Browsing by Subject "systems"
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Item Breaking Down the Book: Literature Review and Practice of Book Digitization(Texas Digital Library, 2023-05-18) McIntosh, Marcia; Kellum, ChristinaWith a large number of books flowing into their department, one digital projects lab decided to conduct research on the methods of scanning using the equipment and software available to them. Lab staff will report on their findings and what factors went into deciding what type of books get scanned where and how. Results will include changes to local digitizing standards and clarified workflows based on the types of books to be scanned.Item Community-Oriented Models and Applications for the Social Web(2012-07-16) Kashoob, Said Masoud AliThe past few years have seen the rapid rise of all things "social" on the web from the growth of online social networks like Facebook, to user-contributed content sites like Flickr and YouTube, to social bookmarking services like Delicious, among many others. Whereas traditional approaches to organizing and accessing the web?s massive amount of information have focused on content-based and link-based approaches, these social systems offer rich opportunities for user-based and community-based exploration and analysis of the web by building on the unprecedented access to the interests and perspectives of millions of users. We focus here on the challenge of modeling and mining social bookmarking systems, in which resources are enriched by large-scale socially generated metadata (?tags?) and contextualized by the user communities that are associated with the resources. Our hypothesis is that an underlying social collective intelligence is embedded in the uncoordinated actions of users on social bookmarking services, and that this social collective intelligence can be leveraged for enhanced web-based information discovery and knowledge sharing. Concretely, we posit the existence of underlying implicit communities in these social bookmarking systems that drive the social bookmarking process which can provide a foundation for community-based organization of web resources. To that end, we make three contributions: ? First, we propose a pair of novel probabilistic generative models for describing and modeling community-oriented social bookmarking. We show how these models enable effective extraction of meaningful communities over large real world social bookmarking services. ? Second, we develop two frameworks for community-based web information browsing and search that are based on these community-oriented social bookmarking models. We show how both achieve improved discovery and exploration of the social web. ? Third, we introduce a community evolution framework for studying and analyzing social bookmarking communities over time. We explore the temporal dimension of social bookmarking and explore the dynamics of community formation, evolution, and dissolution. By uncovering implicit communities, putting them to use in an application scenario (search and browsing), and analyzing them over time, this dissertation provides a foundation for the study of how social knowledge networks are self-organized, a deeper understanding and appreciation of the factors impacting collective intelligence, and the creation of new information access algorithms for leveraging these communities.Item Systems integration and analysis of advanced life support technologies(2009-06-02) Nworie, Grace A.Extended missions to space have long been a goal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Accomplishment of NASA's goal requires the development of systems and tools for sustaining human life for periods of several months to several years. This is the primary objective of NASA's Advanced Life Support (ALS) program. This work contributes directly to NASA efforts for ALS, particularly food production. The objective of this work is to develop a systematic methodology for analyzing and improving or modifying ALS technologies to increase their acceptability for implementation in long-duration space missions. By focusing primarily on the food production systems, it is an aim of this work to refine the procedure for developing and analyzing the ALS technologies. As a result of these efforts, researchers will have at their disposal, a powerful tool for establishing protocols for each technology as well as for modifying each technology to meet the standards for practical applications. To automate the developed methodology and associated calculations, a computer-aided tool has been developed. The following systematic procedures are interrelated and automatically integrated into the computer-aided tool: ? Process configuration, with particular emphasis given to food production (e.g., syrup and flour from sweet potato, starch from sweet potato, breakfast cereal from sweet potato); ? Modeling and analysis for mass and energy tracking and budgeting; ? Mass and energy integration ? Metrics evaluation (e.g., Equivalent System Mass (ESM)). Modeling and analysis is achieved by developing material- and energy-budgeting models. Various forms of mass and energy are tracked through fundamental as well as semiempirical models. Various system alternatives are synthesized and screened using ESM and other metrics. The results of mass, energy and ESM analyses collectively revealed the major consumers of time, equivalent mass, and energy, namely evaporation, condensation, dehydration, drying and extrusion. The targeted processes were subsequently targeted for modifications. In conclusion, this work provides a systematic methodology for transforming non-conventional problems into traditional engineering design problems, a significant contribution to ALS studies.Item Understanding Teachers' Experiences Implementing Project-Based Learning(2014-07-11) Powers, Scott KennethProject-based learning (PBL) is a constructivist approach to instruction in which students are challenged to address a problem without sufficient knowledge at the outset to solve the problem. PBL models generally include a driving question, focus on real-world issues, require student inquiry and collaboration, allow for student choice, and result in the completion of a product. PBL could be considered a disruptive innovation within public education in the sense that it does not accord with existing social systems?beliefs, values, and shared commitments?that exist in most schools and it provides learners opportunities they do not otherwise have access to in school. The purpose of this record of study was to document how a group of teachers implemented a PBL instructional initiative, identify the extent to which teachers? beliefs aligned with their practices, and learn how the organization?s social systems impacted the implementation. This record of study employed a case study approach that focused on four junior high school teachers who implemented a PBL instructional model in their classrooms. Data analysis found that the most frequently used practices were: students working in a planned cooperative structure; teachers interacting with small groups of students; students in small groups discussing facts, ideas, and solutions; and students using the Web for research. Second, teachers indicated that they believed their practices aligned with constructivist principles overall while observations indicated teachers? practices reflected low-intermediate agreement with constructivist principles. Finally, the data analysis revealed teachers considered the principal a central figure for driving the implementation of PBL, making power and authority the feature systemic motivation for implementation. The analysis also found that teachers found the school?s student-centered instructional mission to be an important influence, although it was mediated by their beliefs regarding the students? participation in the PBL environment.