Households, Settlements, and Landscapes in Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval Northumbria: A Spatial Analysis of North-East England, c. 100 BC-AD 800

This thesis argues that the spatial organisation of the built environment in north-eastern England between c. 100 BC-AD 800 reflects the complexities of culture contact, the transmission of ideas, and social change. It is suggested here that the examination of space and place in Britain between the late Iron Age (c. 100 BC-AD 43), Roman (c. AD 43-410) and Early Medieval (c. AD 410 to 800) periods can be used to analyse the changes and/or continuities in socio-cultural ideas and traditions. Two study regions to the north and south of Hadrian’s Wall within the boundaries of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria are analysed using established and innovative computational techniques to understand what affect, if any, the inhabitants of Iron Age and Roman Britain had on the shape of the Early Medieval built environment. Settlement data was compiled into a Geographical Information System and established spatial analysis techniques that focus on site placement were combined with an innovative use of Visibility Graph Analysis to quantitatively analyse the spatial organisation of households and communities between c. 100 BC and AD 800. Visibility Graph Analysis is used to statistically measure the visual arrangement of built space in order to examine continuities or disruptions to the organisation of structures and settlements. The results alter our understanding of this period by revealing broad continuities in the spatial organisation of the built environment across the analysed time periods. This suggests that regional identity was influential in the formation and use of the built environment in the two study regions between c. 100 BC and AD 800. This has significant implications for understanding how Britain was transformed over the longue durée between the Iron Age and Early Medieval periods. These findings suggest that continuities in the spatial arrangement and organisation of the built environment are indicative of gradual change rather than abrupt disruption, and adds to current debates on how regions of Britain were transformed between late prehistory and the early historic era

Performance Specification for Tennessee Bridge Decks

In today’s world of ever increasing demand on a weakening infrastructure, concentration is being firmly placed on increasing the sustainability of that infrastructure. Tennessee’s bridges and the concrete decks, on which the public travels, require a large part of the state’s infrastructure spending. Research has shown the current durability standards of Tennessee’s bridge decks could be significantly improved which would both increase service life and reduce maintenance costs of these structures. This research concentrates on greatly increasing the lifespan of these bridge decks, throughout the state, through an improved construction specification which will encourage the increased use of supplementary cementitious materials. These improved construction specifications would be performance based in nature and would give suppliers increased freedom to provide a more durable product while simultaneously reducing costs. This new performance based specification will remove the current stringent prescriptive requirements and will use the measurement of surface resistivity (SR) as a key variable to be assessed as a measure of performance. The ultimate goal of implementing a performance based specification is to achieve more durable bridge deck concrete. The proposed specification presented herein grew out of two years of research related to assessing the current situation regarding bridge deck concrete in Tennessee and the development of methodology to perform this assessment

Exploring the Archaeological and Geographical Past of Fort Spokane: A Proposal

This poster presents the project design of a student-led research project addressing the history and archaeological significance of Fort Spokane, a 19th century military fortification along Lake Roosevelt and south of Coolie Dam, Washington. Portions of the Fort were previously excavated, however, since then not much has been done in terms of archaeological research and key questions remain on the development and landscape history of the fort (Riser and DePuydt 2012). New methodologies and theoretical approaches make this an ideal time to reexamine the fort, and to address key questions on how the fort developed, why it was located where it was, and how the fort affected relationships in the region during the late 19th century. The aim of this project is to investigate the social history of the site using spatial analysis of the geographical locations of the fort’s features and its position in the wider landscape. This project will explore a number of research questions on on the significance of the Fort\u27s Location, the social status of the fort\u27s inhabitants, and how the fort structured relationships with the local indigenous communities. This research will contribute to the project design and future archaeological investigations of the site conducted by EWU and the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area. The hope is that by doing this research and several others that other students will take up this summer that we can collectively build a foundation of what has been done and what can be done

An Introduction to the Flint Hills and the Tallgrass Prairie

It was Zebulon Montgomery Pike who first coined the name Flint Hills when exploring the region in 1806. In his journal, September 12th, he described the following near the headwaters of the Verdigris River in southeastern Chase County: “Commenced our march at seven o’clock. Passed very ruff flint hills. My feet blistered and very sore.” He went on to say that from one view he could see buffalo, elk, deer, cabrie [pronghorn], and panthers

Experiments in Experience:Towards an Alignment of Research through Design and John Dewey’s Pragmatism

This article explores John Dewey’s theories of inquiry, communication and existence in relation to design inquiry or, more particularly, research which incorporates design practice. Held in combination, these theories are seen to offer a unique approach to knowledge. This approach, it is argued, can be readily appropriated within existing methodological formulations of design research. By way of demonstration, I conclude the article by outlining a number of key features of Dewey’s theories, which are seen to hold the potential to enrich the epistemological basis of design inquiry as a research approach

Problem drug use and safeguarding children: a multi agency approach

This chapter will: &#; Explore the social context in which ‘problem drug users’ and ‘inadequate parents’ are constructed. &#; Outline key issues and difficulties involved in working with problem drug users whose children are considered to be at risk of abuse or neglect. &#; Draw on research carried out with social workers, health visitors, drugs clinic workers and parents to examine the barriers of working together to assess children’s needs where parents misuse drugs. &#; Explore strategies for better partnership approaches

Entity Personalized Talent Search Models with Tree Interaction Features

Talent Search systems aim to recommend potential candidates who are a good match to the hiring needs of a recruiter expressed in terms of the recruiter's search query or job posting. Past work in this domain has focused on linear and nonlinear models which lack preference personalization in the user-level due to being trained only with globally collected recruiter activity data. In this paper, we propose an entity-personalized Talent Search model which utilizes a combination of generalized linear mixed (GLMix) models and gradient boosted decision tree (GBDT) models, and provides personalized talent recommendations using nonlinear tree interaction features generated by the GBDT. We also present the offline and online system architecture for the productionization of this hybrid model approach in our Talent Search systems. Finally, we provide offline and online experiment results benchmarking our entity-personalized model with tree interaction features, which demonstrate significant improvements in our precision metrics compared to globally trained non-personalized models.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication at ACM WWW 201

Electronic Health Record-Based Surveillance for Community Transmitted COVID-19 in the Emergency Department

Introduction: SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus, manifests as a respiratory syndrome (COVID-19) and is the cause of an ongoing pandemic. The response to COVID-19 in the United States has been hampered by an overall lack of diagnostic testing capacity. To address uncertainty about ongoing levels of SARS-CoV-2 community transmission early in the pandemic, we aimed to develop a surveillance tool using readily available emergency department (ED) operations data extracted from the electronic health record (EHR). This involved optimizing the identification of acute respiratory infection (ARI)-related encounters and then comparing metrics for these encounters before and after the confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 community transmission.Methods: We performed an observational study using operational EHR data from two Midwest EDs with a combined annual census of over 80,000. Data were collected three weeks before and after the first confirmed case of local SARS-CoV-2 community transmission. To optimize capture of ARI cases, we compared various metrics including chief complaint, discharge diagnoses, and ARI-related orders. Operational metrics for ARI cases, including volume, pathogen identification, and illness severity, were compared between the pre- and post-community transmission timeframes using chi-square tests of independence.Results: Compared to our combined definition of ARI, chief complaint, discharge diagnoses, and isolation orders individually identified less than half of the cases. Respiratory pathogen testing was the top performing individual ARI definition but still only identified 72.2% of cases. From the pre to post periods, we observed significant increases in ED volumes due to ARI and ARI cases without identified pathogen.Conclusion: Certain methods for identifying ARI cases in the ED may be inadequate and multiple criteria should be used to optimize capture. In the absence of widely available SARS-CoV-2 testing, operational metrics for ARI-related encounters, especially the proportion of cases involving negative pathogen testing, are useful indicators for active surveillance of potential COVID-19 related ED visits

A Novel and Safe Approach to Simulate Cutting Movements Using Ground Reaction Forces

Control of shear ground reaction forces (sGRF) is important in performing running and cutting tasks as poor sGRF control has implications for those with knee injuries, such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures. The goal of this study was to develop a novel and safe task to evaluate control or accurate modulation of shear ground reaction forces related to those generated during cutting. Our approach utilized a force control task using real-time visual feedback of a subject’s force production and evaluated control capabilities through accuracy and divergence measurements. Ten healthy recreational athletes completed the force control task while force control via accuracy measures and divergence calculations was investigated. Participants were able to accurately control sGRF in multiple directions based on error measurements. Forces generated during the task were equal to or greater than those measured during a number of functional activities. We found no significant difference in the divergence of the force profiles using the Lyapunov Exponent of the sGRF trajectories. Participants using our approach produced high accuracy and low divergence force profiles and functional force magnitudes. Moving forward, we will utilize this task in at-risk populations who are unable to complete a cutting maneuver in early stages of rehabilitation, such as ACL deficient and newly reconstructed individuals, allowing insight into force control not obtainable otherwise

Quantitative Dark-Field Mass Analysis of Ultrathin Cryosections in the Field-Emission Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope

The availability of a cryotransfer stage, highly efficient electron energy loss spectrometers, and ultrathin-window energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometers for the VG Microscopes HB501 field-emission scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) provides this instrument with the potential for high resolution biological microanalysis. Recent technical advances offer cryosections that are thin enough to take advantage of the analytical capabilities of this microscope. This paper first discusses the quantitative characterization of freeze-dried, ultrathin cryosections of directly frozen liver and brain by low-dose dark-field STEM imaging. Such images reveal high-quality sections with good structural detail, mainly due to reduced preparation artifacts and electron beam damage. These sections are thin enough for dark-field mass analysis, so that the mass of individual organelles can be measured in situ, and their water content deduced. This permits the measurement of mass loss-corrected subcellular elemental concentrations. The results suggest several new applications for cryosections as illustrated by data on synaptic activity-dependent calcium regulation in Purkinje cells of mouse cerebellum. Low-dose mass analysis of cryosections in combination with x-ray and electron spectroscopy is a promising approach to quantitating physiological changes in mass distribution and elemental composition