes toward fatigue, but not hunger, moderated the relationship between vegetative and cognitive symptoms. Furthermore, based on response style theory (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991), we examined whether rumination would predict stronger illness-related attitudes in general, and would interact with vegetative symptoms to predict illness-related attitudes. Rumination predicted illness-related implicit attitudes towards fatigue, but not hunger, and acted as a moderator between vegetative symptoms and attitudes. This study helped to increase our understanding of how illness attributions exacerbate seasonal symptoms of depression.
M.S. in Psychology, December 2011
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Title: A mechanical course for high schools
Creator: Perkins, Robert Augustus
Date: 2009, 1917
Publisher: Armour Institute of Technology
Description: http://www.archive.org/details/mechanicalcourse00perk
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology

Title: The methods used by public utility commissions in arriving at the proper depreciation and valuation of electric light, power, and railway companies and their effect on rate regulation
Creator: Schmidt, Emil J., Detar, Delos
Date: 2009, 1911
Publisher: Armour Institute of Technology
Description: http://www.archive.org/details/methodsusedbypub00schm
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology

Title: PEDESTRIAN DETECTION AND TRACKING FOR ADVANCED DRIVER ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS
Creator: Mesmakhosroshahi, Maral
Date: 2017, 2017-05
Description: In an effort to reduce driver errors in being the major cause of traffic accidents, there is a lot of research being conducted into the...
Show moreIn an effort to reduce driver errors in being the major cause of traffic accidents, there is a lot of research being conducted into the development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). ADAS is a system aimed at helping the driver in tasks such as pedestrian and vehicle detection, traffic sign recognition and lane detection. Pedestrian detection is one of the major tasks in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Most of the stereo based pedestrian detection algorithms include three major steps: 1. Ground plane estimation 2. Region of interest (ROI) generation 3. Pedestrian classification In this thesis, we present a stereo-based pedestrian detection framework for advanced driver assistance systems by exploiting both color and depth information obtained from a stereo camera installed in a vehicle. In our proposed framework, we first use the vertical gradient of the dense depth map to estimate and discard the ground plane. The boundaries of the ground plane are then searched to detect the pedestrians and the depth values of the boundaries are used to compute the size of the detection windows for detecting pedestrians at different scales. In addition, a depth-based multi-scale ROI extraction method has been proposed to reduce the computation time of ROI extraction. For classifying ROIs to pedestrian and non-pedestrian classes, Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG)/Linear support vector machine (SVM) and Integral Channel Features (ICF)/Adaboost are used. To recover the missed pedestrians and improve the detection rate, an ROI tracking algorithm is proposed which incorporates the ROIs extracted from the current frame with theROIs tracked from a reference frame. For additional reduction in search space, we propose a novel algorithm to reduce the number of candidate windows extracted as ROI by taking advantage of the temporal correlation between the adjacent frames. We also propose a method to improve the accuracy of the pedestrian classifi- cation using the aggregated channel features. In this approach, we use the aggregated channel features as our baseline detector and improve it's accuracy using the tanh normalization and Gabor filter. After classification using Adaboost, we use a posi- tive subset of the bounding boxes to classify them again using Convlutional Neural Network to finalize the detection.
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, May 2017
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Title: Methods for the oxidation of potassium manganate
Creator: Johnson, F. R., Pearson, A.
Date: 2009, 1918
Publisher: Armour Institute of Technology
Description: http://www.archive.org/details/methodsforoxidat00john
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology

Title: Mechanical filtration for municipal water supply
Creator: Spalding, R. S.
Date: 2009, 1906
Publisher: Armour Institute of Technology
Description: http://www.archive.org/details/mechanicalfiltra00spal
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology

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