Since the topic of improving data quality has not been addressed for the U.S. defense cost estimating discipline beyond changes in public policy, the goal of the study was to close this gap and provide empirical evidence that supports expanding options to improve software cost e…
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Patterns of structural change associated with monodominant tropical forest complexes have remained enigmatic for decades. Here I extend previous efforts in presenting a long-term, local-scale analysis of forest dynamics in central Africa. Using four 10 ha censused plots measured…
Disease progression manifests through a broad spectrum of statically and longitudinally linked clinical features and outcomes. This leads to heterogeneous progression patterns that may vary greatly across individual patients and makes the survival and quality of a patient’s life…
The dissertation studies three seemly independent topics on environmental economics, but they share the same theme: the reactions of local governments and firms on promotional incentives and environmental regulations in China. The first chapter examines whether China’s Two Contr…
In the contiguous United States (CONUS), there are over 52,000 reservoirs ranging from 0.5 to 243 meters high. Collectively they hold 600,000 MCM of water. These structures have dramatically affected the river dynamics of every major watershed in the country. The operations of t…
This dissertation examines the regional and seasonal variability of extreme precipitation and atmospheric rivers (ARs) across the contiguous United States (CONUS) in past, present, and future climates. An extreme precipitation categorization scheme, designed to monitor and track…
Hurricanes and tropical cyclones, in general, are of great interest to weather and climate scientists alike due to their destructive tendency. Though Hawaii has historically avoided being hit directly by hurricanes, it is certain that the islands are uniquely vulnerable to cyclo…
Snow water equivalent (SWE) measurements are critical for creating flood and drought outlooks in the spring. These data are abundantly collected throughout the winter and spring months and reported to organizations like the National Weather Service to use in their products. Orga…
The Columbia River basin is a large transboundary basin located in the Pacific Northwest, straddling the US-Canadian border. The basin spans seven US states and one Canadian province, encompassing a diverse range of hydroclimates. Strong seasonality and complex topography, combi…
Published in 1992, “The osteological paradox: problems of inferring prehistoric health from skeletal samples” highlighted the limitations of interpreting population health from archaeological skeletal samples. The authors drew the attention of the bioarchaeological community to …
To tackle global climate change, the United States must lower its large carbon footprint. An extensive data exploration was undertaken to understand the United States’ energy past and future under carbon constraint using a blended mix of historical and simulation data. Historica…
This research proposes a novel framework to control the stencil cleaning operation in the stencil printing process (SPP) on a real-time basis. In a surface mount assembly (SMA) line, most of the soldering defects result from the SPP. Stencil cleaning is necessary to remove the a…
Discovering important patterns in data can help cities to plan, monitor, and assign resources more efficiently, converting them in smart cities with more organized communities. Machine learning models can take advantage of this large amount of data to improve and scale these cit…
Objectives : Persons with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) have severe bone loss below the level of lesion with the distal femur (DF) and proximal tibia (PT) being the skeletal regions appreciated to have the highest risk of fracture. While a reference areal bone mineral densi…
This dissertation consists of six distinct research studies that are broadly classified into two parts. The first part is concerned with the application of emerging data analysis tools rooted in causal inference, nonlinear chaotic dynamical systems, and information theory to det…
Concerning the fact that the number of wind turbines is increasing worldwide, it seems necessary to implement monitoring systems. To respond to this demand, this PhD thesis studies different fault diagnosis techniques in order to improve the reliability and reduce maintenance co…
Most technological relevant structural materials are polycrystals that contain many (millions) so-called grains. Plastic deformation in polycrystalline metallic materials is not homogeneous at the microscale, but sometimes strongly heterogeneous among grains and varies spatially…
Colleges’ and universities’ prominent, high-risk nature places them among the most at-risk targets for cyberattacks worldwide. While effective solutions exist to detect suspicious activities and block them promptly, cyberattacks continue to increase. This study addresses cyberat…
In the modern world of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), time headway is a key traffic flow parameter affecting ITS operations and planning. Defined as “the time difference between any two successive vehicles when they cross a given point”, time headway is used in various…