Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity: A Long-Term Plan to Balance the Budget, Grow the Economy, and Strengthen the Middle Class

Proposes reducing the deficit by investing in education, infrastructure, and technology; spending more efficiently; bolstering the social safety net; containing healthcare costs; simplifying the tax code; and raising gas and financial transaction taxes

Regularized Ordinal Regression and the ordinalNet R Package

Regularization techniques such as the lasso (Tibshirani 1996) and elastic net (Zou and Hastie 2005) can be used to improve regression model coefficient estimation and prediction accuracy, as well as to perform variable selection. Ordinal regression models are widely used in applications where the use of regularization could be beneficial; however, these models are not included in many popular software packages for regularized regression. We propose a coordinate descent algorithm to fit a broad class of ordinal regression models with an elastic net penalty. Furthermore, we demonstrate that each model in this class generalizes to a more flexible form, for instance to accommodate unordered categorical data. We introduce an elastic net penalty class that applies to both model forms. Additionally, this penalty can be used to shrink a non-ordinal model toward its ordinal counterpart. Finally, we introduce the R package ordinalNet, which implements the algorithm for this model class

TUITION ASSISTANCE: EFFECT OF POLICY CHANGE ON USAGE IN THE MARINE CORPS

Tuition assistance (TA) is one of many voluntary education programs available to Marines to facilitate continuing their education and increase knowledge within the force. This program could thus support the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ call for preparing the force for the future by increasing knowledge management and retention. In March of 2019, the Marine Corps removed eligibility restrictions on TA to expand the opportunity of continued education to more Marines. This study determines what effect, if any, was achieved by the policy change with respect to utilization rate, type of individual TA user, and type of institutions chosen for high education. The analysis utilizes data from the Total Force Data Warehouse (TFDW), the Navy College Management Information System (NCMIS), and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). As intended, the 2019 policy change increased TA usage. Specifically, the rank most impacted by the policy is E3, which showed a significant increase in TA usage; however, the policy also resulted in a decrease in overall course success and an increase in the use at for-profit institutions. This study recommends further investigation of this topic covering a longer time frame, with data capable of accounting for potential selection bias, and a comparison between different branches of service.Outstanding ThesisMajor, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

THE INFLUENCE OF HIGH-INTENSITY RUN DURATION ON TIBIAL ACCELERATION AND SHOCK ATTENUTION

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of high-intensity fatiguing running on tibial acceleration and shock attenuation. Fourteen highly-trained male runners volunteered and completed an incremental treadmill-based lactate threshold test. On a subsequent test day, tibial acceleration and head acceleration values were recorded in all runners during two 20-minute treadmill running bouts at each subject’s lactate threshold (3.5mM) speed. Results indicated no significant change in tibial acceleration during the running bouts, however head acceleration did significantly increase (38%) over time. This resulted in an overall decrease in shock attenuation due to the fatiguing running. The results indicate that these highly-trained runners may show improved movement strategies that allow them to maintain tibial acceleration rates even in a fatigued state

Ammonia uptake and release in the MnX₂–NH₃ (X = Cl, Br) systems and structure of the Mn(NH₃)nX₂ (n = 6, 2) ammines

Hexa-ammine complexes, Mn(NH<sub>3</sub>)<sub>6</sub>X<sub>2</sub> (X = Cl, Br), have been synthesized by ammoniation of the corresponding transition metal halide and characterized by Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and Raman spectroscopy. The hexa-ammine complexes are isostructural (Cubic,Fm-3m, Z = 4; a = 10.2742(6) Å and 10.527(1) Å for X = Cl, Br respectively). Temperature programmed desorption (TPD) demonstrated that ammonia release from Mn(NH<sub>3</sub>)<sub>6</sub>X<sub>2</sub> complexes occurred in three stages corresponding to the release of 4, 1 and 1 NH<sub>3</sub> equivalents respectively. The chloride and bromide both exhibit a deammoniation onset temperature below 323 K. The di-ammoniates from the first desorption step were isolated during TPD measurements and their crystal structures determined by Rietveld refinement against PXRD data (X = Cl: orthorhombicCmmm, a = 8.1991(9) Å, b = 8.2498(7) Å, c = 3.8212(4) Å, Z = 2; X = Br: orthorhombic Pbam, a = 6.0109(5) Å, b = 12.022(1) Å, c = 4.0230(2) Å, Z= 2)

Waring's Problem in Finite Rings

In this paper we obtain sharp results for Waring's problem over general finite rings, by using a combination of Artin-Wedderburn theory and Hensel's lemma and building on new proofs of analogous results over finite fields that are achieved using spectral graph theory. We also prove an analogue of S\'ark\"ozy's theorem for finite fields.Comment: 34 page

Interferometric phase-dispersion microscopy

We describe a new scanning microscopy technique, phase-dispersion microscopy (PDM). The technique is based on measuring the phase difference between the fundamental and the second-harmonic light in a novel interferometer. PDM is highly sensitive to subtle refractive-index differences that are due to dispersion (differential optical path sensitivity, 5 nm). We apply PDM to measure minute amounts of DNA in solution and to study biological tissue sections. We demonstrate that PDM performs better than conventional phase-contrast microscopy in imaging dispersive and weakly scattering samples

Sequence Alignment with Matched Sections

In molecular biology, two finite sequences are compared by displaying one sequence written over another in an alignment. The number of alignments of two sequences is related to the Stanton-Cowan numbers. This paper gives asymptotics for the number of alignments of two sequences of length n with matching sections of size at least b