In 2004 after Desperate Housewives premiered, it was met with significant criticism condemning the lack of values and morals on the show, depicted through the pervasiveness of sinful and illegal behavior (Olsen & Morgan, 2010). However, Olsen and Morgan contend that sinful and illegal behavior is accompanied with attempts at...
This study examines dissolved rhenium (Re) as a function of water runoff using river samples from two contrasting watersheds, the Eel and Umpqua Rivers in the Pacific Northwest, USA. These watersheds share many key characteristics in terms of size, discharge, climate, and vegetation, but they have a 10-fold difference in...
The purposes of this study were to: 1) determine in what ways incorporating active engagement into a traditional lecture chemistry course contributed to students' science identity and their motivation to learn the science, and 2) determine how the development of a science identity could be measured through the use of...
The thesis focuses on model-based approximation methods for reinforcement
learning with large scale applications such as combinatorial optimization problems.
First, the thesis proposes two new model-based methods to stablize the
value–function approximation for reinforcement learning. The first one is the
BFBP algorithm, a batch-like reinforcement learning process which iterates between...
Biologists have long been fascinated with reproductive traits, in part because they are frequently exaggerated or showy, and they commonly vary among closely related species. Exaggerated sexual traits, in particular, have been the focus of intense empirical and theoretical research, but most of this work has focused on traits involved...
Mycobacterium avium subsp. hominissuis is an opportunistic pathogen that is associated with biofilm-related infections of the respiratory tract and is difficult to treat. In recent years, extracellular DNA (eDNA) has been found to be a major component of bacterial biofilms, including many pathogens involved in biofilm-associated infections. To date, eDNA...
This dissertation explores the idea of applying machine learning technologies to help computer users find information and better organize electronic resources, by presenting the research work conducted in the following three applications: FolderPredictor, Stacking Recommendation Engines, and Integrating Learning and Reasoning.
FolderPredictor is an intelligent desktop software tool that helps...
Fisheries oceanography is the study of ecological relationships between fishes and the dynamics of their marine environments and aims to characterize the physical, chemical, and biological factors that affect the recruitment and abundance of harvested species. A recent push within the fisheries management community is toward ecosystem-based management. Here, we...