A classical reactive potential for molecular clusters of sulphuric acid and water

We present a two-state empirical valence bond (EVB) potential describing interactions between sulphuric acid and water molecules and designed to model proton transfer between them within a classical dynamical framework. The potential has been developed in order to study the properties of molecular clusters of these species, which are thought to be relevant to atmospheric aerosol nucleation. The particle swarm optimisation method has been used to fit the parameters of the EVB model to density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Features of the parametrised model and DFT data are compared and found to be in satisfactory agreement. In particular, it is found that a single sulphuric acid molecule will donate a proton when clustered with four water molecules at 300 K and that this threshold is temperature dependent

Deep Learning with Go

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Current research in deep learning is primarily focused on using Python as a support language. Go, an emerging language, that has many benefits including native support for concurrency has seen a rise in adoption over the past few years. However, this language is not widely used to develop learning models due to the lack of supporting libraries and frameworks for model development. In this thesis, the use of Go for the development of neural network models in general and convolution neural networks is explored. The proposed study is based on a Go-CUDA implementation of neural network models called GoCuNets. This implementation is then compared to a Go-CPU deep learning implementation that takes advantage of Go's built in concurrency called ConvNetGo. A comparison of these two implementations shows a significant performance gain when using GoCuNets compared to ConvNetGo

The connection between mental illness and prisoner recidivism: a study of the self-perceptions and perspectives of mentally impaired low-level non-violent male exoffenders

This dissertation investigates the connection between mental illness and prisoner recidivism in California and Los Angeles County. As the literature review discloses, there are various theories that claim to explain why mentally impaired offenders are reincarcerated for breaking the law after they are released. This dissertation presents five research questions based on the literature review and theoretical framework and collected survey and interview data from a sample of 30, self-reported, mentally impaired ex-offenders. The research questions and theoretical framework is intended to provide the reader with an assessment of the viewpoints of the mentally impaired survey participants regarding the connection between mental impairment and prisoner recidivism. The analysis for this dissertation is collectively based on the self-perspectives and perceptions of the mentally impaired survey participants, the principal investigator, and a licensed clinical psychologist who volunteered to participate in this study. The answers to the survey questions and interviews by the mentally impaired survey participants confirm there is a connection between mental illness and prisoner recidivism. The answers to the survey questions and interviews also confirm a significant level of abuse by correctional officers, feelings expressed about pre-release programs, and positive and negative opinions about community-based treatment services and programs. The information collected from the survey questions and interviews are designed to clarify the mentally impaired survey participants perspectives and experiences during their incarceration, the rehabilitation services they received when they are approaching their release date, and the effectiveness of the community-based programs offered when they return to society. A mixed method research design is implemented to combine the quantitative and qualitative data associated with this dissertation. The information collected will be used to evaluate the current policies and procedures in the criminal justice system in California and Los Angeles County and to help guide formulation of modifications when it is deemed necessary. Criminal justice legislators and administrators in California and Los Angeles County have provided the essential rehabilitation services for mentally impaired offenders during their incarceration and the community-based services and programs for mentally impaired offenders when they return to society. The final chapter presents a program model comprised of an Individual Intervention Plan to address the needs of mentally impaired ex-offenders when they return to society

The Effects of Political Attacks on Independent High Courts in Global Cases of Democratic Backsliding After the Cold War

This paper seeks to understand the connection between political attacks on independent judiciaries and democracy scores. This study analyzed 2700 observations of democratic countries from 1980 to 2015 to test and potentially to identify if political attacks on independent judiciaries decrease high court independence thus resulting in a decrease of democracy scores. This paper found evidence to support that political attacks on courts do negatively impact democracy scores and that there have been more political attacks on courts after 2000 than before 200

One Soldier's War and the New Literary War Hero

In the last two decades the major world military powers (the US, the UK/Commonwealth, and Russia) have all been embroiled in long-running asymmetrical conflicts against insurgent or terrorist forces that have proven to be difficult to resolve and increasingly unpopular at home. The fact that these wars are being fought largely by volunteer, contract, or mercenary soldiers has only widened the divide between the military and civilians. In response to this, the literature emerging from these recent conflicts tends to be fragmented, impressionistic, and highly emotional, as veterans try to convey their inner experiences to what they often perceive as an uncaring or hostile audience, while also exploring the experiences of the Other. This article provides a close reading of Arkady Babchenko’s One Soldier’s War, a collection of stories about his two tours of duty in Chechnya, as an early example of this new trend in war literature, and discusses its fragmented structure, its subversion of the clichés of the war genre, and its attempts to set combat veterans apart from the rest of the populace while simultaneously depicting the war and its horrors in vivid detail. We conclude with a brief discussion of the struggle to share the truth and reintegrate back into civilian society that veterans experience, and how this is manifested in literature

An evaluation of the signature extension approach to large area crop inventories utilizing space image data

The author has identified the following significant results. Two examples of haze correction algorithms were tested: CROP-A and XSTAR. The CROP-A was tested in a unitemporal mode on data collected in 1973-74 over ten sample segments in Kansas. Because of the uniformly low level of haze present in these segments, no conclusion could be reached about CROP-A's ability to compensate for haze. It was noted, however, that in some cases CROP-A made serious errors which actually degraded classification performance. The haze correction algorithm XSTAR was tested in a multitemporal mode on 1975-76 LACIE sample segment data over 23 blind sites in Kansas and 18 sample segments in North Dakota, providing wide range of haze levels and other conditions for algorithm evaluation. It was found that this algorithm substantially improved signature extension classification accuracy when a sum-of-likelihoods classifier was used with an alien rejection threshold

Scoreboards vs. Mortarboards: Major Donor Behavior and Intercollegiate Athletics

In an era where intercollegiate athletics departments are increasingly reliant on and successful in obtaining charitable donations, three fundamental questions surrounding charitable contributions to educational institutions were empirically examined. Who gives to educational institutions in support of academic and athletics programs? Does the improved performance of athletic teams influence both types of giving to educational institutions? Does increased giving to athletics have a negative impact on charitable giving to educational programs at the same institution? An in-depth analysis of donor behavior at a major public university revealed that contrary to popular assumption, both alumni and non-alumni made gifts to both athletic and academic programs, though the two groups differed significantly in their behavior. Evidence indicated a winning athletics program may have significantly impacted alumni giving behavior, and that increased giving to athletics by both alumni and non-alumni was linked to a decline in academic fundraising at the same institution

On min-base palindromic representations of powers of 2

A positive integer $N$ is \emph{palindromic in the base $b$} when $N = \sum_{i=0}^{k} c_i b^i$, $c_k\neq 0$,and $c_i=c_{k-i},\; i=0,1,2,...,k$, Focusing on powers of 2, we investigate the smallest base $b$ when $N=2^n$ is palindromic in the base $b$.Comment: 11 page

Block-avoiding sequencings of points in Steiner triple systems

Given an STS(v), we ask if there is a permutation of the points of the design such that no l consecutive points in this permutation contain a block of the design. Such a permutation is called an l-good sequenc-ing. We prove that 3-good sequencings exist for any STS(v) with v\u3e3 and 4-good sequencings exist for any STS(v) with v\u3e71. Similar re-sults also hold for partial STS(v). Finally, we determine the existence or nonexistence of 4-good sequencings for all the nonisomorphic STS(v) with v =7, 9, 13 and 15

An Empirical Examination of University Intercollegiate Athletic Expenditures

To date, little empirical work has examined the institutional returns associated with athletic program investments. While intangible brand effects are commonly cited, such as athletics serving as the perceptual “front porch” of the institution, direct examination of the effects of athletic programs has often been narrow in scope. Within this study, we assess the contributions of investment in athletics as compared to other areas of institutional investment, on important institutional outcomes. Data for the study was collected from two datasets, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the Equity in Athletics dataset. Fixed effects models for NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision schools were constructed to assess the return on investment relative to total institutional revenues, gift revenues, student application rates, and student graduation rates. Findings reveal that for every dollar of athletic expenditure per FTE $2.12 of core revenues per FTE,$.24 in gift revenues per FTE, and a .165% increase in graduation rates were produced