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Description
At present, the vast majority of human subjects with neurological disease are still diagnosed through in-person assessments and qualitative analysis of patient data. In this paper, we propose to use Topological Data Analysis (TDA) together with machine learning tools to automate the process of Parkinson’s disease classification and severity assessment. An automated, stable, and accurate method to evaluate Parkinson’s would be significant in streamlining diagnoses of patients and providing families more time for corrective measures. We propose a methodology which incorporates TDA into analyzing Parkinson’s disease postural shifts data through the representation of persistence images. Studying the topology of a system has proven to be invariant to small changes in data and has been shown to perform well in discrimination tasks. The contributions of the paper are twofold. We propose a method to 1) classify healthy patients from those afflicted by disease and 2) diagnose the severity of disease. We explore the use of the proposed method in an application involving a Parkinson’s disease dataset comprised of healthy-elderly, healthy-young and Parkinson’s disease patients.
ContributorsRahman, Farhan Nadir (Co-author) / Nawar, Afra (Co-author) / Turaga, Pavan (Thesis director) / Krishnamurthi, Narayanan (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This paper will focus on the changes in China's OFDI while also explaining its growth. However, another primary focus will be comparing the relationships between China, Hong Kong, and Africa. This paper will show the correlating changes between the three regions and explain the distribution of China's investments. One argument is that Hong Kong may play a large role in facilitating Chinese investment into Africa, which if not disaggregated, could lead to inaccurate numbers of China's FDI into Africa. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of China's relationship with Hong Kong and Africa. In 2012, Garth Shelton argued that Hong Kong was an important gateway in South Africa's trade with China. Since then, many others have made similar claims in support of Hong Kong's bigger role. However, due to the difficulty of finding specific data for each region, these analyses are incomplete and fail to clearly substantiate their theory. I will try to find a correlation by gathering my own data, tables, and through different interviews.
ContributorsSon, James (Author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Iheduru, Okechukwu (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
After freelancing on my own for the past year and a half, I have realized that one of the biggest obstacles to college entrepreneurs is a fear or apprehension to sales. As a computer science major trying to sell my services, I discovered very quickly that I had not been prepared for the difficulty of learning sales. Sales get a bad rap and very often is the last thing that young entrepreneurs want to try, but the reality is that sales is oxygen to a company and a required skill for an entrepreneur. Due to this, I compiled all of my knowledge into an e-book for young entrepreneurs starting out to learn how to open up a conversation with a prospect all the way to closing them on the phone. Instead of starting from scratch like I did, college entrepreneurs can learn the bare basics of selling their own services, even if they are terrified of sales and what it entails. In this e-book, there are tips that I have learned to deal with my anxiety about sales such as taking the pressure off of yourself and prioritizing listening more than pitching. Instead of trying to teach sales expecting people to be natural sales people, this e-book takes the approach of helping entrepreneurs that are terrified of sales and show them how they can cope with this fear and still close a client. In the future, I hope young entrepreneurs will have access to more resources that handle this fear and make it much easier for them to learn it by themselves. This e-book is the first step.
ContributorsMead, Kevin Tyler (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Kruse, Gabriel (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This thesis dives into the world of artificial intelligence by exploring the functionality of a single layer artificial neural network through a simple housing price classification example while simultaneously considering its impact from a data management perspective on both the software and hardware level. To begin this study, the universally accepted model of an artificial neuron is broken down into its key components and then analyzed for functionality by relating back to its biological counterpart. The role of a neuron is then described in the context of a neural network, with equal emphasis placed on how it individually undergoes training and then for an entire network. Using the technique of supervised learning, the neural network is trained with three main factors for housing price classification, including its total number of rooms, bathrooms, and square footage. Once trained with most of the generated data set, it is tested for accuracy by introducing the remainder of the data-set and observing how closely its computed output for each set of inputs compares to the target value. From a programming perspective, the artificial neuron is implemented in C so that it would be more closely tied to the operating system and therefore make the collected profiler data more precise during the program's execution. The program is designed to break down each stage of the neuron's training process into distinct functions. In addition to utilizing more functional code, the struct data type is used as the underlying data structure for this project to not only represent the neuron but for implementing the neuron's training and test data. Once fully trained, the neuron's test results are then graphed to visually depict how well the neuron learned from its sample training set. Finally, the profiler data is analyzed to describe how the program operated from a data management perspective on the software and hardware level.
ContributorsRichards, Nicholas Giovanni (Author) / Miller, Phillip (Thesis director) / Meuth, Ryan (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This thesis examines the impact of price changes of select microprocessors on the market share and 5-year gross profit net present values of Company X in the networking market through a multi-step analysis. The networking market includes segments including media processing, cloud services, security, routers & switches, and access points. For this thesis our team focused on the routers & switches, as well as the security segments. Company X wants to capitalize on the expected growth of the networking market as it transitions to its fifth generation (henceforth referred to as 5G) by positioning itself favorably in its customers eyes through high quality products offered at competitive prices. Our team performed a quantitative analysis of benchmark data to measure the performances of Company X's products against those of its competitors. We collected this data from third party computer reviewers, as well as the published reports of Company X and its competitors. Through the use of a preference matrix, we then normalized this performance data to adjust for different scales. In order to provide a well-rounded analysis, we adjusted these normalized performances for power consumption (using thermal design power as a proxy) as well as price. We believe these adjusted performances are more valuable than raw benchmark data, as they appeal to the demands of price-sensitive customers. Based on these comparisons, our team was able to assess price changes for their market and discounted financial impact on Company X. Our findings challenge the current pricing of one of the two products being analyzed and suggests a 9% decrease in the price of said product. This recommendation most effectively positions Company X for the development of 5G by offering the best balance of market share and NPV.
ContributorsArias, Stephen (Co-author) / Masson, Taylor (Co-author) / McCall, Kyle (Co-author) / Dimitroff, Alex (Co-author) / Hardy, Sebastian (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Haller, Marcie (Committee member) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
While developing and maintaining a connection between a brand and a customer has always been in the forefront of marketers' agendas, it has become an even more pressing goal as digital trends in marketing surface. Although the idea of using rewards to foster consumer-brand connection has been around for decades, marketers are still struggling to optimize the benefits. How can marketers use rewards to better connect with their customers? Are there certain types of rewards that are more effective than others? Are certain rewards more effective when being implemented under brands of a certain personality type? In a society that values connection and relationship, marketers cannot lose their ability to appreciate customers under digital constraints and to marketplace competition. Through a field study and scenario-based experiment, we explore how and why low conditional vs. high conditional rewards influence consumer-brand connection and the role brand personality plays.
ContributorsBauer, Madelaine Anne (Co-author) / Bryant, Kelly (Co-author) / Lisjak, Monika (Thesis director) / Samper, Adriana (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The need for automated / computational fact checking has grown substantially in recent times due to the high volume of false information and limited workforce of human fact checkers. This need has spawned research and new developments in this field and has created many different systems and approaches to this complex problem. This paper attempts to not just explain the most popular methods that are currently being used, but provide experimental results of the comparison of two different systems, the replication of results from their respective papers, and an annotated data-set of different test sentences to be used in these systems.
ContributorsRosenkilde, Trevor Curtis (Author) / Papotti, Paolo (Thesis director) / Candan, Kasim (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
This paper details the specification and implementation of a single-machine blockchain simulator. It also includes a brief introduction on the history & underlying concepts of blockchain, with explanations on features such as decentralization, openness, trustlessness, and consensus. The introduction features a brief overview of public interest and current implementations of blockchain before stating potential use cases for blockchain simulation software. The paper then gives a brief literature review of blockchain's role, both as a disruptive technology and a foundational technology. The literature review also addresses the potential and difficulties regarding the use of blockchain in Internet of Things (IoT) networks, and also describes the limitations of blockchain in general regarding computational intensity, storage capacity, and network architecture. Next, the paper gives the specification for a generic blockchain structure, with summaries on the behaviors and purposes of transactions, blocks, nodes, miners, public & private key cryptography, signature validation, and hashing. Finally, the author gives an overview of their specific implementation of the blockchain using C/C++ and OpenSSL. The overview includes a brief description of all the classes and data structures involved in the implementation, including their function and behavior. While the implementation meets the requirements set forward in the specification, the results are more qualitative and intuitive, as time constraints did not allow for quantitative measurements of the network simulation. The paper concludes by discussing potential applications for the simulator, and the possibility for future hardware implementations of blockchain.
ContributorsRauschenbach, Timothy Rex (Author) / Vrudhula, Sarma (Thesis director) / Nakamura, Mutsumi (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
DescriptionI made a full business plan and pitch to investors for a company I plan on starting next semester.
ContributorsOramas, Michael (Author) / Trujillo, Rhett (Thesis director) / Naumann, Gary (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
This paper is intended to identify a correlation between the winning percentage of sports teams in the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and the GDP per capita of their respective cities. We initially compiled fifteen years of franchise performance along with economic data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to analyze this relationship. After converting the data into a language recognized by Stata, the regression tool we used, we ran multiple regressions to find relevant correlations based off of our inputs. This paper will show the value of the economic impact of strong or weak performance throughout various economic cycles through data analysis and conclusions drawn from the results of the regression analysis.
ContributorsAndl, Tyler (Co-author) / Shirk, Brandon (Co-author) / Goegan, Brian (Thesis director) / Eaton, John (Committee member) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12